Blocking bad Backlinks

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Is it possible to block bad backlinks using the .htaccess?

I have read quite a few small articles relating to this. If I create a .htaccess rule for the offending IP address which returns a 403, will Google ignore backlinks from the blocked host and it's websites?
#search engine optimization #backlinks #bad #blocking
  • You cannot block people linking to your site.
  • You cannot block other peoples to link to your sites but if you are creating backlinks from your own sources then you obviously can.
  • I really wouldn't worry about it that much. The chance of someone actually submitting a negative SEO campaign against your website(s) is incredibly rare. I would cross that bridge when you need to. There's no reason to be paranoid.
  • You can.

    Here's how to do it, even though this link was built for hotlinking....

    Stop Hotlinking with htaccess. Test your Image Hotlink Protection with our Hotlink Checker from altlab.com.
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  • I believe this is where the Google Panda/Penguin stuff comes into play. There are sites who have worked hard to gain reputation of the SEs and Google now realises that they should not be penalizing these sites simply because their competitors have are playing some unscrupulous tricks. I read in some forum that Google is now trying to modify their algorithm to see if they can verify this. So, for all you IMs, please do not stop your good work because someone is trying outsmart you and get you out of business.
  • Do you mean block backlinks to your site from spammy sources so that you don't get penalised by Google for a bad link profile?

    I am by no means an expert on this subject, but using common sense it seems clear this won't work.

    When you say "block the offending IP address", which IP address do you mean? Blocking the IP address of the server hosting the links won't accomplish anything because when the googlebot finds the link on that server and follows it, the IP address your server sees is that of googlebot, not the source server.

    You could block the IP of googlebot but that might create some problems too

    The only method I can think of is using the http referrer to block traffic from certain sources, but I don't think that would work because AFAIK googlebot doesn't pass the http referrer

    I really don't think there's any way to stop links from other sites being scraped by google
    • [1] reply
    • It's not possible to block bad backlinks that create by people and also Google haven't ignore backlinks from the blocked host and it's websites.
  • I like the theory! Some good out of the box thinking and while it would stop visitors from hitting your site I dont think it would interrupt Googles calculation for the link =/
    • [1] reply
    • Googles calc is the one I was hoping to stop. @MatthewWoodware, you are one of the only ones that saw this topic for what it really was.

      One of the sites we now manage has a heap of bad backlinks from some previous SEO techniques. The site has plummeted in Google and we suspect it is due to some of these bad backlinks. UAW and SEO Link Vine was used to distribute spun content to gain backlinks and we are assuming that this is more than likely the cause.

      We were hoping to block access from these blogs so that the Google crawlers could no longer index the links and hopefully remove these bad backlinks from the index.
      • [2] replies
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  • I think it is possible now!! If u have a webmaster account you can get it here-- https://www.google.com/webmasters/to...vow-links-main
    • [1] reply
    • Disavow links doesn't block the links, it's why Google recommends trying to remove the links prior to ever disavowing them.

      In fact there's little evidence of anyone recovering a penalty by disavowing links. Regardless of how much misinformation is spread from disavow services.
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    Blocking bad Backlinks

    Is it possible to block bad backlinks using the .htaccess? I have read quite a few small articles relating to this. If I create a .htaccess rule for the offending IP address which returns a 403, will Google ignore backlinks from the blocked host and it's websites?