Unnatural Linking Using Webdsite Themes
-
I am working on a website that last year received an email from Google via webmaster tools talking about the linking profile. The email suggested that the website had unnatural activity (links) and that the webmaster needed to investigate before filing for a reconsideration.
After having looked at the link profile using OSE, it was easy to see the problem. Thousands of inbound links with the exact anchor text.
Here is the BIG problem.
The tactics used by the unamed SEO agency prior to me were to embed links in to the footer of web themes? At this stage it is unclear as to where you can downlaod or purchase the web themes but it's obvious that the problem is simply going to escalate.
The domain in question is www.teamtactics.co.uk
Any thoughts on the above would be much appreciated - at this point I am trying to find the place were the themes are available for download.
Any ideas much appreciated.
shivun
-
This is a tough one. I would attack it initially like any other unnatural links project. Contact each of the sites linking to you via the footer code and ask them to remove or nofollow it. Then, document your attempts and communicate your efforts to Google.
But, the problem is that if the free templates are still available for download then you'll get more of these and could get penalized again.
I don't think it would be that hard to find these sites offering the free downloads though. According to ahrefs you've got 850 domains linking to you. If you know the anchor text used in these footers, you can narrow it down even more. Provided the sites hosting the free downloads have a demo version of the site then they'll be on that backlink list. If they don't have a demo version, there still has to be a way to do a Google search for the name of the template to find these hosts.
Then, get them to remove the template. If they don't, file a DMCA takedown request or speak to a lawyer about getting a letter written to get them to remove it.
-
HI William
Unfortunetly the website has links coming inbound from many websites now so its a problem that is only going to grow. In terms of SEO and tactics, this is a really bad strategy that has been conducted by a well known SEO agency who I won't name.
The objective is to find the source of the word press theme. Ive already contacted many of the website owners that are using the theme and are awaiting a call back.
-
Getting backlinks from sponsoring templates/themes is not the right way of doing it. People pay theme creators to include a link to their website. Other people use those themes, so you'll end up with thousands of backlinks with the same anchor text.
A good link is a link from one single page, preferably on the same niche.
What you can do at this point, is to remove all those "sponsored by", "created by" links.
Use Opensiteexplorer to analyze your website and check out who's linking to you using site wide links.
Eg.:
This theme is brought to you by Corporate Team Building Events, Fixed rate bonds rates on: http://vanzandtnews.com/
-
Wow... I'm not sure what the SEO strategy for this is, if there even is one.
If they were all coming from one domain (such as the web theme was being sold for use on their hosted sites), you could edit .htaccess to block links from that domain, but I doubt if that's the case.
As far as I know, the solution to this might be legal. If you can verifiably show that these links are damaging to your client's business, a competent lawyer could probably force them to make a reasonable effort to remove the links (provide an update web theme without the links to anyone who purchased that theme). Might not help, though.
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
-
Link Value
My question is how valuable is getting a link from a PA 71 with roughly 20 links on it. I guess I am saying how many links from a PA of 30 would be a comparable indicator. I understand there is an almost exponential value of authority as they go higher, but I am looking for a good explanation from a technical aspect. Hypothetical Scenario Would a person be better off pursing 20 links from PA25 pages, or would you be better only getting 1 from the PA71 all things equal.
Link Building | | mbarden260 -
How to link build?
Hello all. I've been having intense conversations with an experienced SEO, who has told me that the only way to get consistent links to your website, and to build you business through the web is through blogger outreach, and then paying the bloggers to put your appropriate content on their high Page Ranking website. To me, this may well be right. But it sounds dull as anything. Any thoughts? William
Link Building | | wseabrook0 -
Is providing a paid scholarship to schools and receiving a back link, classed as a paid link scheme?
I've always wondered if it is classed as paid links in Google's eyes?
Link Building | | ResumeGenius0 -
Thoughts on creating a resource/recommend links page in order to attain links?
Hey guys, Just wondering, how does Google view reciprocal link building nowadays? I've heard in the past that it's something that Google isn't particularly keen on. However, more recently, I've also read that - as long as the links are decent (and in moderation) - link exchanging is by no means a bad thing. The reason I ask is that I'm thinking of creating a "resource/recommended links page" for a client of mine. Because of their industry, it's really apparent that attaining links is often only possible if there is the opportunity of a reciprocal link in return. Therefore, I'd need to have a resource/recommend links page of my own. Is this something I should go ahead with to make it much easier to attain links? Or should I try to avoid reciprocal links and attempt to pinpoint one-way linking opportunities - even if they're thin on the ground? Any help much as appreciated as always. Cheers.
Link Building | | Webrevolve0 -
Link building during link removal
We were advised by out outsourced link removal vendor not to build any links while they are removing links pointing to our site. I am worried that our site will lose significant traffic if we dont build any new links while waiting for them to remove links that caused our site to be penalized. What are your thoughts?
Link Building | | WizardOfMoz0 -
Disavow links returning?
Morning Mozzers, Happy Presidents Day. We submitted a disavow file about 4 weeks ago and in GWT saw that our links went from ~20k to about ~1300. Now this was good as majority were dubious at best. What is strange is I logged into GWT today and see many of the links that appeared to be 'disavowed' are back in our profile. I do not have any messages from Goog. Has anyone else seen this? Any thoughts? Thanks in advance for you help.
Link Building | | okuma0 -
About buy broken links...
I found some web adress that are not online anymore.. but when I open these adresses on open site explorer I can see links and page athority for these domains... PA 41 and DA 29 My question is... Can I buy these adress and using their page and rank juice to my website? Because they are avaliable... All these domains are from my country and LTD What can I do...? Thank you
Link Building | | lans27870 -
"gimme links" = easy to fill out profile/personal reputation links that offer a do-follow anchor text flexible link
I'm doing some SEO for small niche service sites...and aside from niche directories and some light article marketing and local search directories (yelp, etc) there really isn't a budget for content generation. I really only have a budget for profile/submission links. What are some sites where you can quite easily fill out a personal profile with an anchor text variable link that may not be THAT juicy but will stick (i.e. not a spam/fake profile type of link, but something like Linkedin). I'll start with giving away 1 www.istockphoto.com Any others that aren't obvious?
Link Building | | ilyaelbert0