How to defend against link cloaking
-
Hi,
I own a website where recently a lot of backlinks have been going to my old domain that 301's to my new domain. During the past 2 months I have noticed a massive amount of links pointing to my old domain. When I go to look at the links and go to the page all I see is a search bar which to me this seems like link cloaking. I am not sure what I should do. Obviously I am not doing the link building and someone is targeting anchor specific keywords from multiple domains that all look the same. My question is should I report it myself in google webmaster tools before I get hit with a filter or penalty, or would this force them to penalize me. And if I do get caught up in a penalty I would not know how to fix this since I doubt the webmaster is linking to me out of the kindness of his heart. Any advice?
Thanks
-
From personal experience and from advice I've had before, you can expect google to be lenient. From what I understand, they will discredit the links, but make sure that it won't harm your site in any future updates, just make sure that you're not partaking in any suspicious activity elsewhere though. I did personally have this happen on a few separate occasions; first time round I didn't react and let it be. Then google did an update and gave me a warning on unnatural links. Got it sorted by demonstrating to Google that the links weren't our doing and demonstrated that we had tried to communicate with the site owner (found their details through Whois). Google then replied saying they had reconsidered my request and rankings went back up. The second time it happend I went straight to google with a resubmission request and explained the situation, they again came back and said they had recorded my input and no impact to site. So definately recommend going straight to them to let them know the situation Sean
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
-
Link in my blog to external pages - no follow?
Hi everyone. I'm quite new to SEO (started 6 months ago, but I'm very lucky to work the company that is willing to pay while I'm learning). I also create some content for the website - I write wood flooring industry blog. Following some advise from few SEO experts around the world whom I follow I have decided to write 1-2 off topic blogs/month but I have found the way of writing off topic but in reality bringing together wood flooring industry and let's say fashion industry. My question is - if I want to link to one or two pages (let's say bug fashion brands) shall I use no-follow link? I do not want to harm my website or theirs. Can those type of posts be the part of building my position within my industry and in general, building authority of my website? Of course appart from getting links TO my website. Tom
Technical SEO | | ESB0 -
How to Break Up a Page with Too Many Links
My client has a live page with 100+ links subdivided into 10 categories that each have great potential keyword targeting opportunities. I'd like to improve this page and my intuition is to split it into 11 pages, one page with links to all the others and a bit of content about each. Here's an example of the potential IA: Dog Rescue Groups
Technical SEO | | elenarox
Golden Retriever Rescue - description
Poodle Rescue - description
Cocker Spaniel Rescue - description
Poodle Rescue - description
Labrador Retriever Rescue - description
etc. --------- Golden Retriever Rescue
Link 1 - description
Link 2 - description
Link 3 - description Is this a good idea and will I see a big traffic drop overall at first? Also, these are all internal links, not external.0 -
Webmaster Tools Links To Your Site
I logged onto webmaster tools today for my site and the section 'Links to Your Site' is showing no data. Also if I search using link:babskibaby.com it only shows 1 link. My site had been showing 500+ links previously. Does anyone know why this is?
Technical SEO | | babski0 -
What is link Schemes?
Hello Friends, Today I am reading about link schemes on http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66356 there are a several ways how to avoid Google penalties and also talk about the low quality links. But I can't understand about "Low-quality directory or bookmark site links" Is there he talked about low page rank, Alexa or something else?
Technical SEO | | KLLC0 -
80 inbound links from sepperro.com
Hello We have a link back to our site www.fenwaymedia.co.uk from the sepperro.com domain in the site's footers and Google Webmaster Tools reports 80 links coming back from the site. I've thought about making the footer link nofollow and including a single dofollow link back to www.fenwaymedia.co.uk in the sepperro.com homepage. Is this a good solution, if it isn't, what is the best course of action to take to defend against possible penalties caused by all those inbound links from a single domain? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | fenwaymedia0 -
Do links hold there value after 12 months?
Hello, We need to find out if links that we setup, which are older than 12 months hold any value? Do new links hold more value than old ones and therefore should we let the old links become inactive? If we do let the links become inactive after 12month will that effect the PA/DA of the site?
Technical SEO | | Entrusteddev0 -
Does CSS position effect the value of a link?
For example, take a look at http://www.dueds.com and scroll all the way to the bottom of the page. See the link in the bottom left? Does the fact that it is pushed all the way down to the bottom make the link worth less than if it was directly under the social media buttons?
Technical SEO | | adriandg0 -
Internal linking to subdomains
Hi *, I have a main site called example.org, and a lot of user generated pages to foo.example.org / bar.example.org and so on. Most of those pages link back to example.org. In example.org I have a page that links to all subdomains. How can I optimize the pagerank of the list page? Should I add nofollow to subdomain sites to avoid passing link juice to those sites and keep normal linking from subdomain sites?
Technical SEO | | ngw0