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Getting Link Bombed - What To Do?

by bcmwp
31 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I'm having trouble with a few spammy sites that are autogenerating pages that include links. Unfortunately, one of the links they're using is to my website. So far, through trackbacks, I've been linked to at least five times from three different, very similar spam sites, so it's probably the same person. I had nothing to do with this. They're simply using keywords to generate their spam page that I'm ranking well for. There could be many more of these out there.

Of course, there's a huge Penguin problem here, and I'm wondering how to fix it before I get penalized for these spammy links. What should I do here? I don't really want to take down the page on my site that they're spamming, because it accounts for 1/3 of my traffic, but I'm not sure that would work anyway.

Any advice would be appreciated.
#bombed #link
  • Profile picture of the author Steven Miranda
    Use the Google disavow tool
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  • Profile picture of the author LuckyIMer
    As suggested by Steven, use disavow tool.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rokas92
    Matt Cutts has said that negative does not exist, but really it does. Keep monitoring incoming links and disavow them.
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  • Profile picture of the author online only
    1) Identify all the bad links via ahrefs, majestic seo, GWT etc
    2) Start email outreaching and tell them to remove your link otherwise you'll disavow their whole domain. If you are lucky, you get 15% of them removed.
    3) Disavow the rest of them that don't get removed.

    And oh, dismiss nofollow links. THere's no need to disavow them, they don't hold any value at all.
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    • Profile picture of the author TotalWebsiteControl
      Originally Posted by online only View Post

      1) Identify all the bad links via ahrefs, majestic seo, GWT etc
      2) Start email outreaching and tell them to remove your link otherwise you'll disavow their whole domain. If you are lucky, you get 15% of them removed.
      3) Disavow the rest of them that don't get removed.

      And oh, dismiss nofollow links. THere's no need to disavow them, they don't hold any value at all.
      Actually nofollow does hold value. You need to have a few of these so you don't look suspicious to the search engines. If you had nothing but dofollow links that would raise some flags in my opinion.
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      • Profile picture of the author Dr los3
        Originally Posted by ShoeNickel View Post

        Actually nofollow does hold value. You need to have a few of these so you don't look suspicious to the search engines. If you had nothing but dofollow links that would raise some flags in my opinion.

        Thats just silly talk. I think it is more suspicious that you're trying to find nofollow links to hide the fact that your site might be in fact really good. Stop thinking in terms of black and white.
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        • Profile picture of the author TotalWebsiteControl
          Originally Posted by Dr los3 View Post

          Thats just silly talk. I think it is more suspicious that you're trying to find nofollow links to hide the fact that your site might be in fact really good. Stop thinking in terms of black and white.

          Well think what you want. But nofollow is valuable in terms of referral traffic.
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          • Profile picture of the author Dr los3
            Originally Posted by ShoeNickel View Post

            Well think what you want. But nofollow is valuable in terms of referral traffic.
            Were not talking about traffic. Were talking about how you should make nofollow backlinks because it looks less spammy.
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            • Profile picture of the author anwar001
              Originally Posted by Dr los3 View Post

              Were not talking about traffic. Were talking about how you should make nofollow backlinks because it looks less spammy.
              I think Google does give some sort of consideration to nofollow links as well. I don't believe that nofollow links are totally worthless and there is no difference between nofollow links and no links. How can that be???

              Suppose a website has 100 nofollow links while another has 0 nofollow and 0 dofollow links. Do you think both sites are equal in the eyes of Google? Doesn't the first site has some sort of extra value compared to the second site?
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  • Profile picture of the author patco
    How did you find that they are spammy? Double check them and if you think they will hurt your website, go with Disavow tool... Good luck!
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    • Profile picture of the author bcmwp
      Originally Posted by patco View Post

      How did you find that they are spammy? Double check them and if you think they will hurt your website, go with Disavow tool... Good luck!
      The sites are clearly autogenerated. Someone's set up pages that are based on keywords, then they've created largely incoherent pages that include, among other things, two-sentence excerpts from some other sites, including mine, with a link. The domain names are themselves keywords. In other words, someone's using a robot to build a site of complete nonsense.

      Everyone seems to think the link disavowal tool is the way to go, so I'll try that, thank you . However, I'm worried it's not powerful enough if this guy is generating page after page with a link to me. What happens if I delete the page in question? Will I still be affected by Penguin, because I'm breaking the link? He's only linking to a single page on my site, and I'd rather lose that page than my whole site.
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      • Profile picture of the author godoveryou
        Originally Posted by bcmwp View Post

        The sites are clearly autogenerated. Someone's set up pages that are based on keywords, then they've created largely incoherent pages that include, among other things, two-sentence excerpts from some other sites, including mine, with a link. The domain names are themselves keywords. In other words, someone's using a robot to build a site of complete nonsense.

