Google’s sophisticated link analysis algorithm, Penguin, has run in real-time as part of Google’s core ranking algorithm since the Penguin 4.0 update in September 2016. Because it can recognize most bad links, Google’s algorithm just ignores them now rather than penalizing the sites they point to.

However, in our experience managing SEO for clients, we’ve found many cases when a low-quality link profile still hurts a website. In these cases, we must closely evaluate every link and be honest about its value to the brand.

Search engine link disavowal tools are needed in today’s link penalty environment. These tools cut ties between a site and links pointing at it that might be seen by engines as dark marks. As with all powerful tools, Google’s and Bing’s disavow tools require careful use to avoid damaging mistakes.

This guide provides steps on disavowing links for both Google and Bing and includes:

• Commentary on Google and disavowal
• How disavow files help you
• Who needs a disavow file
• Drawbacks and limitations of disavow
• How to build a disavow links file for Google
• Bing’s disavow links tool
• What’s next
• FAQ: How can I effectively disavow harmful backlinks to improve my website’s search engine rankings?

Commentary on Google and Disavowal

In 2019, Google’s John Mueller stated during a webmaster hangout that the “vast majority of sites” do not need to use the disavow tool. In line with that statement, Google did not immediately include the disavow tool as part of the new Search Console experience. However, access to the original tool was not removed.

You do not have to be working in SEO for long to realize that it’s not always wise to take Google at face value when they make such statements.

We have long found that actions Google states are unnecessary and sometimes continue to work very effectively. This isn’t because Google is trying to mislead, necessarily. But the internet is a big place, and they cannot possibly make statements that apply equally to every site.

Additionally, such statements often arise from advancements in the algorithm, such as new ways to detect bad links. These changes have allowed Google to make massive strides in bad link identification over the years. But even their technology is fallible and can be fooled.

In November 2020, almost three years after the launch of the new Search Console experience, Google finally added a new version of the disavow tool.

As you can see from the screenshots below, little has changed in the disavow tool, and the process remains largely the same.

Old Google disavow tool:

New Google disavow tool:

Our view is that disavow is still a powerful tool for SEOs, as long as it is used lightly. As one of the BCI team puts it, “You need a scalpel, not a hacksaw.”

How Disavow Files Help You

Quality backlinks are a requirement of healthy search rankings. But you can’t go far if your site is associated with off-topic or spammy inbound links. While it’s important to attract good links, removing bad ones is just as important. This is why link pruning is a critical task of SEO.

A problem arises, however, when you’re stuck with a few bad backlinks. If you can’t get them removed, and Google is not discounting them from your link profile, then how do you avoid a search engine ranking loss for these backlinks? Fortunately, both Google and Bing have an answer: each search engine has a tool for disavowing links, which means telling them the backlinks you want them to ignore.

The search engines’ disavow links tools can help your website in many ways.

First, it can improve your inbound link profile. Disavowing a low-quality backlink essentially blocks it from the search engines’ considerations. If a search engine feels that a low-quality link is dragging down your trust factor, removing that link via disavow can help your site regain some of that trust. In fact, we’ve seen that getting rid of low-quality backlinks can provide positive results in a way similar to attracting quality links to your site.

Another benefit to using the tool is the opportunity to discover negative SEO. While gathering link information, you might find artificial links pointing to your site that you did not generate. If you are indeed negatively targeted by your competition, asking nicely to remove the links may not work. While rare, negative SEO is a great example of when disavowing links can stop poor-quality links from harming your site.

Who Needs a Disavow File?

As mentioned above, Google states that most sites should not need the disavow links tool. In a Webmaster Hangout, John Mueller reiterated it this way:

That’s kind of the goal with all of this. And that’s why the disavow tool isn’t like a main feature in Search Console. You kind of have to look for it explicitly. That’s all done on purpose. Because for most sites you really don’t need to focus on links that much.

Search Console Help calls it an advanced tool and warns users to use the tool only if:

You have a considerable number of spammy, artificial, or low-quality links pointing to your site, AND The links have caused a manual action, or likely will cause a manual action, on your site.

So do you really need this tool?

The short answer: probably. (Sorry, Google.)

Why? There are many reasons disavowing links might be the right choice for you, the first of which is that few sites have a perfect link profile.

