Any ideas on how to stop a massive spam link building attack?
-
I have a client that got penalized back in April, 2015, after doing a lot of research around what it might be, we finally narrowed it down to bad link building. It looks like the site started getting attacked by some sort of automated spam link building attack back in 2013. Examples of the bad links are listed below.
- Thousands of links coming from Pinterest - all different boards. The links come from pinterest.se and pinterest.com.
- Thousands from footer links from a website template. Some of the links make it looks like this client build the website (which they did not) and some of the links are in black lettering on a black background (hidden from the naked eye).
New links come in every day and range from 10 - 150 new spam links, and the majority of the pages the links are on are foreign. I know I can disvow some of the links (like the ones in the footer of the website template), but I wouldn't want to disvow Pinterest, right?
With all of this info, does anyone have any ideas on what action we should take next? Thanks ahead of time!
-
Good answer. I didn't think about looking at top pages or fetch and render. Interesting finds there, for sure. The top 10 pages according to OSE are:
- http://mywebsite.com/
- http://mywebsite.com/?id=P8426&shouldPaginate=true&categoryId=3865
- http://mywebsite.com/?cbg_tz=360
- http://mywebsite.com/ISES-Wedding2008_Ritz/index.html
- http://mywebsite.com/about/40_0_916.html
- http://mywebsite.com/all-dolled-up/15_8_585.html
- http://mywebsite.com/beautifully-human/21_17_487.html
- http://mywebsite.com/belly-and-baby/20_13_371.html
- http://mywebsite.com/belly-and-baby/20_15_373.html
- http://mywebsite.com/belly-and-baby/20_28_409.html
#1 is the homepage, it's fine. #2-#4 are duplicates of the homepage... have no idea how/when those were created. The remainder are all very odd 404 URLs. When put into fetch and render, #1 and #5-#10 show what is expected. #2-#4 show as a redirect to the homepage (yet, I get a 404). When I check #2-#4 in a response header tool, like SEOBook, it shows redirects to some other odd page (http://www.mywebsite.com/xmlrpc.php).
That I know of, there hasn't been a penalty message in GWT. I say that because there is no message in GWT, and the client hasn't reported seeing any message prior to this happening.
Thanks for the feedback Carson, I appreciate it. I like the story about the IP address being tracked back to a competitor - sneaky!
-
Penalties from third-party spam are rare, but it happens. Just to make sure we're on the right path, I'd first take some top pages and fetch/render them. Submit 4-5 of the top pages to the index. If everything looks fine in the render and submitting them to the index works, we eliminate 99% of technical issues.
If you're seeing spam links coming in you should definitely start with the disavow. Do you have a manual penalty notice in Webmaster tools? If so, I'd submit a reconsideration request explaining that your client is not doing this link building AFTER the disavow is in.
Beyond keeping the disavow updated and trying to get Google to care about your reconsideration request, there's not a lot you can do. In one case I was able to get an IP address from a legitimate site that had spam comments and trace that back to a competitor's office. In most cases you just have to try keeping up with the garbage.
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
-
Local Site Linking to Corporate Site In Main Menu - Bad for SEO?
Hi, We have 'local' websites for different countries (UK, DE, FR, AP, US etc.) and a corporate website, the local websites are going to be linking back to the corporate website in the main menu (think about us, terms and conditions kind of pages). Any local products will have their own pages on the local website but global products will be linked back to the corporate website. We will be placing an indication the user will be going to another website next to those menu links that go to the corporate website. Is there any drawback to this for SEO? Should we use nofollow in the menu structure of regional websites for these links? Thanks for your help.
Local Website Optimization | | UNIT40 -
IYO, What is the Best Language to Build a Site With and Why? Thanks Catherine Corn
IYO, What is the Best Language to Build a Site With and Why? Thanks Catherine Corn
Local Website Optimization | | CatherineCorn10 -
Using posts to make static pages - A best practice or a bad idea?
I have started working with a few law firms this year. They already have websites and I am doing various marketing tasks such as copywriting, redesigns, and, of course, SEO. In a couple of cases I was surprised to find that they had made the pages describing their various practice areas post content. I'm not sure why. But I suspect that the idea might have been to have the phrase: /practice-areas/ as a part of their URL. I didn't really like the idea of treating pages like posts. It seems a bit like working the system. But apart from that, wouldn't pages have a higher value as "permanent" content? As posts - their publish date has more weight, right? And they'd get old? But maybe the previous developers were on to something and the category/post approach to listing practice areas is the way to go? I am starting a new site for a new firm and I'd like to feel more confident about the right structure to choose for this kind of website before I start. Does anybody know the right answer? Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | Dandelion1 -
New Domain Link Building Order - When to 301 Redirect?
Hello Everyone - I am trying to lock down the best Local SEO and link acquisition order for 1 1/2 month old Domain. The Domain is clean - No History - Registered in WMT's on January 20th It's a service franchise website consolidating about 5 independent locations into a single branded site. The each location now has it's own location page on the new site: www.examplesite.com/Location-1 I'm considering the best timing to add 301's to the current Locations individual websites, to the locations pages on the new site.Some of which are currently ranked well (position 2) for one of their primary commercial terms. www.individuallocationsite.com ---> www.examplesite.com/Location-1 I don't want to lose that ranking, but will need to do the 301 redirect at some point. Should I - A.) Complete all of the Citation Work, Natural Profiles, Blog Posts...etc FIRST and let the new website age before 301'ing the locations? Giving it the best chance to have no interruption in those rankings? B:) 301 All the properties into the new website first and start all of the other Local SEO work second? C:) Something else? Thanks in Advance
Local Website Optimization | | CRO_first0 -
Building a new site and want to be found in both Google.co.uk and Goolge.ie. What is the best practice?
We are building a new site which is a .com site and the client would like to be found in both Google.co.uk and Goolge.ie. What is the best practice to go about this? Can you geo-target two countries with the one site?
Local Website Optimization | | WSIDW0 -
Disproportionate Links to Home Page
I'm a professional magician and mentalist who travels nationally for corporate events, social functions, and trade shows. Unfortunately, the landing pages are all for different venues and locations, but the product stays the same. How do you recommend optimizing for somebody whose product is essentially themselves? The pages have similar content, videos, etc., so I don't want to be dinged for duplicate content.
Local Website Optimization | | KevinViner0 -
Home page links -- Ajax When Too Many?
My home page has links to major cities. If someone chooses a specific city I want to give them the choice to choose a suburb within the city, With say 50 cities and 50 suburbs for each city that's 2500 links on the home page. In order to avoid that many links on the home page (or any page) I would like to have just the 50 cities and pull up the suburbs as an ajax call that search engines would not read/crawl. This would be better than clicking on a main city and then getting the city page which they then can choose a suburb. Better to do it all at once. Is it a bad idea to ajax the subregions on the home page and to code it so Google, Bing, other search engines don't crawl or even see anything on the home page related to the suburbs? The search engines will still find the suburb links because they will be listed on each main city page.
Local Website Optimization | | friendoffood0 -
If I mention a client in a blogpost about SEO, do I have to use a rel= no follow link?
I do SEO and webstuff (obviously, that's why I'm here). I want to write a blog post congratulating my client for getting to #1 in the local listings for a search for "plumber". When I include my link to my client's site, should it be rel=no follow? Could they be penalized if I don't? Thanks,
Local Website Optimization | | aj613
Adam0