Can You Get Rid Of Unwanted Backlinks ?

[Chucksta]

I had a forum on one of my sites that I setup then forgot about, but the spammers obviously did not !!

Somehow, and for some reason (at least I think it was them), they had created a ton of backlinks from .gov and .edu sites !!!

Does anyone know how I can track down those links as I need them removed. My site has a very silly number of those links, now.

And yep, Google no likey, but they have not de-indexed the site, yet. It just does not come up when searching on the domain name... try it:

www.srixon-golf-balls.co.uk

[Slin]

redirect them my way.

[Chucksta]

LOL, gladly

Oh well, teaches me for being so slack with forum setup and admin... what a numpty

[DireStraits]

Originally Posted by Chucksta

LOL, gladly

Oh well, teaches me for being so slack with forum setup and admin... what a numpty

Aw, that sucks. If it was a Wordpress blog you'd just install akismet; but I'm not aware of any forum-compatible equivalent.

Good luck clearing it up. If you start now, maybe you'll be finished in time for Christmas!

[Chucksta]

Originally Posted by DireStraits

Aw, that sucks. If it was a Wordpress blog you'd just install akismet; but I'm not aware of any forum-compatible equivalent.

Good luck clearing it up. If you start now, maybe you'll be finished in time for Christmas!

LOL, thanks.... I would if I could track them down... there doesn't seem to be a way to find the .edu and .gov sites.

Cool name by the way, and excellent group

[DireStraits]

Originally Posted by Chucksta

Cool name by the way, and excellent group

Thanks! And dayom right - Knopfler is my God (much prefer his solo stuff these days though).

[AFI]

You didn't say what message forum script you're using, but if you happen to be using PHPBB, they have a ton of plugins to help you manage stuff like this on their site.

[Slin]

To be clear, backlinks can never hurt your site.

Ever.

It can cause your site to dance, but that's about it.

Google has said this many times.

Now whether certain backlinks help more then others well that's the real question.

note: your forum comes up first page in google for me

[Chucksta]

Originally Posted by AFI

You didn't say what message forum script you're using, but if you happen to be using PHPBB, they have a ton of plugins to help you manage stuff like this on their site.

Yep. PHPBB, but I have now, where I still use a forum, set it so that each ID has to be given access to each forum catagory. Yep, could be a lot of work, especially with sites like the one in my sig. If I get a silly number of members, then maybe I will use a plugin, as you suggest, but for now I'll do it the long way round.

I guess I should contact Google Webmaster tools help, or whatever they are. I'm really surprised they did not de-index my site.

[Chucksta]

Originally Posted by Slin

To be clear, backlinks can never hurt your site.

Ever.

It can cause your site to dance, but that's about it.

Google has said this many times.

Now whether certain backlinks help more then others well that's the real question.

Perhaps, but ask Google what they would think of a site that is 6 months old, and has 3,533 .gov and .edu backlinks

I just used SEO Quake to check the site's status, and it has 26 backlinks to the main page (I've not done much with the site), and 13,545 backlinks to the domain !!!!!!!!! (nowt to do with me!!)

Hmm, if I was Google, I'd think something was very fishy

[Chucksta]

Originally Posted by Slin

note: your forum comes up first page in google for me

Is that for my srixon-golf-balls.co.uk site ? Because it does not for me. Keying that in and the first time my site appears is way over position 100, and refers to a forum post.

[DireStraits]

Originally Posted by Chucksta

Perhaps, but ask Google what they would think of a site that is 6 months old, and has 3,533 .gov and .edu backlinks

I just used SEO Quake to check the site's status, and it has 26 backlinks to the main page (I've not done much with the site), and 13,545 backlinks to the domain !!!!!!!!! (nowt to do with me!!)

Hmm, if I was Google, I'd think something was very fishy

Ohhhh - steady now; wait a minute!

For a minute I thought you were talking about people having spammed backlinks on your forum (in posts, etc).

Apologies for misinterpreting and/or otherwise getting ahead of myself.