If we think of your site like a home, over the years “stuff” accumulates. You have to dedicate time to finding the things that are no longer helpful and getting rid of them. From cleaning out the gutters to decluttering the garage, we know this is a necessary maintenance task.

Websites are no different. As sites age, they can attract more junk. Also, links that once were useful may now be broken or outright dangerous. As our founder, Bruce Clay says: “Everyone has the weakest link. We all have links that we wish would go away.”

That’s why many sites today have a disavow file. While initially envisioned as a last resort, disavow tools have become a required last step in a complete link-pruning process.

Once you’ve worked to remove as many low-quality, off-topic, or spammy inbound links from your site, if you’ve found you’re stuck with a few stragglers (which is very common), the disavow links tool might be the best way for you to avoid current or future penalty.

You might also want to use the tool if you’re turning a new leaf in your SEO strategy. You or a past vendor may have consciously created unnatural backlinks in the past. Whether or not you have been penalized for these backlinks yet, you’re eager to follow the search engine’s guidelines. Using this tool helps you to get on the path of SEO best practices.

Here are other important reasons you might need to use the disavow links tool.

You know you need a disavow links file if any of the following are true:

• You receive a manual action or a Google link warning in Search Console. (Also see our 9 Tips for Getting Your Manual Link Penalty Overturned.)
• You suspect an algorithmic ranking penalty based on links.
• You believe you might be a victim of negative SEO.*

*Note: If you suspect negative SEO against your site, we strongly recommend working with an experienced SEO. Negative SEO that works is exceedingly rare. Commonly, the links cited as negative SEO are so bad that they cannot be missed. Generally, if you can easily identify spam, so can Google. We strongly recommend ruling out all other issues before determining that negative SEO has impacted your site.

Drawbacks and Limitations with Disavowing Links

If you fall into one or more of the categories mentioned above, the disavow links tool might be the best option for you. That said, there are drawbacks and limitations to disavowing links.

The biggest problem with the disavow links tools is that disavowing links may backfire on the user.

Sites may inadvertently damage their link profile during a clean-up effort. This often happens to sites with manual actions. You may be forced to prune links that still have value in the effort to appease Google. So, your site may end up getting unpenalized, but your link profile is severely depleted as a result.

For this reason, we greatly stress the importance of using search engine disavow tools with the help of a professional and even offer an SEO Penalty Assessment Service to help you.

How to Build a Disavow Links File for Google

Google’s disavow links tool requires you to submit a list of the domains and pages you wish Google to ignore when evaluating your inbound link profile.

The first step to using the Google disavow links tool is to create a .txt file. Per Google’s instructions, this file type has to be a.txt file encoded in UTF-8 or 7-bit ASCII. Within this file, list the URLs and domains you want to disavow; each domain and URL should have its own line.

To include a domain-level link in the file, add “domain:” before the URL of the domain home page (for example, “domain:shadyseo.com”).

To submit a page-level link, simply list the URL.

Add notes to each submission by starting the message with “#” on the line before the URL or domain listing.

Once you have your .txt file, you can now submit the final list to Google’s Disavow Links tool. Here’s how:

1. Sign into Google Search Console.
2. Go to https://search.google.com/search-console/disavow-links.
3. From the drop-down menu, select the website for which you are disavowing links.
4. Select “Disavow Links.”
5. Select “Choose file.”
6. Upload your .txt file.

Important: When you upload future disavow files, you must include all previously disallowed domains and URLs. Google overwrites each previous disavow file, rather than appending new data to it. Incidentally, if you have disavowed something you shouldn’t have, uploading a new file with that address omitted will remove it from your disavow list.

Pro Tip: Domain-Level Disavow

Google cautions users about the domain-level disavow because of the potential damage it can cause. However, disavowing links on the domain level can be a more thorough approach to cleaning up bad links. Commonly, domain-level disavow is used in situations where a site is generating many links or is likely to create additional unwanted links in the future. For instance, a spam directory that lists you in every county nationwide would be better blocked at the domain level. A link can be a moving target within a site, and the only way to safely extract it is by disavowing the domain as a whole.

Bing’s Disavow Links Tool

The way to use Bing’s disavow links tool is slightly different from Google’s tool because you don’t upload a .txt file. Instead, you have to manually enter each domain or URL.

