Remove spammy backlinks

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I have a site that has been hit by a little more than 20.000 spam links in a hacker attack some months ago.


Previous I used www.make-it-count.dk but a few years ago I got my hands on www.MakeItCount.dk and moved the site (301).


It is make-it-count.dk that has been attacked and this attack created these spammy backlinks which caused my rankings to drop.


All the spammy links are removed long ago but Google has recorded the links and in GSC they only show around 200 of these links in four categories. I copied these 800 links from GSC to Notepad, edited them and uploaded them to Google Disavow Tool and my rankings improved slightly.

The big problem is how do I disavow the remaining 19.200 links?

GSC shows a mix of links I have reported and some new ones - which makes it incredibly difficult to create a list with links without too many double registrations.

If Google would ALL links instead of only 200 it might be easier...
#search engine optimization #backlinks #remove #spammy
  • I wouldn't worry too much cause G.is paying very little attention to questinable backlinks.



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    • I hope so but the site has lost traffic and rankings has dropped.

      I don't trust Google. The spam links has been removed several months ago but they are still present in GSC even though they have visited the old site tons of times since.

      Google is just as buggy as everything else...
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  • You don't have to disavow every single link when they all come from the same domain. You can disavow at the domain level, which should save you a considerable amount of time.
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    • I have a ton of 301 redirs from [edited by mod: no need to keep posting your links] If I disavowed at the domain level wouldn't that affect the 301 redirs?
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  • To be CLEAR! I never do black hat! The site was hacked as I indicated in my first post. There were 2 other sites that got attacked and together they produced a little more than 22.000 shitty links pointing at my new site. I am only trying to clean up after the attack. Please understand this and keep to the question.

    Originally there are 300 links from the old site to the new which are 301 redirects. This is not black hat! This is Google recommendations!

    The new site lost rankings (a lot) and GSC only allow me to se 200 links from each of the attacked sites.

    This means I can disavow 800 links but not the rest.

    I just wanted to know if anyone know what to do with the rest of these spammy links. Google doesn't forget them or remove them even though they by now are nonexisting.

    Your answer is to disavow at the domain level. And I ask: Wouldn't that kill the 301 redirs (that still redirect from links I have no control over)?
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    • Unfortunately, there seems to be a communication problem here.

      First, just because you cannot see them in a Google report, it doesn't mean that the bad links from bad pages/domains don't exist and Google is not aware of them. Google does not list every single backlink. You can disavow those links and entire domains whether they are in the list of links that Google reports or not.

      I'm confused about the 301 question unless you are saying that the bad links/domains are linking to those old sites you owned, too, which in that case, you'd have to disavow them from those other sites you own, as well.

      I'm not telling you to disavow your own old sites. I'm telling you to disavow the entire domains of those sites that you do not control that are linking to your site(s) with bad links rather than doing it a link at a time.

      Or maybe I don't understand at all and you think there are a few good links coming from any given outside domain but the rest from that domain are bad ones.
  • Can a site linked to you with a high spam score effect your traffic? Could they be the reason for a high spam score? What are some other factors? A site I linked to a while back their spam score is terrible and worried it's having a negative effect.
  • I have an old site: OLdDomain. Then I got Newdomain and moved everything to this and redirected every article fromOldDomain to NewDomain. That's standard practice as long as backlinks to OldDomain still has effect and brings in traffic.

    Then OldDomain got hacked together with 2 other domains of mine. b & c.

    20.000 spammy backlinks from OldDomain and b and c pointed to NewDomain and 25 other sites that weren't mine. (poor them)

    Every single injection has been removed from the infected sites but Google recorded the spammy links. All sites are clean now. OldDomain now has a spam score at 72 and NewDomain has a spam score of 1. But DA & DR has fallen dramatically and so has traffic.

    It is likely that the 301 redirs from OldDomain to NewDomain has some negative effect because of the spamscore but I don't know.

    The spammy backlinks has had a negative effect on rankings.

    What would happen to the 301 redirs if I disawoved OldDomain? Wouldn't they be disawoved too?
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    • Well, the re-directs would still happen - if someone clicked a link on the old site it would re-direct to the new site. What wouldn't happen is the passing of any acquired link juice from the old site to the new one.
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    • It seems impossible to disawov 20.000 dynamically created backlinks in GSC...
  • I think I get what's happened now...



    You went through all your content on OldSite and redirected those pages to the equivalent page on NewSite. Which is the proper white hat way to migrate your site.


    Then OldSite was hacked and turned into a massive spam link farm that has 20,000 more links (aside from the clean ones you setup) also going to NewSite. Is that it?


    If so, that really sucks! My recommendation would then be to create all new 301 redirect files for the good ones you'd like to keep in PHP files (NOT using WordPress or another CMS), set the permissions of each file to be read only. Then delete OldSite entirely including the database - leave nothing behind! Then upload the read only 301 redirects do now you only have the pages you want redirecting.



    That will remove all the bad links from OldSite whether they are going to NewSite it not, while keeping the good redirects.


    Honestly, this truly sucks and will be a ton of work, but once a site is hacked you can't stay on top on new links being generated and is very likely they're linking to a lot more than just your NewSite. If OldSite is still under your control is recommend wiping it out and rebuild just the good stuff in a way that can't be easily rehacked.


    Assuming I understood the problem of course!
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    • Yup! It sounds very much like you got it. Thanks a lot for your input. I think I have the virus under control as I have removed 100's of them until now. It is dead. But I sure will seriously consider your suggestion.

      Thanks!
  • Removing or disavowing those spammy backlinks will not change at all because google already ignored those suspicious links. However, you need to build strong and quality links to rebuild your reputation in the field.
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  • Hello, If it helps I recently used SEMrush (free account) to do a backlink audit and through there I was able to find all the toxic backlinks to my site and create a disavow file for Google.
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  • Access the Google Search Console and check for the spammy domains and disavow them using Google's tool.
  • Maybe the use of ahref tool that they opened for webmasters can work.
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  • We rarely see such links hurt rankings. We know this because I am very OCD and disavow them all at the domain level as dave_hermansen suggested. We haven't seen a rank increase from disavowing links since 2015. We STILL disavow them though. Mostly because I used to sell junk links when they still helped rankings.
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