Google webmaster reports non-existent links between syndicated sites
-
We have run into an issue with linking that we are completely puzzled by. We syndicate our content to various clients, taking care to ensure that we have followed all the best practices that Google recommends for syndicating content. But recently, we noticed Google Webmaster report links from ClientA to ClientB, and we cannot figure out why it thinks that way. We have never created, and we have never found the links that Google Webmaster claims are there.
It is important for us to keep our clients isolated. Has anyone seen such behavior? Any ideas/pointers/hunches would be very much appreciated. Happy to provide more information.
We even asked on the Google Webmaster Forum (https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/QkGF7-HZHTY;context-place=forum/webmasters), but thought this might be a better place to get expert advice.
Thanks!
-
It looks like the pages that you're referencing in the Webmaster Forums post do have some indexed duplicate content on them. It may be that Google is trying to figure out which version of the page is the canonical version, and then reporting all the duplicates as links back to the page that they deem the "original" page. I don't know why they would report this as a "link" when it clearly isn't a link in the traditional sense, but link reports in Search Console often contain some weird stuff that isn't really links.
What's clear is that Google understands that these pages are related, which makes sense since it's the same content, on pages with very similar design - the two subdomains are even using the same Google Analytics account. My assumption would be that the "links" are a byproduct of Google trying to figure out which of these pages are the duplicates and which should be treated as the original.
It may be that this is nothing to worry about - if you're happy with the pages' performance, I doubt you will see these "links" coming through anywhere besides Google Search Console. If you do want to keep the client sites more separate, I would recommend separating them out into their own Google Analytics accounts at the very least.
-
Only with Google WMT
-
Are you seeing this with any other link discovery tools, like AHREFs, Majestic, or Open Site Explorer? Or only in Google WMT?
-
It happens with a few of the client sites. Google Webmasters thinks most of the other clients are pointing to these few.
-
Is this something that is happening between just two specific client sites? Or is it more widespread for all of your clients?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google WMT/search console showing thousands of links in "Internal Links"
Hi, One of our blog-post has been interlinked with thousands of internal links as per search console; but lists only 2 links it got connected from. How come so many links it got connected internally? I don't see any. Thanks, Satish
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Google Penalties not in Webmaster tools?
Hi everybody, I have a client that used to rank very well in 2014. They launched an updated URL structure early January 2015, and since they rank very low on most of the keywords (except the brand keywords). I started working with them early this year, tried to understand what happened, but they have no access to their old website and I cant really compare. I tried the started optimisation methods but nothing seems to work. I have a feeling they have been penalised by Google, probably a Panda penalty, but their Webmaster tools account does not show any penalties under manual actions. Do people impose penalties that are not added to Webmaster tools? If so, is there away I can find out what penalties and what is wrong exactly so we can start fixing it? The website is for a recruitment agency and they have around 400 jobs listed on it. I would love to share the link to the website but I don't believe the client will be happy with that. Thank you in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iQi0 -
Should I have app deep links from by m.example.com site?
Hello Mozzers I had one small question to ask regarding app deep linking. I noticed websites ike http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ & http://www.trulia.com/ only include app deep links within desktop (www) versions of their websites but not include them on their mobile (m.) versions. Is this the best way to implement app deep links? Shouldn't websites include app deep links from both mobile and desktop versions of their website. Any help or tips will be highly appreciated. Thank you mozzers in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Vsood2 -
Why Is Google Webmaster Tools Pulling Zero Keyword Data?
I just linked a Google Webmaster Tools account to Google Analytics for a client, and Search Engine Optimization reports are showing up in Google Analytics as enabled, but there is zero keyword data, landing page data, etc., in the reports themselves. Has anyone encountered this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yoursearchteam0 -
Google Manual Penalties:Different Types of Unnatural Link Penalties?
Hello Guys, I have a few questions regarding google manual penalties for unnatural link building. They are "partial site" penalties, not site wide. I have two sites to discuss. 1. this site used black hat tactics and bought 1000's of unnatural backlinks. This site doesn't rank for the main focus keywords and traffic has dropped. 2. this site has the same penalty, but has been all white hat, never bought any links or hired any seo company. It's all organic. This sites organic traffic doesn't seem to have taken any hit or been affected by any google updates. Based on the research we've done, Matt Cutts has stated that sometimes they know the links are organic so they don't penalize a website, but they still show us a penalty in the WMT. "Google doesn't want to put any trust in links that are artificial or unnatural. However, because we realize that some links may be outside of your control, we are not taking action on your site's overall ranking. Instead, we have applied a targeted action to the unnatural links pointing to your site." "If you don't control the links pointing to your site, no action is required on your part. From Google's perspective, the links already won't count in ranking. However, if possible, you may wish to remove any artificial links to your site and, if you're able to get the artificial links removed, submit areconsideration request. If we determine that the links to your site are no longer in violation of our guidelines, we’ll revoke the manual action." Check that info above at this link: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2604772?ctx=MAC Recap: Does anyone have any experience like with site #2? We are worried that this site has this penalty but we don't know if google is stopping us from ranking or not, so we aren't sure what to do here. Since we know 100% the links are organic, do we need to remove them and submit a reconsideration request? Is it possible that this penalty can expire on its own? Are they just telling us we have an issue but not hurting our site b/c they know it's organic?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
How to remove an entire site from Google?
Hi people, I have a site with around 2.000 urls indexed in google, and 10 subdomains indexed too, which I want to remove entirely, to set up a new web. Which is the best way to do it? Regards!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SeoExpertos0 -
So what exactly does Google consider a "natural" link profile?
As part of my company's ongoing SEO effort we have been analyzing our link profile. A colleague of mine feels that we should be targeting at least 50% branded anchor text. He claims this is what search engines consider "natural" and we should not go past a threshold of 50% optimized anchor text to make sure we avoid any penalties or decrease in rankings. 50% brand term anchor text seems too high to me. I pointed out that most of our competitors who outrank us have a much greater percentage of optimized links. I've also read other industry experts state that somewhere in the range of 30% branded anchor text would be considered natural. What percent of branded vs. optimized anchor text do you feel looks "natural" and what do you base your opinion on?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DeannaTallman0 -
Dual Authority – Dual Inline Site Links
Ok, I have a quick question about these, i keep seeing them. There has been talk of Google showing dual inline sitelinks (the extra links it shows under the number 1 results). It used to show 8 links under many number 1 results. It was reported it was showing 2. Now it’s showing 3 …for example, for comparestore prices, compare the market and pricerunner (for a search on compare). How do I get these, or go about getting started with being able to attain them?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TomBarker820