1. Log into Bing Webmaster Tools.
2. Go to “Configure my site” and then select “Disavow Links.”
3. Within the Disavow Links tool, use the drop-down menu to indicate that you are disavowing a page, directory, or domain URL.
4. Enter the URL you want to disavow and click “Disavow.”
5. Your submission will be featured underneath the tool along with the date it was disavowed.
6. If you want to delete a submission, select the check box and click the “Delete” button.

For more details, see the Bing Help file for disavowing links in Bing.

What’s Next?

After you’ve submitted the links you want Google and Bing to ignore, it’s time to wait. Google says it could take weeks before it recrawls your site and “reprocesses the pages.” This might be especially frustrating if you’re waiting to recover from a certain manual or algorithmic penalty. Bing says you might not notice any dramatic changes at all! At least you can sleep a little better knowing that you’ve cleaned your house of low-quality backlinks – until, of course, it’s time to do it again.

Want some help identifying which linking sites shouldn’t be trusted? DisavowFiles.com is a free crowdsourced database and SEO tool that gives users insight into their websites’ backlinks. This tool was the buzz of SMX Advanced when we launched it because it offers data that can simplify the process of backlink evaluation and disavowal. Read more about the free DisavowFiles tool.

FAQ: How can I effectively disavow harmful backlinks to improve my website’s search engine rankings?

Backlinks, the links from other websites pointing to yours, play a pivotal role in determining your website’s search engine ranking. However, not all backlinks are beneficial. Disavowing links that originate from low-quality or spammy sources is crucial in protecting the credibility of your site, and can wreak havoc with its ranking and credibility. Here is where disavowing comes into play.

Understanding the Disavow Process

Disavowing backlinks is the strategic action of telling search engines to disregard certain links when evaluating your website. This process involves creating a disavow file, which contains a list of the harmful backlinks you want to disassociate from your site. It’s essential to approach this task with caution, as disavowing legitimate links can also harm your ranking.

Identifying Harmful Backlinks

The first step is to identify which backlinks are harmful. Utilize tools like Google Search Console and third-party backlink auditing tools to compile a list of suspicious or toxic links. Look for links from irrelevant, spammy, or low-quality websites, as well as those with over-optimized anchor text.

Creating the Disavow File

Crafting an accurate and comprehensive disavow file is vital. This file, typically a .txt document, contains a list of the harmful backlinks you want to disavow. Each link should be formatted correctly, including the domain and subdomain if necessary. Submit this file through Google’s Disavow Tool, specifying the domains or URLs you want to disavow.

Monitoring and Iterating

After submitting the disavow file, monitor your website’s performance and ranking closely. Keep in mind that the effects of disavowing might not be immediate. Regularly analyze new backlinks to ensure you catch and disavow harmful ones promptly. Additionally, periodically review your disavow file, removing entries that are no longer relevant.

Expert Insights for Effective Disavowing

Seasoned SEO practitioners often emphasize the importance of a balanced approach. While disavowing harmful links is crucial, it’s equally vital to focus on building high-quality, authoritative backlinks. Cultivate a diverse link profile by engaging in ethical link-building practices and creating valuable, shareable content.

Disavowing harmful backlinks is a meticulous yet necessary process to enhance your website’s search engine rankings. By skillfully identifying and disavowing toxic links while maintaining a strong link-building strategy, you can ensure that your website climbs the ranks while maintaining its credibility.

Step-by-Step Procedure: How to Effectively Disavow Harmful Backlinks

1. Gather Data: Use tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, or Moz to identify potentially harmful backlinks.
2. Evaluate Quality: Assess the quality of each link based on relevance, authority, and anchor text.
3. Compile List: Create a list of harmful backlinks that you want to disavow.
4. Create Disavow File: Format the list as a .txt document with each link on a separate line, preceded by “domain:” or “url:”.
5. Specify Domains: If you want to disavow an entire domain, use the “domain:” directive to cover all its URLs.
6. Use Comment Lines: Include comments in the file to document your actions and reasoning for each disavowal.
7. Submit through Google Disavow Tool: Access the Disavow Tool in Google Search Console and upload your disavow file.
8. Monitor Changes: Observe your website’s performance and rankings after the disavowal. Be patient, as results may take time.
9. Regular Backlink Audits: Conduct frequent backlink audits to catch and disavow new harmful links promptly.
10. Update Disavow File: Continuously update your disavow file by adding new harmful links and removing outdated ones.
11. Balance Link Building: Focus on building high-quality backlinks from authoritative sources to outweigh the negative impact of harmful links.
12. Create Valuable Content: Develop engaging and shareable content to attract organic, reputable backlinks.
13. Diversify Anchor Text: Use varied and natural anchor text to avoid over-optimization and penalties.
14. Build Relationships: Cultivate relationships within your industry to foster organic link-building opportunities.
15. Review Disavow Decisions: Periodically reassess your disavowal decisions to ensure you haven’t disavowed any valuable links.
16. Stay Informed: Keep up with SEO trends and search engine algorithm changes to adapt your disavow strategy.
17. Avoid Over-Disavowing: Be cautious not to disavow too many links, which can harm your site’s link profile.
18. Consult Experts: If unsure, seek advice from experienced SEO professionals before making significant disavow decisions.
19. Educate Team Members: If working in a team, ensure everyone understands the disavow process to prevent inadvertent mistakes.
20. Document Everything: Maintain records of your disavowal actions, updates to the disavow file, and their effects on your site’s performance.

