Webmaster Tools Manual Actions - Should I Disavow Spammy Links??
-
My website has a manual action against it in webmaster tools stating;
Unnatural links to your site—impacts links
Google has detected a pattern of unnatural artificial, deceptive, or manipulative links pointing to pages on this site. Some links may be outside of the webmaster’s control, so for this incident we are taking targeted action on the unnatural links instead of on the site’s ranking as a whole
I have checked the link profile of my site and there are over 4,000 spammy links from one particular website which I am guessing this manual action refers to. There is no way that I will be able to get these links removed so should I be using Google's Disavow Tool or is there no need? Any ideas would be appreciated!!
-
Hi Rich,
This is a manual action, which means your site has been penalized. You DO need to take action to get this penalty lifted, especially if you have noticed a decrease in traffic/rankings.In general, the Google Webspam team likes to see ample evidence that you did everything in your power to remove links BEFORE using the disavow. If you submit a reconsideration request after skipping this step, your request will likely be rejected.
This process has been well-documented by several webmasters. I highly recommend reading these posts for more background and advice:
-
Technically you don't need to, I don't personally see the harm in doing so however. It's really up to you.
-
Thanks - I see what you are saying but I can't see them removing these links. Would you recommend I use the disavow tool even though Google are saying they are discounting these links???????????
-
Yes, for your part the theory is you don't need to take any action, those links won't affect you
However it's almost a per-warning and there is no harm in attempting to remove the links. You wouldn't need to resubmit though it won't hurt to drop and email and make sure you've taken some action.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2604772?ctx=MAC
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/manual-actions-viewer.html
"If you don't control the links pointing to your site, no action is required on your part. From Google's perspective, the links already won't count in ranking. However, if possible, you may wish to remove any artificial links to your site and, if you're able to get the artificial links removed, submit a reconsideration request. If we determine that the links to your site are no longer in violation of our guidelines, we’ll revoke the manual action."
-
Are you sure on this as Google has stated in the manual action "Some links may be outside of the webmaster’s control, so for this incident we are taking targeted action on the unnatural links instead of on the site’s ranking as a whole".
Doesn't this mean that they have 'disavowed' them already??
-
Google likes to see you try, its a good idea to attempt contact with the website asking them to remove the links, if you don't try don't expect Google to try either, I recommend send an email to them (try postmaster or webmaster @ )
No response then you can use the disavow tool then when you request your site to be reconsidered you have proof that you've tried.
Good luck.
-
Hi,
A pretty simple answer this time: you should use the Google Disavow Tool to do this. As, as you say you won't be able to have the links removed by yourself. And this is your way of telling Google that you want them to ignore these links.
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
-
Broken URL Links
Hi everyone, I have a question regarding broken URL links on my website. Late last year I move my site from an old platform to Shopify, and now have broken URL links giving out 4xx errors. When I look at Moz Pro>Campaigns>Insights>links, I can see the top broken URL links, however there is a difference if copy & paste URL directly from Moz Pro and by Export CSV file. For example below, If I copy and paste links direct from Moz Pro, it has the “http://” in front as below: http://www.thehairhub.com.au/WebRoot/ecshared01/Shops/thehairhub/57F3/1D8F/D244/C675/E27D/AC10/003F/35AD/manic-panic-colours.jpg But when I export the list of links as an CSV file, the http:// is removed. www.thehairhub.com.au/WebRoot/ecshared01/Shops/thehairhub/57F3/1D8F/D244/C675/E27D/AC10/003F/35AD/manic-panic-colours.jpg Another Example below: By copy & paste URL direct from Moz Pro
Technical SEO | | johnwall
http://thehairhub.com.au/Shop-Brands/Vitafive-CPR/CPR-Rescue By export CSV file.
