Strange new links being picked up in Webmaster tools affecting SERPs
-
Hi,
I have a question regarding new links being found by Google, and showing in our latest links file from Webmaster tools.
I run this site: http://www.propertysales.com it's a fairly new website with a small (ish) link profile but over the last 3 months I've seen a lot of links being found in Google like this: http://www.financecourier.com/news/story/523316/foreign-carmakers-milk-chinas-cash-cow/full_story.html
it's clearly a scrap of a webpage from the FT.com, who we partner with, that has a link to PropertySales.com but the number of links Webmaster tools is seeing is much bigger than we would normally get in any given month.
As a rule I would normally ignore scrapper sites as I’ve always assumed Google is smart enough to know which site these are and thus wouldn't affect your SERPs but I’ve also seen a drop in our SERPs over the same month so now I’m thinking these are effecting the sites SEO.
Does anybody have any insight into this or advice on the best way to handle this, I looking at going through these site and adding them to our disavow file but this can take a few month to take effect so are they any better options or way to handle this?
Thanks for your help in advance.
Rufus
-
Hi Rufus,
If it's a minor drop, then it might just be temporary. Are you still building links to your site now?
Like you, I normally ignore scraper sites. They sometimes give me a lot of good links lol
ill gauge it again after 3 months. If it's effect is questionable, then I end up disavowing them right there if it's a really bad looking site. Some scraper sites are really structurally sound and have unique content so I leave those out.
-
If you've seen a drop in ranking but have no penalty, ideally you would be adding more links, but you're not the first person to talk about noticing this issue, and we had a similar issue on our website. I'd keep an eye on it and when you run across particularly bad instances, ask the webmaster to remove the link. That sometimes works. And when it doesn't, I would consider adding it to a disavow file.
We ignored this issue too long, and got penalized for not doing something about it. So I wouldn't necessarily assume that Google can always tell the difference between bad linking practices, and junk websites linking to your website.
-
Unless Google has issued a warning penalty, they either know about the site and ignore it anyway or have not found these links.
Therefore yes build better content to drive traffic, but I wouldn't worry too much about the problem now you have done the disavow.
Hope that helps
Bruce
-
Hi Rufus,
You are correct that a disavow can take some time to start making a difference, but even so, you need to either continue with this, or contact the poor link sites and ask for links to be removed.
What you can always do, is some positive link-building and outreach to help counter this. I would never really advocate just removing lots of links without doing something positive as well, and this does work well.
You could also look to create a strong internal link strategy to key pages throughout the site. This can often help push specific phrases back up that might have seen a bit of a drop.
Additionally, see if there is some value-added content that can be written for the site to help Google again see that positive measures are being taken.
-Andy
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
-
Refferal links
I have a site where I can pick up where my hits came from. So if somebody clicks from another website link to visit my website, I will then pick up from which website they came from and also which page they landed on. Will google penalize me for this and see this as paid advertising?
Link Building | | Heinwest0 -
Linking Between Sites
Hi everyone, Hope you are all doing well. If a company owns several different websites that are supposed to be different brands but are part of the same niche/sector is it OK to link between them? Or would this be seen as violation? Thanks
Link Building | | National-Homebuyers0 -
Link building strategy - my weak link!
Please help me understand link building. I've read the articles on Moz, but they seem vague to me. Specific questions: 1. How do I get my webpage on good quality sites? 2. Guest blogging? Good or not? 3. What about when people pick up one of our blog stories and publish it on their site with a link back? Is that bad now because it is duplicate content??? 4. Forum posts with a link in the signature? Good or not? 5. Directories - I get it that these are no longer good... are they severely negative? Should I take them down. 6. PR - Looks like this is bad... right??? 7. Youtube - any value? 8. Pinterst, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram? Any value to backlinks here? 9. What about sites like redit? 10. Anything else I should consider?
Link Building | | CalicoKitty20000 -
Link removel
When removing links should I be worried about bad links from websites that have already been deindexd from Google or should I think that since it is not in these index any more it cant do harm?
Link Building | | Joseph-Green-SEO0 -
What is the difference between external followed links and internal followed links.
I have almost 3,000 external links followed and only a tiny amount of internal followed links. My website is doing really badly on google at the mo. I am also an SEO beginner and learning new stuff every day, but am not sure exactly what the difference is! Thanks!
Link Building | | heleni0 -
Does a hashtag link pass the same amount of link juice as a link without a hashtag?
Example 1: link to: http://www.domain.com/#something-inside-the-page Example 2: link to: http://www.domain.com/
Link Building | | adriandg0 -
Where to link?
Hi I need to gert this page up in the rankings http://www.kerryblu.co.uk/wedding-headbands-70-c.asp but am getting no where fast. When applying for links should I direct them to this page or to the homepage, and let them filter through. Thanks
Link Building | | Yorkie0 -
Link building tools/sites
I am looking for a way to share my content in multiple locations to build back links without having to upload one at a time per location. For example- if i write an article and i upload it to ezine articles and then post it over on my blog- it will then post over on my twitter and facebook and linked in. However- how i can also get this article with back links into shared sites, bookmark sites, and other locations online to help build my inbound marketing for back links. I'm trying to find a way to save time while building out the links.
Link Building | | LauraThomas0