The post The Complete Guide to Disavowing Links for Google and Bing appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Google has been repeating itself for years: paid links are spam. Yet an entire economy has sprung up around paid guest posting — essentially just another form of paid links.

What is the difference between selling or buying a link on a webpage and paying someone to write a webpage with the link in it? There is no difference to Google.

Yet paid article writers have been selling linked articles to the naive marketer for years. However, Google has drawn a hard line: paid guest posts are spam. And it doesn’t matter who you paid … if any fee is involved, then you are in the danger zone.

The latest developments absolutely send a clear message that paid guest posting as a way to build links will not be tolerated. And here are the lessons we’ve learned.

• Lesson 1: Guest posting services selling links are spam
• Lesson 2: Know when to tell Google about the links in guest posts
• Takeaways for guest posting

Lesson No. 1: Guest Posting Services Selling Links Are Spam

On June 3, 2020, SEMrush (a popular SEO tools SaaS company) received a tweet from Google’s John Mueller. The message? Your guest posting services are spam.

That’s an unnatural link – the kind the webspam team might take action on. https://t.co/kfQQithCnK & https://t.co/q5GmAxx2YM have more. Making sure the links use rel=nofollow / rel=sponsored would still allow sites to get visibility without having to worry about manual actions.

— John (@JohnMu) June 3, 2020

You can read more about how this came about here at Search Engine Roundtable for context. SEMrush was caught up in the turmoil because it had a service clearly called out by Google. They promptly responded to the community saying that the links through their service were not paid placements. Were the posts and included links free? Of course not — someone somehow made money.

Fantastic tool but this is incredibly concerning.https://t.co/Weo1astBPg

Feel like I’ve travelled back in time 10 years.

Sort it out @semrush

— Ryan Ogilvie (@ryanogs) June 3, 2020

Exactly who did not receive payments? No one can argue there wasn’t some form of payment involved.

Looking at Google’s advice on steering clear of link schemes, we can see some examples here of what to avoid. In Mueller’s tweet to SEMrush, he pointed to this article on links in large-scale article campaigns.

Some relevant excerpts from that article include:

Google does not discourage these types of articles in the cases when they inform users, educate another site’s audience or bring awareness to your cause or company. However, what does violate Google’s guidelines on link schemes is when the main intent is to build links in a large-scale way back to the author’s site. …

For websites creating articles made for links, Google takes action on this behavior because it’s bad for the Web as a whole. When link building comes first, the quality of the articles can suffer and create a bad experience for users.

It’s pretty clear that Google does not want people or businesses to manipulate their rankings using links on paid guest posts. That’s due to the long history of guest posting as a way to extend and disguise link spam.

If Google does not take action to curb link spam, then pretty soon the first page of results will go to those that have the most money to buy guest posts instead of those worthy of ranking. Sounds like a breach of trust to me.

Ultimately, SEMrush decided to rethink its guest posting service and sent out a message to its community about it.

At the end of the day, this is not about pointing the finger at SEMrush, but about the lessons we can continue to learn about guest posting and link spam. SEMrush, like many, I think just got caught up in the moment and the fact that Google was quiet about it for so long. Now the signal is clear.

So this first lesson is understanding what link spam is.

I talked about this in a recent article on guest posting and manual penalties. It’s not just the people who are placing paid guest posts that should be aware of link spam. Websites that accept guest posts stand to suffer the most from Google penalties on their websites.

