12 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
12 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Disavow Links to site

by clinne
10 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi Warriors...
I'm in need of some advice about my site, I've had my site up for around 4 years and it doesn't seem to be getting anywhere fast... I was getting around 400-500 visitors a day to my site, but this has dropped to about 250-300 a day now (this recent drop happened around the end of May just before Penguin 2). It seems every time I start to build up the traffic I get knocked back and it takes many months to get back to where I was only to be knocked back again...
I've been wondering if it's the link structure to my site, so I have done a little bit of digging around in to what's been linking to me. About 80% of the links to my site are natural and I've only built or had built around 20% of them... I should say I only have around 1400 - 1600 links going to my site (depending on what I use to look at my site links with).
I'm wondering should I just disavow most of the links to my site, I'm no seo expert but I feel that the ones linking to my site are probably hurting my site in the long run.
#links #site
  • Profile picture of the author crete
    I would suggest trying link detox, it will put together a disavow list for you.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8209019].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author clinne
      Originally Posted by crete View Post

      I would suggest trying link detox, it will put together a disavow list for you.
      Thanks for the advice Crete, but I don't want to pay for a monthly subscription for a service I'll only use once, do you know of anything similar that's free to use...

      I have noticed a quite a bit of traffic coming from Russian sites when in my CPanel, I don't see any links to my site on them but there is traffic coming from there.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8210469].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author TheContentAuthority
    Cline,

    The disavow tool isn’t meant to be a casual throw-it-against-the-wall and see if it sticks kind of thing. Google doesn’t want webmasters just submitting a list of links and saying “here don’t pay attention to these because I think they may be bad”. If you do that, Google will just ignore it.

    You have to provide hard evidence supported by documentation that you tried everything in your power to get links removed from your site. In fact they would prefer that you are successful in this area first. The disavow tool is meant to be a last ditch effort to remove links that you KNOW are hurting your site’s rankings. If you don’t have any unnatural link warnings and you don’t have any evidence that there are spammy links pointed at your site, your issue is probably somewhere else.

    Best,

    Shawn
    Signature
    Outsource to the experts...

    We customize your Blog, eBook, Press Release and Sale Copy content with your message.

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8211805].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author clinne
      Originally Posted by TheContentAuthority View Post

      Cline,

      If you don't have any unnatural link warnings and you don't have any evidence that there are spammy links pointed at your site, your issue is probably somewhere else.

      Best,

      Shawn
      How would I find out what else caused the dip in traffic, I've not had any kind of link warning from Google... I've been looking at my links in the webmasters tools and see that there are not tons of blog comment links in there, so I'm a bit at a miss where to start looking...

      I have a Majestic Seo free account set up and see that I have 1273 links to the root domain of my site, and that 659 are no follow links... Looking at the anchor text the name of my website has a 7% anchor text, 6% anchor text for my name, and 4% and 3% for my keywords... but 71% for other anchor text... Would you say the percentages are acceptable, what should I be looking for...
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8211936].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author nettech4
        As the 'TheContentAuthority' says if you do not get a warning in webmaster tool, I don't think you need to disallow links to your website.
        Is that sudden drop from 500 to 250 ? May be you may lost keyword ranking for certain high traffic keywords to your website.

        Go to analytics and check whether you lost the traffic to any important landing pages on your website.
        Signature
        My Blog
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8212005].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author clinne
          Originally Posted by nettech4 View Post

          May be you may lost keyword ranking for certain high traffic keywords to your website.

          Go to analytics and check whether you lost the traffic to any important landing pages on your website.
          I have lost ranking for a number of keywords, the only thing I can think off that would cause this would be the links as this coincided with Penguin 2... If it not the links then I'm at a loss to think where else to look at...?
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8212032].message }}
          • Profile picture of the author nettech4
            Check the competitors for the keywords where you lost the ranks. Are they at the same place? May be a simple Google dance causes this and wait for a few more days.

            You have said the links at least 80% of them to your website are natural. So there is nothing wrong with the links in my point of view. There is no way a natural link can hurt a website because it is natural (links from relevant web pages that's why you got natural links).

            Have you gone through any link network ? If yes which may be detected and devalued by Google. Make sure all pages on your website are still cached.
            Signature
            My Blog
            {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8212075].message }}
            • Profile picture of the author clinne
              Originally Posted by nettech4 View Post

              Check the competitors for the keywords where you lost the ranks. Are they at the same place? May be a simple Google dance causes this and wait for a few more days.

              You have said the links at least 80% of them to your website are natural. So there is nothing wrong with the links in my point of view. There is no way a natural link can hurt a website because it is natural (links from relevant web pages that's why you got natural links).

              Have you gone through any link network ? If yes which may be detected and devalued by Google. Make sure all pages on your website are still cached.

              All my pages are still indexed, I've never used a link network... most of my competitors are still there as far as I can tell, I doubt its the Google dance as far as I can see... Maybe I just need better links to my site, I do have blog comment links to my site, some are none related sites that I had commented on...
              {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8212141].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author nettech4
    If I am in your position all I will do is to wait for a few more days (or even week) and check whether the rankings back normal. I think it is a Google dance and I don't recommend the use of disavow links without waiting enough time or proper warning in webmaster tools.
    Signature
    My Blog
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8212203].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author clinne
      Originally Posted by nettech4 View Post

      If I am in your position all I will do is to wait for a few more days (or even week) and check whether the rankings back normal. I think it is a Google dance and I don't recommend the use of disavow links without waiting enough time or proper warning in webmaster tools.

      Its looks like all my keywords have slipped some more than others, since the end of may and more so over the last few weeks... I notice that my site is attracting links which I'm not building, the funny thing is I have a tumblr page which out ranks one of my pages for a keyword and it was only built 2 weeks ago...?
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8212725].message }}

Trending Topics