524 links from a site unknown to me - contact then disavow?
-
Hi there,
Google Webmaster Tools 'Who links the most' informs me there are 534 links from a site called econintersect.com linking to my site and 102 links from similar pages.com.
I have never requested these links and am keen to know if they are harming my site due to poor link quality?
Simon
-
Really really helpful thanks
-
That's really really helpful thanks.
-
I'm not going to lie, the /jobs/surrey/dorking page made me giggle.
You know, it might not be the links you gained, but the links you lost. Somewhere between February and July, it appears the site lost an RSS feed link from The Guardian. Which would probably account for the /blog problem. There was also a pretty good .edu link that disappeared.
With a smaller portfolio of links, if you lose a couple of good links - you'll feel it. It also looks like there may have been a little 'guest blogging' going on. It's not uncommon for the host blog to take the content and pull the link when you're not looking. Who knows, maybe they did the site a favor?
I've been reasonably assured that the UK and US versions are comparable, and Panda updated a couple of times in May. So, the more likely culprit may be the user profiles on the site. It might be a good idea to cull anything that hasn't been used in a while.
I could see where the site might look thin in places. Perhaps you could partner with some kind of video transcription service? That seems like a logical step.
-
I figured I would add a general link suggestion before I respond.
- Before you do anything, measure twice cut once.
- Plug your domain into the Open Site Explorer and see if you can find the same links that GWMT is showing.
- Head over to Majestic and verify ownership of your website and make sure you can find these links.
After those are done, if the links are indeed there, start asking yourself these questions:
- Does the potential referral benefit your website at all?
- Is the content pertinent to your website?
- Does the website make YOU uncomfortable? (My personal theory is that if it makes you uncomfortable it's going to make Google uncomfortable. That doesn't include ethics/morals etc, I am strictly referring to the website itself.)
- Check the link itself and find which page on the other website its coming from. Are the links in various comments, pictures, some block text? How are the links themselves being displayed?
At the end of the day, it's going to be your decision of how to proceed with this. After looking a bit more thoroughly and after my 2nd cup of coffee I agree with Travis wholeheartedly. With the general trend of Panda, I personally assume it's just a matter of time before those links are worthless if they aren't already. Who knows what these guys are up to, it looks to me like a project that started well and was sorta taken over by the sea of the internet!
Hope this helps!
-
Thanks, checked GWMT and all links are linking to my home page.
-
Sure thanks for looking into: www.videorecruit.com
The site was performing well organically but nose dived on May 20th and I'm struggling to get it back up.
It's the blog that was hit hardest: www.videorecruit.com/blog
-
I looked at the site. It appears to be primarily 'curated content' with citations. But this be physics. You can't hit the wall without the wall hitting back.
There are quite a few ads as well. cough scraper cough
Though I agree he should definitely wait a moment before disavowing. It's just that the site does appear to be pretty low quality. It does seem like Panda bait. But apparently content gets curated/scraped all the time.
So it really depends upon the target site.
-
Simon,
I just wanted to jump in really quick and add my 2 cents. First off, being that this is the internet a lot of times you are going to get links from sources that you don't know, or didn't ask for. In fact, it actually violates Googles TOS to write content and send it to someone for the sole purpose of getting links. In a perfect world Google world, you would be writing content/making a website for yourself/Business, and yourself/business only. You would become an expert in your field that would attract customers, referrals, etc on its on and your website would grow from there. You would gain all of these links organically. Of course that doesn't always happen, and that's why we advertise etc.
As to your original question; are these links "hurting you". This is much more in depth question that will be hard to evaluate on a forum. I say that simply because I have run into a similar problem asking questions like this on forums. Of course everybody want's to help, and motives are good, but when you start talking about removing "500+" links from a website, the potential impact is rather large, the impact could be quite small as well.
In GWMT you can see which pages are being linked by the various websites. Go to the websites and try and find how your website is actually being linked Is it in the comments? Is it in articles? Does it look like spam? Do some research on the website in question, see if it has good stats.
The backlink profile doesn't look terrible, at first glance. There appear to be some solid websites linking to it. I would have to see how that specific website links to your website.