What you're actually talking about is someone having created backlinks to your site?

If so, the scenario suddenly seems potentially less undesirable - at least from your perspective.

Google cannot usually be sure (and even if they suspected, it'd be hard to 100% verify) who is building links to your site, and so it wouldn't be fair nor wise for them to penalise your site for this. Penalising for what goes on within your site is a different matter altogether.

In any case, you cannot remove backlinks that anyone else has created.

How long has your site been "negatively affected" by this?

It's entirely possible that the backlinks you've received may benefit your site in some way soon, but in the short-term it's just dancing the SERPs (the "Google dance") because of the sudden influx of links. This can happen with new sites, or those which haven't previously received so many links, links of such power, or with such speed. It settles down eventually.

Anyway, I've looked at your site on Google.

It is indexed, as confirmed by running a "site:srixon-golf-balls.co.uk" search on Google.

But why you want to rank for the search term "www.srixon-golf-balls.co.uk" or "srixon-golf-balls.co.uk" I have absolutely no clue. No-one in their right mind is ever going to be searching for anything like that.

What you want to be ranking for, I expect, is "srixon golf balls" and other related search terms. Those are the ones people are potentially searching for, and what will bring traffic to your site.

In light of all of the above points, what you're describing seems to be a non-issue to me.

[Chucksta]

Originally Posted by DireStraits

Ohhhh - steady now; wait a minute!

For a minute I thought you were talking about people having spammed backlinks on your forum (in posts, etc).

Apologies for misinterpreting and/or otherwise getting ahead of myself.

What you're actually talking about is someone having created backlinks to your site?

If so, the scenario suddenly seems potentially less undesirable - at least from your perspective.

Google cannot usually be sure (and even if they suspected, it'd be hard to 100% verify) who is building links to your site, and so it wouldn't be fair nor wise for them to penalise your site for this. Penalising for what goes on within your site is a different matter altogether.

In any case, you cannot remove backlinks that anyone else has created.

How long has your site been "negatively affected" by this?

It's entirely possible that the backlinks you've received may benefit your site in some way soon, but in the short-term it's just dancing the SERPs (the "Google dance") because of the sudden influx of links. This can happen with new sites, or those which haven't previously received so many links, links of such power, or with such speed. It settles down eventually.

Anyway, I've looked at your site on Google.

It is indexed, as confirmed by running a "site:srixon-golf-balls.co.uk" search on Google.

But why you want to rank for the search term "www.srixon-golf-balls.co.uk" or "srixon-golf-balls.co.uk" I have absolutely no clue. No-one in their right mind is ever going to be searching for anything like that.

What you want to be ranking for, I expect, is "srixon golf balls" and other related search terms. Those are the ones people are potentially searching for, and what will bring traffic to your site.

In light of all of the above points, what you're describing seems to be a non-issue to me.

Thanks matey, exactly what I needed to here/know Makes sense to me now.

Don't worry my backlinking uses anchor text of "srixon golf balls", and recently - "cheap golf balls" and "lake golf balls". My original articles and blog entires did use Srixon Golf Balls, but back then I did not understand how to use anchor text. I'm planning on going through all my articles and correcting this, but that will take a good few days.

Anyway, thanks again.... time to head out and sink a few pints

[DireStraits]

Originally Posted by Chucksta

Anyway, thanks again.... time to head out and sink a few pints

No problemo.

*insert jealousy*

I'm normally out galavanting (read: drowning my sorrows ) on a Saturday night, too. But I've drank so much the past few weeks I think I'll throw-up, or keel over, if I so much as smell anything remotely hoppy/yeasty, or which otherwise gives off ethanol vapours, tonight. So by necessity, I shall remain where it's safe.

(I'd probably just be slipping all over the place on my arse anyway, what with all the ice around here. )

'Ave a good'un!

[Matt Ward]

I don't see any gov or edu backlinks to your site?

[socialbookmark]

As i checked, your website has only about 50 backlinks. So how they made tons of backlinks for your website when it only has about 50?