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Removing Links - Need some advice

by Paul Tovey
15 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hello All,

So, just assume that my niche consist me of one other competitor.

Edit: Just to clarify, I don't do linking, I write content only and has provided traffic and sales for me just fine. I can only assume my competitor has done something. I don't go anywhere near seo's or Fiverr and all of those websites.


Long story short:
  • Lost my Google Ranking Completly
  • Un-Natural linking warning recieved
  • '267 Domains have links to your website'
  • Most are Japenese/ Russian/ Something else

Now, what's the best way way to remove these links? I've read up about disaavow through webmaster tools, but is there a quicker way to find the links that are causing the most issue and get them removed on-masse?

I thought it would just be a case of removing all of the foreign links, but I think there may be English websites here too.
#advice #links #removing
  • Profile picture of the author PROmotions LLC
    Originally Posted by Paul Tovey View Post

    Hello All,

    So, just assume that my niche consist me of one other competitor.

    Edit: Just to clarify, I don't do linking, I write content only and has provided traffic and sales for me just fine. I can only assume my competitor has done something. I don't go anywhere near seo's or Fiverr and all of those websites.


    Long story short:
    • Lost my Google Ranking Completly
    • Un-Natural linking warning recieved
    • '267 Domains have links to your website'
    • Most are Japenese/ Russian/ Something else

    Now, what's the best way way to remove these links? I've read up about disaavow through webmaster tools, but is there a quicker way to find the links that are causing the most issue and get them removed on-masse?

    I thought it would just be a case of removing all of the foreign links, but I think there may be English websites here too.
    Lots of webmasters are having this same issue. First off, sorry about your ranking loss. It is very hard to find those crappy sites that have your link unless that link is indexed, which they usually are not, hence them being "bad links." Finding all of your sites backlinks is sort of easy when using backlink checking software, but it's never going to find every single link. Especially since your links are from foreign sites, this is going to make it even more difficult to find. If I were you, I would contact Google through their Reconsideration Request Section and let them know what is going on. There you can basically ask them to ignore ALL of your backlinks (since you don't do link building anyways)

    Hope this helps you out.
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    • Profile picture of the author Paul Tovey
      Thanks for the tip PROmotions, much appreciated!

      I'm going to keep some of the links, due to some of them being very good, Guardian etc. I can scroll through all of my links through webmaster tools and Disdavow them one at a time, any idea for a quicker method to find and Disavow?
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  • Profile picture of the author PROmotions LLC
    Google Webmaster Tools is not going to show you ALL of your links, your best bet is to just Google something like "check backlinks" or something, and run your site through a backlink checker. You can go through the list that it pops out for ones you don't like. Pretty sure there are some ones that organize it by PR and OBL and Anchor Text, here is a widly used one, (careful it's full of ads)

    Backlink Watch's Backlink Checker

    There are tons out there, this is the first one that isn't AHREF's, which is awesome, but only spits out some if you are really into checking stats and SEO stuff, a paid membership to AHREF's would be worth it.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by PROmotions LLC View Post

      It is very hard to find those crappy sites that have your link unless that link is indexed, which they usually are not, hence them being "bad links."
      If the links were not indexed, they never would have triggered an unnatural links message.

      Originally Posted by PROmotions LLC View Post

      Finding all of your sites backlinks is sort of easy when using backlink checking software, but it's never going to find every single link. Especially since your links are from foreign sites, this is going to make it even more difficult to find.
      That is also untrue. Backlink checkers do not care if a site is foreign or not.

      Originally Posted by PROmotions LLC View Post

      If I were you, I would contact Google through their Reconsideration Request Section and let them know what is going on. There you can basically ask them to ignore ALL of your backlinks (since you don't do link building anyways).
      Asking them to ignore ALL of your links is another bad idea. If you had good rankings before, and were not doing any active linkbuilding, you were probably attracting some natural links. So if you tell Google to ignore all of your links, you are losing the good ones too and probably will not recover your rankings.

      On top of that, the reconsideration request section has nothing to do with ignoring links. That is for the Disavow Tool.

      If you really want to do something, forget using some backlink checking service. If you are running WMT, it is going to provide more of your backlinks than any of those tools.

      Take your list of links from WMT and analyze those. Decide which ones are the links that are hurting you and run them through the Disavow Tool.
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  • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
    Originally Posted by Paul Tovey View Post

    Hello All,

    So, just assume that my niche consist me of one other competitor.