All I'm saying, before you take any direct advice from any of us on a forum, make sure you feel confident in what it is that you are going to do. It never hurts to get a second opinion and consult with someone else who can look deeply into your backlink profile!
Hope that helps a little.
-
I would be happy to lend an opinion. Would you supply the name of the domain(s) you 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
-
Malicious Link
Hello all, We're doing an adwords campaign, and Google has said that there is a malicious link on the website we're looking to advertise - so cannot launch the campaign. I've tried to go through Search Console (I am a novice BTW). And it says that "Domain properties are not supported at this time". Which I don't understand. Any advice please?!
Technical SEO | | PartisanMCR0 -
Outbound Links
I have a page on upstrap-pro.com that provides weights of cameras and lenses. The user/buyer of my on-slip camera straps needs to know the weight his camera and lens to determine the proper pad size... large to small. We have put together a long list of the most popular customer cameras. The way it was done (by my daughter) was to also provide a via a link to dpreview.com which is an excellent site for camera information including specifications etc. My personal feeling about this is mixed. I can do it by having it open dpreview.com in a new tab but then the user/customer could still get distracted and go down the rabbit hole. On the other hand dpreview is such a good site that if they are new to photography and don't know about it, they should. I don't get a dime from dpreview. If fact I doubt they would ever link back to me because they do not write about camera straps. I hear mixed things about outbound links. In this file there are quite a few outbound links to dpreview to keep it consistent. I could do a nofollow on all of them but I read that this is the easy way out. Google is jump ball and I have no clue what Cutts and his merry men are going to decide is cool or not cool. I'd like some thoughts or options... Thanks... A small part of the file below. Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM Wideangle prime lens Canon EF 22.8 oz 645 g Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L USM
Technical SEO | | Asteg0 -
How to remove all sandbox test site link indexed by google?
When develop site, I have a test domain is sandbox.abc.com, this site contents are same as abc.com. But, now I search site:sandbox.abc.com and aware of content duplicate with main site abc.com My question is how to remove all this link from goolge. p/s: I have just add robots.txt to sandbox and disallow all pages. Thanks,
Technical SEO | | JohnHuynh0 -
Open Site Explorer - Link Data still not available
Hi, I still cant get access to any data for the URL www.attraction-tickets-direct.co.uk/walt-disney-world-orlando-tickets We changed this URL over two month ago and your site explains that it takes up to this amount of time to start getting data. This is really annoying as we would like this information for us to do a competitor anaylsis. Any idea when we should start recieving this? thanks
Technical SEO | | SEOConrad0 -
Too Many On-Page Links
Hello. My Seomoz report this week tells me that I have about 500 pages with Too Many On-Page Links One of the examples is this one: https://www.theprinterdepo.com/hp-9000mfp-refurbished-printer (104 links) If you check, all our products have a RELATED products section and in some of them the related products can be UP to 40 Products. I wonder how can I solve this. I thought that putting nofollow on the links of the related products might fix all of these warnings? Putting NOFOLLOW does not affect SEO?
Technical SEO | | levalencia10 -
How do I get rid of irrelevant back links pointing to missing pages on my site
Hi all, My site was hacked about a year ago and as a result I now have a ton of back links from irrelevant sites pointing to pages on my site that no longer exist. The followed back links section on the Competitive domain analysis tool shows about 3 pages worth of these horrible links. I have 2 questions: how bad is this for my site's SEO (which isn't good anyway, Page Rank 0) and how do I get rid of them? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks, Andy WkXz0
Technical SEO | | getzen560 -
I have a site that has both http:// and https:// versions indexed, e.g. https://www.homepage.com/ and http://www.homepage.com/. How do I de-index the https// versions without losing the link juice that is going to the https://homepage.com/ pages?
I can't 301 https// to http:// since there are some form pages that need to be https:// The site has 20,000 + pages so individually 301ing each page would be a nightmare. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | fthead90 -
Optimize flash site
Hello, How can we optimize a site like this - http://www.ziba.com.au/ . The whole site is in flash. What are the alternatives ?
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050