        Everyone seems to think the link disavowal tool is the way to go, so I'll try that, thank you . However, I'm worried it's not powerful enough if this guy is generating page after page with a link to me. What happens if I delete the page in question? Will I still be affected by Penguin, because I'm breaking the link? He's only linking to a single page on my site, and I'd rather lose that page than my whole site.
        This almost sounds like something I'd be building... Except that you would have seen thousands of autogenerated pages across dozens of domains at minimum.

        I'm not bring that up to rub it in or be a douche - I'm bring that up because I'm curious as to how you found those half a dozen links?

        I'd draw concern to it simply because there may in fact be thousands of autogenerated pages out there and you just don't know it yet. When I blow out mass domains, you won't find 5 copies... not even in my smallest projects. So if this guy is operating like I would, you might want to get a bit more sophisticated with how you are tracking down these pages.

        Even something as simple as taking the surrounding text and searching it in quote marks to see if you can dig up more in Google's index might not be a bad idea. If you do - try to go to the page through the search engine and see if you land on it or if you get redirected/cloaked/etc.

        I don't know where your knowledge ends on these topics so I'm not sure how I can explain this much further without confusing the issue even more than I may have already.
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        • Profile picture of the author bcmwp
          Originally Posted by godoveryou View Post

          This almost sounds like something I'd be building... Except that you would have seen thousands of autogenerated pages across dozens of domains at minimum.

          I'm not bring that up to rub it in or be a douche - I'm bring that up because I'm curious as to how you found those half a dozen links?

          I'd draw concern to it simply because there may in fact be thousands of autogenerated pages out there and you just don't know it yet. When I blow out mass domains, you won't find 5 copies... not even in my smallest projects. So if this guy is operating like I would, you might want to get a bit more sophisticated with how you are tracking down these pages.

          Even something as simple as taking the surrounding text and searching it in quote marks to see if you can dig up more in Google's index might not be a bad idea. If you do - try to go to the page throw the search engine and see if you land on it or if you get redirected/cloaked/etc.

          I don't know where your knowledge ends on these topics so I'm not sure how I can explain this much further without confusing the issue even more than I may have already.
          Yep, you're right. Just by doing that, I found over a hundred of them.

          Okay, so what do I do? Link disavowal won't work because there are so many of these spam links out there that I can't possibly disavow them all.
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        • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
          Originally Posted by bcmwp View Post

          they've created largely incoherent pagesIn other words, someone's using a robot to build a site of complete nonsense..
          Originally Posted by godoveryou View Post

          This almost sounds like something I'd be building.


          You mean that's you with all my meta titles?

          SOB.....Gunny git ma gon..



          "300k links, and I'm still not buying your damn Cialis":
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          • Profile picture of the author bcmwp
            How about a 301 redirect for just that page somewhere into the ether (like to www.sadfhajdhauwehurasfuhaweufafauk.com)? How does Penguin (and SERPs) handle that sort of thing?
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            • Profile picture of the author godoveryou
              Originally Posted by bcmwp View Post

              How about a 301 redirect for just that page somewhere into the ether? How does Penguin (and SERPs) handle that sort of thing?
              Link is still going to your domain. While Penguin is supposed to be granular to a page level now, I still would disavow.

              PM me the niche at least just so I can rule myself out on the off chance I'm sticking it deep in ya and don't even realize it.
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          • Profile picture of the author godoveryou
            Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire View Post



            You mean that's you with all my meta titles?

            SOB.....Gunny git ma gon..

            "300k links, and I'm still not buying your damn Cialis":
            I can't lie, I am curious to know even just what niche it is in case it was me. It would be hysterical if I got called out in front of my face.

            And of course, I'd pull the offending pages down. That having been said, I build about 100 of these autogen'ed domains a week... so.... I mean... if he's seeing hundreds of pages I may have sucked up his text/link in my scraping.

            If the shoe fits is all I'm saying....
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            • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
              Originally Posted by godoveryou View Post

              I can't lie, I am curious to know even just what niche it is in case it was me. It would be hysterical if I got called out in front of my face.

              And of course, I'd pull the offending pages down. That having been said, I build about 100 of these autogen'ed domains a week... so.... I mean... if he's seeing hundreds of pages I may have sucked up his text/link in my scraping.

              If the shoe fits is all I'm saying....
              Oh the autogen stuff, no worries. I never found it to effect rankings good or bad.

              You should have it cross mix the titles from meta. Make it more "unique" lmao...
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              • Profile picture of the author godoveryou
                Originally Posted by Kevin Maguire View Post

                Oh the autogen stuff, no worries. I never found it to effect rankings good or bad.

                You should have it cross mix the titles from meta. Make it more "unique" lmao...
                Welllllllllllll....... I'm not sure I'd say the same
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                • Profile picture of the author Kevin Maguire
                  Originally Posted by godoveryou View Post

                  Welllllllllllll....... I'm not sure I'd say the same
                  I am holding off 300k links too, so maybe I'm just that BAUS!!!
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Links from 5 domains & no drop in the SERPs, what's the big deal?