Back in 2017 (link earlier), Google said:

Sites accepting and publishing such articles should carefully vet them, asking questions like: Do I know this person? Does this person’s message fit with my site’s audience? Does the article contain useful content? If there are links of questionable intent in the article, has the author used rel=”nofollow” on them?

Add:

• Am I getting a fee? If yes, then it’s spam.
• Am I paying for placement? If yes, then it’s spam.
• Is this a link I would normally use and support? If no, then spam.

That brings us to our next lesson about paid guest posting and link spam: How to actually handle the links.

Lesson No. 2: Know When to Tell Google About the Links in Guest Posts

On June 3 and then again on June 11, 2020, John Mueller described how people should be handling links in guest posts: “nofollow” or the newer attribute, ”sponsored”:

@JohnMu Since your recent tweet with SEMrush, it would be good to get total clarity, as there now seems to be a lot of confusion around.

We all know, ‘paying’ for a guest post is against the guidelines BUT what about guest posting in general, where no money changes hands?

— Mark Preston (@MarkPreston1969) June 11, 2020

Mueller followed up in the same thread, clarifying a little bit:

Essentially if the link is within the guest post, it should be nofollow, even if it’s a “natural” link you’re adding there.

FWIW none of this is new, and I’m not aware of any plans to ramp up manual reviews of this. We catch most of these algorithmically anyway.

— John (@JohnMu) June 13, 2020

In typical Google fashion, the message is not 100% clear. One would assume that he meant that we were to disclose to Google the links pointing to the guest poster’s website.

But his message seems to say all links, even if they are “natural” (which could mean links to supporting research, too).

I assume he is doing this to make it easy for guest posters not to intentionally or unintentionally have spam links. If you “nofollow” all links, you have less of a chance of harming the site.

There are plenty of people who disagree with Google’s latest suggestion. Is it that big of a deal to go ahead and comply by using those attributes? Not really. Because even with those attributes, Google is likely to figure out more about the links on its own.

In March of this year, Google began treating these attributes (“nofollow” and “sponsor”) as merely “hints” when considering the links they are applied to. But a hint of what? A hint that you are probably selling links?

From its announcement of this change back in September 2019:

When nofollow was introduced, Google would not count any link marked this way as a signal to use within our search algorithms. This has now changed. All the link attributes — sponsored, UGC and nofollow — are treated as hints about which links to consider or exclude within Search. We’ll use these hints — along with other signals — as a way to better understand how to appropriately analyze and use links within our systems.

Why not completely ignore such links, as had been the case with nofollow? Links contain valuable information that can help us improve search, such as how the words within links describe content they point at. Looking at all the links we encounter can also help us better understand unnatural linking patterns. By shifting to a hint model, we no longer lose this important information, while still allowing site owners to indicate that some links shouldn’t be given the weight of a first-party endorsement.

In other words, as Danny Sullivan at Google mentioned in a tweet, using these attributes is now a way to send more granular signals to Google (which, of course, is good for Google and some say not so good for others). But a signal of what? A signal that you are probably selling links?

And then Google can determine whether the link is good and will count, or if it’s a paid link and spam that will hurt the site.

And there remains the issue. According to the FTC, this may be an advertorial and it needs to be clearly identified as a paid page. I really think this is an entirely new blog post, so I only mention it here.

Takeaways for Guest Posting

So what’s the takeaway for a business that wants to guest post? Do it for reasons other than link building. Do it for traffic and users.

If you want to contribute content as a way to add value to a community, that is fine. But don’t expect it to build quality links or boost your website’s authority.

A better strategy is building links to your site by creating great content published on your own site. As I wrote in that post:

You want to build authority and you need links. But there are good links, bad links and downright ugly links. The good links you earn naturally by creating great content on your site that people want to link to. The bad or ugly links are usually those that come out of a “link building” program.

If you’re a website publisher who is accepting guest posts, create guest post guidelines that meet Google Webmaster Guidelines. If a link in the article is off-topic, the quality of the linking site (i.e., yours) will likely suffer.

Only accept posts that don’t diminish your website’s expertise, authority and trust. And make sure you and an SEO pro review all posts before publishing.

Only accept guest posts that you wish you had written. Otherwise, consider them poison.
Click To Tweet

When in doubt, it’s a good practice to use a “nofollow” or “sponsor” attribute on relevant links in guest posts.