    Edit: Just to clarify, I don't do linking, I write content only and has provided traffic and sales for me just fine. I can only assume my competitor has done something. I don't go anywhere near seo's or Fiverr and all of those websites.


    Long story short:
    • Lost my Google Ranking Completly
    • Un-Natural linking warning recieved
    • '267 Domains have links to your website'
    • Most are Japenese/ Russian/ Something else

    Now, what's the best way way to remove these links? I've read up about disaavow through webmaster tools, but is there a quicker way to find the links that are causing the most issue and get them removed on-masse?

    I thought it would just be a case of removing all of the foreign links, but I think there may be English websites here too.
    The absolute best way is to register a new domain. Voila! All link penalties are gone and you can go again.
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    • Profile picture of the author Paul Tovey
      Thank you both, getting a new domain name would be a solution but isn't something I should need to do.

      I have a list from WMT, is there some kind of scanning facility that I can run this through to see the PR of the websites? I would imagine that i'm looking for all of the PR 0 websites.
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      • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
        Originally Posted by Paul Tovey View Post

        Thank you both, getting a new domain name would be a solution but isn't something I should need to do.

        I have a list from WMT, is there some kind of scanning facility that I can run this through to see the PR of the websites? I would imagine that i'm looking for all of the PR 0 websites.
        It might not be something 'you should need to do' but it's the only way to come back from Penguin in a reasonable time. There are almost no recovery stories using the 'Disavowal Tool.'

        The tool is actually used by Google to identify spam link sources so they can reduce their value. It is not designed to bring rankings back.

        In fact, once you remove the links that once made you rank, you don't rank.

        PR has nothing to do with whether the link is penalized or not. There's no way to know which link penalized you. In other words, this quickly becomes a 'wild goose chase.'
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        • Profile picture of the author Paul Tovey
          Interesting, is there no way to see if a domain is classed as 'Spam' or not?
          If there was, I could always run through the list on my spreadsheet.
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          • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
            Originally Posted by Paul Tovey View Post

            Interesting, is there no way to see if a domain is classed as 'Spam' or not?
            If there was, I could always run through the list on my spreadsheet.

            There is not really any simple way. Some stick out like sore thumbs. For example, if the anchor text is nothing but a bunch of Chinese symbols, I'd probably trash that.

            Other than that, I always visit each site individually and take a look for myself.
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          • Profile picture of the author PerformanceMan
            Originally Posted by Paul Tovey View Post

            Interesting, is there no way to see if a domain is classed as 'Spam' or not?
            If there was, I could always run through the list on my spreadsheet.
            This is the whole problem with this so-called 'system' from Google.

            Only they know which links they consider 'spam.' They expect you to confess to a link building crime and that you automatically know which dodgy links need to be removed.

            Once they remove the links, there's no guarantee what happens next. To me this seems like they're sending people on a wild goose chase. All the while your competitor with a new domain can run roughshod over the SERPs.
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            • Profile picture of the author paulgl
              Originally Posted by PerformanceMan View Post

              This is the whole problem with this so-called 'system' from Google.
              The problem is people keep gaming google, then pull an Alfred E. Newman...

              So, google came up with tools like disavow....completely useless, but it
              gives people something to do. Makes 'em feel better. Makes 'em
              feel better about google. Makes 'em feel like they're acomplishing something.
              Perhaps will save a few useless emails coming in.

              Hamsters in a wheel. If the hamsters would get off the wheel, google would
              not have this "system." But the hamsters keep switching cages, running the
              wheel,...

              Real webmasters know that google said real webmasters should never
              have to use such things, like disavow.

              Where are the real webmasters?

              Paul
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              If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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  • Profile picture of the author Paul Tovey
    Hello All,

    So after a few days, I give up on disavowing these links one at a time.
    It seems there is more spam coming in too! I've decided to abandon this website and start again.

    My question: Can I continue to use my host and get a new domain name or do I need to get new VPS hosting too?
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    • Profile picture of the author Paul Tovey
      Hello All,

      So after a few days, I give up on disavowing these links one at a time.
      It seems there is more spam coming in too! I've decided to abandon this website and start again.

      My question: Can I continue to use my host and get a new domain name or do I need to get new VPS hosting too?
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      • Profile picture of the author nettech4
        You can use your hosting server because all the links are pointing to your domain name only not to the hosting server or IP address (If you have a static IP address for your website). Also multiple websites are hosted in single IP address unless you have a dedicated server. So my opinion is to keep the same hosting.
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  • Profile picture of the author miamiwebcompany
    Google disavow tool is very tricky and risky. Use al your own caution.
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