    That disavow tool is obvious link sculpting, especially on a domain that hasn't been slapped.
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  • Profile picture of the author godoveryou
    Disavow what you can. You're probably not going to get them to pull those pages down, if you were ever even able to find a way to get ahold of him.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Lol, you guys & that disavow tool.











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  • Profile picture of the author sweezeter
    Gotta love the people suggesting the disavow tool, just like Yukon said. It's a great way to alert Google of your wrong doings, even if it wasn't you that was the one to create the links.

    Try and see if you can get the links removed but 12 links isn't a big deal and won't trigger a penalty. I'd keep a close eye on your links though, it could be the start of a lot of incoming links.
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    • Profile picture of the author online only
      Originally Posted by sweezeter View Post

      Gotta love the people suggesting the disavow tool, just like Yukon said. It's a great way to alert Google of your wrong doings, even if it wasn't you that was the one to create the links.

      Try and see if you can get the links removed but 12 links isn't a big deal and won't trigger a penalty. I'd keep a close eye on your links though, it could be the start of a lot of incoming links.
      12 links probably doesn't change much, but what if you have 5k, 15k, referring domains? I would still use the disavow tool. I know some people would be paranoid "OMGZ, Google will find out my site and I'll get a penalty" - but that's not true. If you actually have a legit site, with bunch of legit links - there's no need to worry about it.

      On the otherhand, if you truly believe that spammy links do no good/no bad then you can just leave them and see what happens.

      I've used disavow since it came out and have no problems whatsoever. I'm in highly competitive niches where one of my main task is to get rid of links that are made by negative SEO.
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      • Profile picture of the author sweezeter
        Originally Posted by online only View Post

        12 links probably doesn't change much, but what if you have 5k, 15k, referring domains? I would still use the disavow tool. I know some people would be paranoid "OMGZ, Google will find out my site and I'll get a penalty" - but that's not true. If you actually have a legit site, with bunch of legit links - there's no need to worry about it.

        On the otherhand, if you truly believe that spammy links do no good/no bad then you can just leave them and see what happens.

        I've used disavow since it came out and have no problems whatsoever. I'm in highly competitive niches where one of my main task is to get rid of links that are made by negative SEO.
        I do what works, and I have never seen ANY benefit from the disavow tool.

        I have also never seen one example of someone using the disavow and benefiting. I've seen countless numbers of posts talking about how using the disavow caused their rankings to plummet. Countless stories on here, other forums and Webmaster forums inparticular.

        The only success story I read about the disavow was someone that participated in link removals for over one year, and contributed the success to the disavow rather than the removal of the bad links entirely.
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    • Profile picture of the author godoveryou
      Originally Posted by sweezeter View Post

      Gotta love the people suggesting the disavow tool, just like Yukon said. It's a great way to alert Google of your wrong doings, even if it wasn't you that was the one to create the links.

      Try and see if you can get the links removed but 12 links isn't a big deal and won't trigger a penalty. I'd keep a close eye on your links though, it could be the start of a lot of incoming links.
      Yep, you're right. Just by doing that, I found over a hundred of them.
      At least read the thread.

      What's he going to do when the operator reuses the source files on another 50 or 100 domains on generates 50-500 pages on each domain that contain his links?

      Do you even have any idea what is going on here and how/why the links are being built or are you just being pointlessly controversial?
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    For the record I'm not really paranoid of Google, I use both WMT & Analytics.

    I just don't see that disavow tool being used to fight evil (neg. SEO). Google has an agenda which IMO is to flush out link seller/sources without Google doing any work. Let the webmaster buy links, update the Google algo., wait for them to panic, wait for the webmaster to nark out the link seller/source.

    I find it hard to believe Google is going to promote link sculpting at any level.

    OP said no slap has happened, no point in rocking the boat.
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    • Profile picture of the author godoveryou
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      For the record I'm not really paranoid of Google, I use both WMT & Analytics.

      I just don't see that disavow tool being used to fight evil (neg. SEO). Google has an agenda which IMO is to flush out link seller/sources without Google doing any work. Let the webmaster buy links, update the Google algo., wait for them to panic, wait for the webmaster to nark out the link seller/source.

      I find it hard to believe Google is going to promote link sculpting at any level.

      OP said no slap has happened, no point in rocking the boat.
      I agree, on most but not all points.

      Maybe his site will be okay?
      Maybe disavow doesn't work?
      Nobody here really knows....

      But one person does know how quickly the ability to auto-generate millions of pages across thousands of domains can get out of control. Of course, who knows if the operator has the technical (or software) ability to do that. It's hard to tell from third party information when that third party may not really know what he is looking at or looking for to begin with.

      Meh, whatever. I concede on the main points of discussion - but do still think someone should read an entire thread before posting something about it.

      I mean, is that really too much to ask for.
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