Comments on: Q: Can bad links hurt my site? A: Yes

By: Spencer Haley

Spencer Haley — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:08:07 +0000

The question is what factors does google use to distinguish one type from the other, and how much does it affect your search engine optimization. If the link is from a relevant site how will google know it is paid for?

By: Ewan Kennedy

Ewan Kennedy — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 09:58:11 +0000

Hi John,

Found your site at number for “can bad links hurt?” after just making a similar post. What I was most interested to read in your post was about the distinction between paid links and other kinds of spammy links.

In your reply to Josh you’ve said you think one would be unlikely to be able to bring down a significant site but what about the SEOmoz example you’ve cited in your post? They talk about a “fairly well-established” site being damaged by just 4 paid links.

It seems to me that despite Google’s assurances to the contrary, site owners are not immune from sabotage.

Too much smoke for there to be no fire?

Cheers,
Ewan

By: David

David — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 08:55:28 +0000

I forgot to mention that my site is PR3, if that makes any difference and is probably 1,5 years old rather that 1 year

By: David

David — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 08:53:42 +0000

This was a very interesting post, have learned a couple of things but still after reading it I cant come to a real life conclusion if spammy non paid links can hurt your rankings.

I have a site that is about 1 year old, and have been on a number 1 position for my main keyword and on page 1 for most of my other keywords.

Recently I have seen a drop, not a hugue drop but down a couple of positionsfor a couple of my keywords so I went and checked my backlinks and noticed some spammy backlinks with anchor text viagra, probably madewith scrapebox.

Can this be the cause of my drops or do you think its not related?

Would really appreciate an answer

By: Can bad links hurt your google rankings ?

Can bad links hurt your google rankings ? — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 15:25:12 +0000

[...] has reversed this belief of mine. Similar accounts have been found. John McElborough on Can bad links hurt my site ? in which he shares almost the same concern of SEO professional playing the BAD SEO game in the [...]

By: 10 reasons why you don’t rank well in the search engines | The SEO Lab

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 20:00:24 +0000

[...] You pay for spammy links – some nasty ‘outsourced’ SEO told you to do it, or you got suckered in by the promises of search engine riches from 150-250 backlinks a day. However it happened, those paid for links could well be harming your chances of a good search engine ranking. Natural or organic SEO is called that for a reason; link nurturing of this kind will be spotted a mile off by Google in the same way people are suspicious of those folks that claim to grow giant tomatoes naturally when we all know it took some form of chemical interference. Freelance SEO consultant John Mcelborough recently discussed how paid, spammy links could (in theory) even be used to take down the competition [...]

By: admin

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:49:44 +0000

If you want to send me your url I’d be interested to take a look and see what I can come up with sara. Email me if you don’t want to post it here: john (at) ioptimal.com

By: Sara

Sara — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:28:32 +0000

A drop in rankings.

You’re surprised? I’m surprised!

My problem stems from the fact that Google is listing within the index the non-www version of my root domain. It’s just the root and nothing else.

Why is the non-www version of my root domain listed in the index? All the links ON the domain are uniform and include the “www”. That’s not it. All the appropriate redirects were added to the server years ago. That can not be it either.

The only conclusion I can make is that it must be something occurring off site. Every link to the site is pointed to the “www” version of the domain with one exception – the spammy links advertising bestiality are linking to the non-www version of my root domain – no other page just the root.

By: admin

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:43:26 +0000

Hi Sara,

Have you actually seen a drop in rankings or just your Google Pagerank in the toolbar?

I’d be really surprised if its the links to a non-www version of your site which have caused any problems for you.

By: Sara

Sara — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:16:07 +0000

I don’t know what a “significant link profile” is but my site is 10 years old and over the last 8+ years has ranked in the top 10 for a competitive search term. In the last 30 days one site in particular linked to my root domain several hundred times using the non-www domain. My site pre-dates Webmaster Central, So until this weekend I never set the preferred domain. Didn’t think I needed to because a 301 redirect has been in place since 2002 and ALL (not some or most but all) of the internal links use the “www”.

Today I have a canonical issue and my root is a PR0. I am not clear if the 0 is a penalty or has to do with the canonical mess.

Now, I have never farmed, traded or paid for links. So, yeah, a competitor can poison your site.

Assuming setting the preferred domain option will fix this, there is nothing I could have done to prevent this situation. I do not have control over what other webmasters do. Yet I have to pay for their dirty tricks intentional or otherwise.

Is there a way to contact Google about these spammy links? More importantly is there a way to let them know that I have nothing to do with these links?