Negative SEO + Disavow
-
My site is very new (~1 years old), but due to good PR we have gotten some decent links and are already ranking for a key term.
This may be why someone decided to start a negative SEO attack on us.
We've had less than 200 linking domains up until 2 weeks ago, but since then we have been getting 100+ new domains /day with anchor texts that are either targeted to that key term or are from porn websites.
I've gone through the links to get ready and submit a disavow... but should I do it?
My rankings/site traffic has not been affected yet.
Reasons for my hesitations:
1. Google always warns against using the disavow, and says "you shouldn't have to use it if you are a normal website." (sensing 'guilty-until-proven')
2. Some say Google is only trying to get the data to see if there are any patterns within the linking sites. I don't want the site owners to get hurt, since the villain is someone else using xrumer to put spammy comments on their site.
What would you do?
-
Thanks everyone!
-
This is also worth a read and watch the short video where you will get your answer from the 'horses mouth' (English term!)
http://searchengineland.com/googles-cutts-got-bad-links-to-your-site-dont-fret-it-disavow-it-169131
-
+1 to everything that Robert said. I wanted to add this info from John Muller at a Webmaster Central Hangout. You can see the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEAQyHtRQxg and start watching at 23:30.
Someone asks John about a situation where a competitor is pointing thousands of spammy links at them a day. John says that the algorithm is pretty good at ignoring those links but says that it may be a good idea to disavow them just in case.
One thing that I have found though is that a lot of people who think that they are under a negative SEO attack really just have a normal backlink profile. Prior to Penguin, the average webmaster would not go through their links with the scrutiny that they utilize today. You would be surprised of the kind of junk that is in the backlink profile of most sites, even if they have not done any link building!
-
Alice,
Without more data and something visual it is hard to say what I would do. Are you sure the links are from 100 different domains a day? Versus 100 links from a domain or two? I am only asking for clarity sake.
If there is a way to give us a screenshot it would help. Short of that, I would say if you are not being affected yet, look in GWMT and see if the bad links are showing there yet. If they are not, that may be the reason. (With ahrefs for example, you will pick up the links long before Google does.) If it begins to affect performance, I would use the disavow tool to block them. I realize it is a lot of work, but I have seen a major client get hit by bad links and have helped them using the disavow tool.
What you are stating re the tool and Google's warning needs some balance - Google states that it can harm your site's performance. An example would be someone being over worried and they disavow 75% of their links, they are likely to fall in ranking.
As to: "you shouldn't have to use it if you are a normal website" is not a guilty until proven statement IMO. It is actually Google stating you should not just have use it willy nilly. This is from Google:
The disavow backlinks tool should be used with caution since it can potentially harm your site's performance. However, if you see a considerable number of spammy, artificial, or low-quality links point to your site, and you're confident that the links are causing issues for your site, you can use the disavow tool to disavow those links. In most cases, Google can assess which links to trust without additional guidance, so most normal or typical sites will not need to use this tool.
So, watch your WMT and the sites ranking and other performance measures. If you see an effect, do not be afraid to take action.
Hope this helps a bit.
Robert
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
-
Five best practice for SEO
Hello Everyone, I am new to SEO and need some help. I have 6 sites and I need to know what are the top 5 strategies for Off page seo. I mean the most important ones. Thanks Abie
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | signsny0 -
Looking for SEO advice on Negative SEO attack. Technical SEO
please see this link https://www.dropbox.com/s/thgy57zmmwzodcp/Screenshot 2016-05-31 13.25.23.png?dl=0 you can see my domain is getting tons of chinese spam. I have 410'd the page but it still keeps coming.. 7tnawRV
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mattguitar990 -
Is hidden content bad for SEO?
I am using this plugin to enable Facebook comments on my blog:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | soralsokal
https://wordpress.org/plugins/fatpanda-facebook-comments/ This shows the comment in an Facebook iFrame. The plugin author claims it's SEO friendly, because the comments are also integrated in the WordPress database. The are included in the post but hidden. Is that bad for SEO?0 -
Advanced SEO question.
Hi, I manage and do the SEO for this site: www.aerlawgroup.com. If you Google "Los Angeles Criminal Defense Attorney", you can see I rank well (1st page). I have managed to achieve similar rankings for interior pages within the site: www.aerlawgroup.com/domestic-violence.html (Google: "Los Angeles Domestic Violence Attorney".) Here is my question. No matter how hard I try, I cannot get to the first page on Google for the search term: "Los Angeles DUI Lawyer", for the following interior page: www.aerlawgroup.com/dui.html. Is there anyway that I can pass the authority/ranking (not sure what to call it) that I have for www.aerlawgroup.com to www.aerlawgroup.com/dui.html so that internal page ranks higher for "Los Angeles DUI Lawyer"? I apologize if my question doesn't make sense. In a nutshell, I'm trying to understand if there is anyway to use the ranking I have for www.aerlawgroup.com to help me rank higher for Los Angeles DUI lawyer for the dui interior page. If not, are there any other suggestions anyone has to achieve a higher ranking? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mrodriguez14400 -
Map with usability and SEO purpose
For my client I need to add some structure to its pages. The deepest pages are about restaurants and are sorted per city and then per province as a larger silo. I want to do this: Homepage > Provinces > Cities > Restaurant page This structure is optimal, but I as a usability freak I prefer making the experience cool for the users. I want to add interactive pictures that are cool for the user and hopefully are readable for the google bots, I want to do it like this: The homepage shows a map of my country that has the twelve provinces outlined, that light up when you hover over them. Then when you click a province you get to the province page. On the province page you see a large image of the province and see all cities where there are restaurants, when you hover over a city it grows a little and when you click it you arrive at the city page, at that page you will find a list of all restaurants that are available in the city. What I need to know is, is it possible for google to see these pictures as a nice site structure? Or do I need to add the ugly footer links and have pages with lists of links...? And what is the smartest way to structure this, flash?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Lebron270 -
Any SEO suggestions for my site?
Site in question: http://bit.ly/Lcspfp Does anyone have any suggestions for any on-site SEO that would benefit my website? Any recommendations, big or small are appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RichardTaylor1 -
Where is the Real Value in SEO?
Interesting topic and would love to hear some thoughts. How do you justify SEO, measure results, etc etc
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | imageworks-2612900 -
Seo for Q&A site
Hi, I am working on a newly launched Q&A site. We have very few questions and users right now and very very low seo traffic. In order to increase the number of users and seo traffic we intend to create a number of pages containing potential questions. Each page would have the following structure: Question. Ex: "What are the top wholesale suppliers of coffee in China?" Some content. Ex: Are you looking for wholesale suppliers of coffee in China? Post your question here? Question form Some additional content So there would be a page for wholesale suppliers of coffee for every country. We would publish the pages gradually and the content would be unique but yet similar (ex: only the Country changes). What do you think about this approach? Is it a good idea or can it be dangerous? We don't want to incur in any kind of penalization, we just want to give the possibility to people who are looking for specific information to find us and be able to post the request on our website.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ypsilon0