Low value link building to sitemap.xml
-
During some competitive research recently I discovered one of my clients competitors sites had an interesting backlink profile.
Looking at the top-pages report in Open Site Explorer the home page was the #1 page (as you'd expect) with 2.5k links from about 500 linking root domains
The second page was the sitemap.xml (~1.5k links, 400 linking root domains) and the third was their /feed page (again, ~1.5k links, 350 linking root domains).
Links to these two pages aren't something that would happen naturally (particularly the sitemap.xml).
There's a whole load of evidence for nasty low quality link building such as over-optimised keyword rich anchor text, comment spam, and even some blog/article based link networks.
It's a pretty nasty niche with lots of cut-throat affiliate marketing.
My guess here is that someone may have made a mistake using an automated link building too, but I'd be interested in what you might think? Have you seen this before?
(Sorry, I can't reveal the domains in question as I'm bound by an NDA.)
-
Thanks Matt, Andy,
Looking at how they've had automated link building done to every page on their domain it does look like it's automated link building gone wrong.
You don't normally see so many boring product pages getting as many links as they have!
It wouldn't surprise me if were trying to supply the sitemap.xml or rss feed as a list of target URLs to build links to and ended up building links directly to these.
-
Hi Doug,
I have never seen this done before and as both you and Andy say I can't imagine that it has been done on purpose - more automated link building.
-
Hey Doug,
Never seen that myself before and can only imagine it is either a mistake, or someone has been misinformed that there is some benefit to this.
Like you said, these aren't links that would appear naturally, so something odd has certainly happened.
-Andy
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
-
Spent months creating links but Webmasters not picking it up
Hey Guys, I've been working on Blast My Deals.com an affiliate site which i have an issue hoping you guys can help with. For the past year and a half we created loads of links from multiple domains at-least over 700+ which Webmasters did pick up since then we've created even more links however when we go in to our Search Console "Links to your site" it shows 214 domains. It seems like our old links are being removed and our new links aren't being added. All the links we created have an average of DA40+ For the past 2 weeks ive noticed a significant drop in organic traffic and loosing our positions on our main keywords. Our DA has also dropped from 33 to 29 in a matter of 2 weeks. I checked everything including robots.txt, sitemap.xml but Im unable to find the reason for it.
Affiliate Marketing | | kazirahman0 -
NoFollow Affiliate links from (very) shady websites will effect rankings?
Should I be worried , and if so what to do, if affiliates are linking from shady / gaming/adult websites? or dost the fact that the links are nofollow solve this issue completely ?
Affiliate Marketing | | KSafer0 -
Tweeting affiliate links...?
I work in the music business & am published music producer. I'm an authority in my niche. Yada yada. I have a website that sells products to other music producers. I recently set up an affiliate partnership with someone who is also in the music business but on the management side. She is not an authority to my customers as far as music making goes. But she does have a huge following of people who are EXACTLY who I am targeting. She has been tweeting my affiliate links. The traffic has been great, but the purchase response has not been. I've had much better responses from reviewers and other music producers who have tweeted my links. I was just wondering if anyone had any tips for the most effective ways of tweeting affiliate links? Thanks!
Affiliate Marketing | | PedroAndJobu0 -
What is the best way to boost no. of quality sites linking in?
Analysing my site ranking compared to competitors, I see that our weakness is getting others to share our content and link into it via their own blogs and social media - although I would say our social media activity is pretty good. We have also worked on getting listed free on relevant sites related to our product area (learn spanish in spain) in order to increase sites linking but this is still minute compared to our 2 main competitors. (As a note: paid listings are not totally justifiable for us at this point in time but perhaps in the future we will expand on this). Am I missing something here?
Affiliate Marketing | | sparkit0 -
Sponsored Links on Amazon, help
So from what I can see CLickrive was discontinued by Amazon, replaced by a9. I have been asked by a client how they can get onto Sponsored Links near the bottom of a search query on an amazon page. Now I can see from the amazon associates site that you can put widgets, display ads, product search links etc but there is no mention of 'Sponsored Links' other than: SPONSORED LINKS Sponsored links are advertisements related to your recent product search query or content on the page. Sponsored links are always clearly labeled. When you click on a sponsored link, we get revenue. Generating additional revenue from sponsored links allows Amazon.com to offer lower prices to you - something we are dedicated to doing in every way we can. There is no mention on how to actually be a sponsored link... I have read on various blogs etc that it is delivered by a third party network... no mention as to whom... thought Google but no mention of this on any information I can find on Google blogs etc. Anyone have an idea? Thank you 🙂
Affiliate Marketing | | ChalkWard0 -
How many affiliate links is considered too many?
Hi, Let's say you have great reviews for 50 products and some of these products do have affiliate links on review pages. And then you have user scores and you come up with a top 20 product list sorted by user scores. Now if you have the list of top 20 products on one page and all these products have an affiliate link (with nofollow relation and a 301 redirect) on the same page with only a couple of images and a summary of the review linked to the review pages, would this still be considered as what Google calls a "bridge page"? Would it be better to still generate the top 20 list but rather link to review pages only? (to avoid too many affiliate links on one single page).
Affiliate Marketing | | Gamer070 -
Does an affiliate link bring the same SEO juice as a standard link?
I wonder if affiliate links, like the ones offered by Amazon Associates program bring the same SEO as would a link to the same page without this additional "ref=..."?
Affiliate Marketing | | maciek-0 -
Outbound Affiliate Links - Positive or Negative Effect
Hello I would like to increase the value of my value proposition to users by adding complimentor affiliate links and embedded widgets like postcode search to my promote my affiliate's service. I already have a great ranking.... Am I jeopardizing my position by putting outbound links to affiliate sites? Also would a nofollow tag on an affiliate link work? I understand Google is fast changing - so what is the latest advice on this for Spring 2011? Thanks a lot
Affiliate Marketing | | philipjterry0