Is It Possible to Be Punished By Google For Getting Too Many Links?
-
Hello,
My team and I have been trying to get high-quality back-links by seeking other sites and blogs. We were ranking really well and then all of a sudden, our rankings dropped dramatically.
We were only using backlinks and good ones at that, yet, our rankings have dropped. Is it possible for google to punish us for getting too many too fast? If not, what could be some of the other problems?
-
Yes, some time google gives plenty to your site when you made harm backlinks. Learn more here about it.
-
Thank you all for your responses.
Over the course of the last few weeks, my site has continued to further be slipping in rankings locally.
My question is, where do I start to detect the issue and regain my previous rankings?
-
We're in the middle of Google's May 2020 Core Update that still takes a few days to finish rolling out. Many pages have lost a percentage of overall traffic, there's a very high chance your drop might not be link related.
Here's a few theories based on initial research + feedback from other SEOs on the update:
- Google seems to prefer bigger brands
- Freshness seems to be more important
- Check your site's usability / design / loading speed / accessibility
Links are important but there's a huge amount of other things that can affect your rankings.
-
Hi Everyone,
So I've done some investigating on search console and we don't have any manual actions against us but my search traffic is down by 33% from last week. That said, could we have been punished by google from an algorithm update?
I'd love someone's expertise to discern why we've dropped dramatically when we get high-quality backlinks and have a very low spam score and our domain authority is much higher than our competitors. Thank you.
-
Too many, as in:
- Relation to site age
- Relation to others in your industry
- Relation incremental velocity
- Relation to the quality of links
Google's seen at least 10s of thousands of websites in your industry and is aware of every site that has ever linked to other sites in your industry. It knows how fast those others have acquired links, at what age they've acquired links, how quickly they've developed links, when and why spikes in link acquisition have occurred, and what percentage of links tend to be low quality.
Think of a link as a hand shake between you and a businessperson in an industry complimentary to yours that you had a good conversation with over lunch at an industry conference. If the relationship between you and the linking site isn't at least as close as that, it's possible it may be counterproductive.
-
There's no established figure that would mean TOO MUCH, I'd aim for matching what could be natural based on the social signals Google might pick up about your site, and at what competitors of a similar size are getting in terms of backlinks.
-
Got it.
So how long does google punish you?
Should I stop getting backlinks or just slow down the rate that I'm doing it?
Will my ranking eventually go back up?
-
"Is it possible for google to punish us for getting too many too fast?"
Absolutely. Maybe you didn't read the sentence after the one you read that told you getting links to your site is good. That following sentence said.. "If you are not familiar with how google's algorithm values links, do not engage in link building and do not purchase links because there is a good chance that all of a sudden your rankings could drop dramatically at some point in the future.
Did you miss that sentence?
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
-
Unnatural link Manual Penalty by Google
Hi, Our product Quiz Maker help users to create quizzes and can share, embed etc. We have a link in our embed code which was DoFollow and we've got many doFollow links from the websites on which our quizzes got shared but these links are too old like 2009, 2012 etc. After that, to complying with Google policies, we've changed the dofollow link to nofollow in embed code. Here are two scenarios: 1.) We've too many dofollow links which are too old and we don't have control over it as these are the natural links, given by our users before we changed the embed code link. 2.) Now, we are getting nofollow links from the widget as the embed code consists of nofollow link. Our embed code is editable and user can change it to dofollow or nofollow as per their requirement. Moreover, some people shared quizzes on their website (without using embed code) with dofollow link. But, now, google is taking manual action penalty against us. How we can resolve it as it seriously affects the overall performance of our website. Thanks
Link Building | | SameerBhatia2 -
How many links and mentioned shall I collect for a new website per month?
My wife made a new web site and now we are trying to promote it. But I wonder if there is any risk by having too many links and mentions in the beginning (for a brand new site). How many links and mentions should I collect per month at the moment? Or shall I concentrate on something else?
Link Building | | MichaelJanik0 -
What to do when you get an oh so sweet but temporary link?
Hello! We recently received a great link from a local university. My colleague did a few presentations at the university, so they were nice enough to turn a mention of our company name on their academics page into a link when we asked. The problem is that we've been told that the mention/link will disappear after about a month. So, my questions: Can we do anything to further exploit that link in the short time we have? My colleague brought up doing some kind of funky link pyramid thing where we create links to that page, which would possibly give us even more link juice. I know nothing about this sort of thing. Is it recommended/not recommended? Is there anything we could possibly do to preserve the link in Google's index and have it still count in our favor after it's taken down? Maybe some kind of crazy iframe magic trick? Thanks!!
Link Building | | BBEXNinja0 -
Can internal links cause Google to penalize me for key terms/phrases?
For example, having a link on many pages (so dozens of links in total) using a product name, all pointing to that product page. Could Google see that as "spammy" and penalize that product page in the SERP's? Note: My product page has been penalized for the search term "Product Name" and there are no external links pointing that page using the product name as a term. This is new with the latest Panda Updates.
Link Building | | absoauto0 -
Why Links from Top Level Domains doesn't Pass Link Equity?
Hello, I have a doubt about Equity-Passing links report of OpensiteExplorer.org According to Sam Weber http://moz.com/community/users/432678 links which pass value from one page to another including followed 301 and Meta refresh links are under Equity-Passing links. I am surprising after looking at the links report generated by opensiteexplorer.org. Most of the article and directory links which have low DA and PA are under Equity-Passing links. Whereas websites like EzineArticle or Articlebase which have good DA and PA are not found in either Equity-passing links or under only nofollow category. Please suggest me if the report of Opensiteexplorer is not good enough or the links from the site like Ezine Article doesn’t pass the link equity. Thanks.
Link Building | | TopLeagueTechnologies0 -
Does Google Groups and Google Community links count?
Hello Everyone. I noticed when I added a few links from Google Groups and Google Communities. It has a do follow? Does that mean it help your SERPS? Thanks for you help?
Link Building | | EVERWORLD.ENTERTAIMENT0 -
How Would Google Approach Devaluing Infographic Links?
How do you think Google would go about devaluing infographic links? Suppose the infographic image itself is not hyperlinked to the creator's site but there is a paragraph that mentions the creator and links to their site. How would Google distinguish the infographic creator's link from other external links on the page?
Link Building | | ProjectLabs0 -
Do you get linkjuice from a dofollow redirect (Like Yahoo! Article links)?
I've recently hired a company that publishes my press releases for me. One of them is on Yahoo! Finance. When I went to the Yahoo article, my keyword link was dofollow, but had a very long Yahoo redirect link instead of just a direct link to my page. Am I still getting link juice out of this Yahoo redirect?
Link Building | | Shawn1240