But keep in mind that Google may catch spam links anyway:

The other thing is that because this is so old, we have a lot of training data for our algorithms. I wouldn’t be surprised if the largest part of those links are just ignored automatically. If all that work is for ignored links, why not just do something useful instead?

— John (@JohnMu) June 14, 2020

This is something I talked about in my article on guest posting and manual penalties:

In most cases, “nofollow” is a hint to Google. But on Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) pages like news, finance, health and so on (see the list in Google’s guidelines), Google may ignore “nofollow” entirely. In other words, if you have a spam link on a YMYL website, consider yourself open to more scrutiny by Google and potential penalties.

Also, have you ever gotten an email telling you about all the wonderful sites you can get a paid guest post on? Think about it: Who owns Gmail? Do you really think Google does not know who is manipulating the link landscape and the sites to ignore?

I think that selling high domain authority (DA/DR) posts for the value of the links where Google probably ignores the links is unethical.

So does that mean every single link in a guest post needs to have “nofollow” or “sponsored”? If you want to be safe and are unsure, yes. The reader cannot tell if the link is followed or not, so making them all nofollow is a viable choice.

But for those who are savvier when it comes to the nature of link spam, you can make the call on which links should have which attributes.

As a reminder, here is Google’s help file on qualifying your outbound links.

Note: If you receive guest blog post spam requests, you can report them to Google as “paid links” webspam.

Closing Thought

Remember Penguin? Now think about what happens when (not if) Google rolls over onto paid guest blogging.

I am imagining a world where, like the Penguin penalty, Google marks paid guest posts as spam. Not simply a zero value, but rather a hard loss of rankings that takes websites years to recover from.

Google does not want link manipulation by any means. What would you do if you were Google trying to protect your product?

If you need help deciding on the most effective ways to increase your website traffic and revenue, contact us today for a free quote and consultation.

The post Paid Guest Posting: More Proof That It’s Bad for Business appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Several years ago, when the Penguin algorithm update hit target spam links, link penalties were at the center of most conversations in the SEO community.

But then things got quiet. When Penguin rolled into the core algorithm in 2016, Google said it would devalue spam links rather than demote sites. But that didn’t mean manual penalties would go away:

Conversation on Facebook with Googler Gary Illyes

Fast-forward a few years, and we are still hearing about manual link penalties (albeit not as often). Just recently, however, the SEO community has reported manual link penalties related to guest posts.

This article in Search Engine Journal (SEJ) in February reported a manual penalty against a page that Google believed contained a link that violated its guidelines.

From what I gathered from the report, there was a link with branded anchor text within a guest post without a nofollow that was possibly a paid placement.

Here was the manual-action message from Google, as reported in the article at SEJ:

Manual action message from Google, originally published on Search Engine Journal

In a conversation about this article on LinkedIn, someone accurately pointed out:

Also in February, Alan Bleiweiss reported a client’s manual link penalty, suggesting it had to do with guest posts as well:

And a client just got slapped with an unnatural outbound link penalty. This is the price you pay when you allow “guest posts” without proper due diligence, or without ensuring your site is not exposed to shady tactics.

— Alan Bleiweiss (@AlanBleiweiss) February 15, 2020

To be clear, these penalties are not likely against guest posts per se. They are against the same types of links that Google has said are unacceptable for years. But that doesn’t mean website publishers can adopt a laissez-faire attitude towards guest content.

As a reminder, these are the kinds of links that Google doesn’t want you to have. And just because Penguin devalues links versus demoting sites, we are not in the clear. Manual actions still exist, and they can deeply impact a business.

The following video with former Googler Fili Wiese published in March 2020 discusses these manual actions further:

Wiese said in this video:

So the key thing with manual actions is that when you have one applied to your website, that pretty much stops the growth potential of your website … the manual action, while it is applied to your website, means you can’t grow further and your competitors potentially could.

He added that these things need to be resolved but that once you resolve it, you may not necessarily regain your former rankings.

That leaves us again at a crossroads when accepting guest posts. For many websites, guest posts are a beneficial way to add expertise and depth to their site on a variety of topics that an audience would want to read about.

But website publishers beware: Scrutinize guest posts in the same way you would scrutinize your own quality content. That means creating guest post guidelines that meet Google Webmaster Guidelines and accepting posts that don’t diminish your website’s expertise, authority and trust.

