Sudden spike in backlinks - should we disavow?
-
A kitchen remodelling firm in Australia has noticed a big increase in spammy backlinks to their website since April this year. Majestic shows that referring domains and backlinks during that period have gone up from 400 domains (10,000 links) to 1,070 domains (47,000+ links). About 100 are sitewide links.
The vast majority are "follow" links directed at image files on the site - ending in .jpg. Ahrefs now shows the number one anchor text (23%) is a period (full stop) "." Most of the links come from .us domains, eg:
cowboysr.us
blackphoto.us
alldpic.comGoogle Search Console isn't showing any of these links, there's no penalty on the site and there's been no noticeable change in rankings (if anything organic clicks went up over May, June, July) ... so we're wondering what action - if any - should be taken.
Are these links likely to have a negative impact on the site and homepage? Should we disavow these links?
Appreciate any advice. Thanks.
-
Thanks Igor - none of these sites look legit. All have low to non-existent metrics like trust flow. We'll go through the list and disavow.
Any thoughts on what the purpose of these scraped image links are - is this a form of negative SEO?
-
Even if flow metrics on those links are good, the sudden spike is already a red flag for search engines.
If those links aren't organic get rid of them.
I'd get a list of referring domains and bulk check the domain metrics (age, pr, trust flow and etc) and if there's nothing good - get rid of them.
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
-
Is there any tool that can automatically generate backlinks for my website?
Hi I need a tool or some kind of service like attracta for backlinks. I need backlinks from high page rank directories blogs etc. Please help me out from where I can purchase backlinks?
Link Building | | nitinkumar92583 -
Best backlink reading 101
Hi all New to MOZ and SEO. I run a small business and am interested in building backlinks and was wondering what the best reading material/articles are on the matter. I understand SEO in general, moreover the importance of Pagerank, and was wondering what a good approach would be to building a foundation or intro to this. Thanks in advance Joe
Link Building | | JoeJenkins0 -
Old Spammy Backlinks but No Manual Penalty...No Results
We have taken over a site in which the client had unfortunately hired an SEO consultant who bought bad comment spam links. Webmaster Tools does not show a manual penalty of any kind but clearly this was bad practice from the former "SEO" consultant. I believe we have a good structure of the completely new website we have built for the client but I am not sure of the best way to reduce any negative fallout from the previous actions. I've read conflicting information about submitting disavow report to Google for the comment spam links. In some cases, I have read that it would be irrelevant since there is not a manual penalty. I am fairly certain rankings are being negatively effected from this action and looking for the best way to neutralize the algorithmic penalty. Not sure if this helps or not but I use GWMT "Download Latest Links" and see that the soonest Google discovered one of these links is 4/4/2013. Most of the links were generated some time during 2012. How do you even begin to try to reach out and have comment spam manually removed...when most of the sites that allowed the comment spam to begin with are spam sites themselves?
Link Building | | bluelynxmarketing0 -
Disavow & nofollow from same IP
I'm a web developer, and as such, we run a bank of half a dozen dedicated servers. I have 2 questions with regards to nofollow links There's half a dozen sites linking back to us from the same bank of servers (across 3 different IP's but all in the same facility) because we have donated our web design services and we're a sponsor. It's not a paid link, it's a sponsorship. Should I still nofollow the link? I run a couple of personal blogs on the same bank of servers. There's an absolute tonne of original content and a handful of links back to my shop. Because I own both sites, should I nofollow these links as well? I am doing a massive cleanup before the Penguin pops his head out again.
Link Building | | sparrowdog0 -
Is it possible to get high page rank without backlinks?
Today while looking for expired domains i found many high pr domains, checked for fake pr found they are valid but there were zero backlinks pointing to them.Is this possible?
Link Building | | IndiaFPS1 -
What is a good tool for managing backlinks?
We have several that are not relevant and I need to manage the task of writing each to ask to remove.
Link Building | | Buzzfish0 -
Why is a website with no backlinks beating me?
In Sydney we have an import car dealership and even though it does not show any backlinks to it: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.edwardlees.com.au%2F (make sure to search on Google.com.au for any relevant keywords I mention) However this website is ranking at the top for many competitive keywords, for example: 'japanese imports' It is dominating. Our website has many backlinks: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.sportsautogroup.com.au But no keyword rankings. I understand we need to fix up our on Page SEO, but how does our EdwardLee's rank top with no backlinks?? Or is the tool just missing data?
Link Building | | HeadStud0 -
What is the role of nofollow in SEO backlinking?
I'm checking out my competition on opensiteexplorer, who does quite well for the main keyword. I see that 40% - 60% of the backlinks are ref="nofollow" is there any benefit to such links? if i hire a linkbuilder, should I ever accept nofollow links? can u explain please update 1/18/12 i apologize, i mistyped. i was referring to ref="nofollow"
Link Building | | limens0