thehairhub.com.au/Shop-Brands/Vitafive-CPR/CPR-Rescue Which one do I use to enter into the “Redirect From” field in Shopify URL Redirects? Do I need to have the http:// in front of the URL? Or is it not required for redirects to work? Kind Regards, John Wall
The Hair Hub0 -
Japanese URL-structured sitemap (pages) not being indexed by Bing Webmaster Tools
Hello everyone, I am facing an issue with the sitemap submission feature in Bing Webmaster Tools for a Japanese language subdirectory domain project. Just to outline the key points: The website is based on a subdirectory URL ( example.com/ja/ ) The Japanese URLs (when pages are published in WordPress) are not being encoded. They are entered in pure Kanji. Google Webmaster Tools, for instance, has no issues reading and indexing the page's URLs in its sitemap submission area (all pages are being indexed). When it comes to Bing Webmaster Tools it's a different story, though. Basically, after the sitemap has been submitted ( example.com/ja/sitemap.xml ), it does report an error that it failed to download this part of the sitemap: "page-sitemap.xml" (basically the sitemap featuring all the sites pages). That means that no URLs have been submitted to Bing either. My apprehension is that Bing Webmaster Tools does not understand the Japanese URLs (or the Kanji for that matter). Therefore, I generally wonder what the correct way is to go on about this. When viewing the sitemap ( example.com/ja/page-sitemap.xml ) in a web browser, though, the Japanese URL's characters are already displayed as encoded. I am not sure if submitting the Kanji style URLs separately is a solution. In Bing Webmaster Tools this can only be done on the root domain level ( example.com ). However, surely there must be a way to make Bing's sitemap submission understand Japanese style sitemaps? Many thanks everyone for any advice!
Technical SEO | | Hermski0 -
Linking Pages - 404s
Hello, I have noticed that we have recently managed to accrue a large number of 404s that are listed as Page Title/URL of Linking Page in Moz (e.g. http://www.onexamination.com/international/) but I do not know which site they are coming from, is there an easy why to find out or shall we just create redirects for them all? Thanks in advance for your help. Rose
Technical SEO | | bmjcai1 -
When you send disavow link in google webmaster?
I am just wondering if you disavow a link from google webmaster to a certain website. Does that hurt the other websites ranking at all? Thanks
Technical SEO | | EVERWORLD.ENTERTAIMENT0 -
Webmaster Tools - Clarification of what the top directory is in a calender url
Hi all, I had an issue where it turned out a calender was used on my site historically (a couple of years ago) but the pages were still present, crawled and indexed by google to this day. I want to remove them now from the index as it really clouds my analysis and as I have been trying to clean things up e.g. by turning modules off, webmaster tools is throwing up more and more errors due to these pages. Below is an example of the url of one of the pages: http://www.example.co.uk/index.php?mact=Calendar,m1a033,default,1&m1a033year=2084&m1a033month=3&m1a033returnid=59&page=59?phpMyAdmin=xxyyzz The closest question I have found on the topic in Seomoz is: http://www.seomoz.org/q/duplicate-content-issue-6 I want to remove all these pages from the index by targeting their top level folder. From the historic question above would I be right in saying that it is: http://www.example.co.uk/index.php?mact=Calendar I want to be certain before I do a directory level removal request in case it actually targets index.php instead and deindexes my whole site (or homepage at the very least). Thanks
Technical SEO | | Mitty0 -
Webmaster Tools/Time spent downloading a page
Hi! Is it preferable for the "time spent downloading a page" in Google webmaster tools to be high or low? I've noticed that this metric rapidly decreased after I moved my site to WP Engine and I'm trying to figure out if it's a good or bad thing. Thanks! Jodi QK8dp QK8dp
Technical SEO | | JodiFTM0 -
External Linking & Your sites Link juice
Hey guys, quick question. Does a page lose link juice when it gives link juice? If I link to an outside site, do I lose that same amount of link juice or is it just applied to there site and not removed from mine? I understand that linking to a competitor can in turn help him and hurt me (if he then is seen as more relevant than me to google) but does it have a direct relation to hurting/removing my page link juice? Hope this all makes sense. Thanks
Technical SEO | | SheffieldMarketing0 -
How not to lose link juice when linking to thousands of PDF guides?
Hi All, I run an e-commerce website with thousands of products.
Technical SEO | | BeytzNet
In each product page I have a link to a PDF guide of that product. Currently we link to it with a "nofollow" <a href="">tag.</a> <a href="">Should we change it to window.open in order not to lose link juice? Thanks</a>0