Google sending warnings about Artificial or Unnatural links in Google Webmaster Central
-
Has anyone seen warnings about Artificial or Unnatural links notice show up in their Google Webmaster central yet? I just looked at each of our clients and had not but after reading the Search Engine Land article at http://searchengineland.com/google-warning-more-about-bad-link-networks-117079 I was wondering what your thoughts were regarding this topic?
We are not purchasing links for our clients sites but definitely going out their and building links. Article concerned me that I may run into issues for my link building clients. Thoughts?
-
Similar story here, got lots of sites, got warning ion 2 I least expected, was using some article blogs a while back, but only as part of a wider link profile. No penalty from warning, am hoping it's just a wake up call. Wish things were clearer, google needs to be more transparent.Fixing anything they don't like is also ridiculously difficult.
-
I have access to dozens of legitimate websites and knowledge of their SEO. One of the sites received the notice from Goggle, but had no rankings drop. Another site had sudden rankings drop for permutations of a keyword (went from averaging position 8 to averaging position 23).
I looked into what made these sites / keywords unique.
We did not knowingly use any blog networks. (and if we had links from them, it would have been low quantity)
We had many anchor text links. The quantity was similar or less than other website which received no penalties or warnings.
The website that received the warning did have some pure spam PR backlinks, but they were removed 7 months ago.
What seemed to make the website which received the warning unique was the high percentage of anchor text links to natural social and forum links. The website had less than 1,000 links total. Other websites with 2,000 to 10,000 links (and a similar to slightly larger quantity of anchor text links) received no warning,
What seemed unique about the site that received a drop for one set of keywords was that the site was having ranking problems with that keyword and a push was made to make more inbound links with that keyword. (we talking 10's of links, not hundreds or thousands.)
These sites have competition with 10,000 to 50,000 inbound links I would call "unnatural" we haven't seen those website dropping in rank.
It seems to me that google was very upfront when they state "over optimization". It is relational to your total link profile.
-
I have access to dozens of legitimate websites and knowledge of their SEO. One of the sites received the notice from Goggle, but had no rankings drop. Another site had sudden rankings drop for permutations of a keyword (went from averaging position 8 to averaging position 23).
I looked into what made these sites / keywords unique.
We did not knowingly use any blog networks. (and if we had links from them, it would have been low quantity)
We had many anchor text links. The quantity was similar or less than other website which received no penalties or warnings.
The website that received the warning did have some pure spam PR backlinks, but they were removed 7 months ago.
What seemed to make the website which received the warning unique was the high percentage of anchor text links to natural social and forum links. The website had less than 1,000 links total. Other websites with 2,000 to 10,000 links (and a similar to slightly larger quantity of anchor text links) received no warning,
What seemed unique about the site that received a drop for one set of keywords was that the site was having ranking problems with that keyword and a push was made to make more inbound links with that keyword. (we talking 10's of links, not hundreds or thousands.)
These sites have competition with 10,000 to 50,000 inbound links I would call "unnatural" we haven't seen those website dropping in rank.
It seems to me that google was very upfront when they state "over optimization". It is relational to your total link profile.
-
I had three show up for one of our test sites. All came on 3/29. All said the same thing.
Funny thing is, while it said that we had to request re-inclusion into the index, the site remains well ranked on other terms.
This makes us think that the infractions are for getting exact match anchor text links (they were the ones that got the messages). Compared to the other organic links we earned (variations of the anchor text in the links).
So, this latest wave of penalties applies to keywords, not the site, which is a step in the right direction.
We are already anticipating what the next penalized type of link will be, and we are already actively testing.
-
Having artificial or unnatural links isn't strictly limited to purchasing links. Are you doing anything else that might not be considered above board by Google? I'd start there and examine your clients' backlink profiles and make adjustments if needed.
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
-
Internal Linking
OSE only shows me as having 24 internal links on my home page. My internal links and total links are far less than my competitors, some of whom have 1700 on a single page. My site is www.CenterCityTeam.com and an example of a competitor with far more internal links is www.McCannTeam.com. 1) How do I get that many internal links on a page and 2) do I even want to?
Link Building | | frankdefazio0 -
Wierd link
We have recently receive linek from one website. The site is quite very powerful for the word we try to rank, however the link is kind of wired. This is how it looks like: http://villasdiani.com/?db The webmaster of the site said that he ads (?db) on the end so as we would see on our analytics the traffic from his site.. Also the link is from footer...is this good or it does not have value
Link Building | | VillasDiani0 -
Reciprocal links
Are they worth anything, if they are from relevant sites? I'm I better off avoiding linking back wherever possible?
Link Building | | littlesthobo0 -
Did Google Panda and Penguins have any effect on Outbound Links?
I am just a beginner in SEO. But has any of the changes recently implemented by google affected out bound links? Meaning if a website now has a good number of outbound links to strong websites and pages could that Translate to better rankings?
Link Building | | sherohass0 -
Text Link vs image link?
Which passes most link juice a text link or an image with the correct 'alt' attribute? Do the pass the same amount or is one more valuable than the other?
Link Building | | SamCUK0 -
Google notice of unnatural links - no penalty
my site just received this warning on 3/18. I haven't seen any rankings drop or anything... i don't know why i got this as i really don't build links in a frowned upon way. Anyone know if you get penalized for this, and if so, how long after you get the message does the penalty kick in, and what is the penalty.... Also, if i gave you guys my domain name do you think you'd be able to tell which links would cause this message? thanks
Link Building | | Prime850 -
Link Location: In main page or inner "Link" page?
My question is what´s best of Link Building: have it in main page or in internal Link Pages. I have the problem that have to reduce the number of outgoing links in my mainpage to rank better, but do not want to miss any linkjuice. How Linking in Main Page or Internal Pages affects SERP for your website? And should they be Follow or not Follow? Thanks in advance Maria Jesus
Link Building | | goperformancelabs0 -
.edu links
Hi mozzers, I've had some great success reaching out to many .edu webmasters. Often they are professors and such. My question is, i'm guessing during the summer holiday period, reaching out to these webmasters won't be so fruitful. I'm not in the US and was wondering when the US Summer holidays are for universities over there? Also, does anyone have experience outreaching to these webmasters over the holidays? Peter
Link Building | | PeterM221