As part of the guest posting process, submitted posts need to be carefully reviewed with both an editorial eye and SEO expertise before being published.

So what if you are hit by a manual action for guest posts or other content and links?

First, do what Google tells you to do in the message you have received from them right away.

If you need more information, Google gives instructions on how to remedy manual actions and what to expect (with a section specifically on spammy outbound links) here. And this classic video by Matt Cutts is still helpful:

Sometimes, people are confused about whether they should remove the link or add a “nofollow” attribute. It’s easy to see how this confusion can happen. In the Google manual action screenshot shared earlier, it first says to remove the links; then it says to remove or use “nofollow.”

In most cases, “nofollow” is a hint to Google. But on Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) pages like news, finance, health, and so on (see the list in Google’s guidelines), Google may ignore “nofollow” entirely.

In other words, if you have a spam link on a YMYL website, consider yourself open to more scrutiny by Google and potential penalties.

As for paid link placements on your site, Google’s advice now is to apply rel=”sponsored” attributes.

Concerned about your website’s performance in Google Search? We can help you with that. Contact us today.

FAQ: What are the consequences of manual link penalties for my website?

Manual link penalties imposed by search engines like Google can severely affect websites. These penalties are typically the result of violations of search engine guidelines, particularly those related to manipulative link-building practices. Understanding the repercussions of these penalties is crucial for webmasters and SEO practitioners seeking to maintain and improve their online presence.

The Impact on Search Engine Rankings

When a website incurs a manual link penalty, its search engine rankings often plummet. Search engines seek to maintain quality and relevancy within their search results by penalizing websites that engage in link schemes or spammy tactics, including link spamming. In such instances, websites could lose their desired positions on search engine result pages (SERPs). This reduces organic traffic and diminishes the visibility of your brand or content.

Erosion of User Trust

Beyond the immediate SEO repercussions, manual link penalties can erode the trust of your website’s visitors. Users have become more adept and wary regarding online activities, leading them to consider your website untrustworthy if penalized due to manipulative link practices. This loss of faith could result in decreased user engagement, reduced conversion rates, and an online reputation, which will be difficult to regain.

Recovery Strategies

Recovering from a manual link penalty is a complex process that requires diligence and adherence to search engine guidelines. Recovery requires identifying and disavowing damaging backlinks, improving or removing low-quality content, and submitting a reconsideration request with search engines. Recovery times vary greatly depending on how severe a penalty was assessed and your remediation efforts’ success in mitigating it.

Manual link penalties can profoundly affect your website, affecting its search engine rankings, user trust, and overall online performance. To mitigate these risks, it’s essential to maintain a clean and ethical approach to link-building and promptly address any issues if you do receive a penalty. Doing so can protect your website’s integrity and ensure its success in the digital landscape.

Step-by-Step Procedure: How to Address Manual Link Penalties

1. Identify the Penalty: Begin by confirming if your website has incurred a manual link penalty. Check your Google Search Console account for notifications or messages regarding penalties.
2. Audit Backlinks: Conduct a thorough audit of your website’s backlink profile using tools like Ahrefs or Moz to identify low-quality or spammy links.
3. Disavow Harmful Links: Create a disavow file containing the URLs of harmful backlinks and submit it to Google through the Disavow Tool in Google Search Console.
4. Remove Toxic Links: Reach out to webmasters of websites hosting harmful links and request removal. Document your efforts for future reference.
5. Improve Content: Review and enhance the quality of your website’s content, ensuring it complies with search engine guidelines.
6. Submit a Reconsideration Request: Craft a detailed reconsideration request explaining your actions to rectify the issues. Be transparent and honest in your communication.
7. Monitor Progress: Continuously monitor your website’s performance in search results and user engagement metrics to gauge the effectiveness of your efforts.
8. Patience and Persistence: Understand that recovery can take time. Be patient and persistent in your efforts to regain search engine trust.
9. Avoid Future Penalties: Implement ethical link-building practices and maintain a clean backlink profile to prevent future penalties.
10. Regular Audits: Periodically audit your backlinks and content to ensure ongoing compliance with search engine guidelines.
11. Stay Informed: Stay updated with search engine algorithm changes and guidelines to adapt your SEO strategy accordingly.
12. Quality Over Quantity: Prioritize high-quality content and natural link acquisition methods over shortcuts that could lead to penalties.
13. User Trust Restoration: Rebuild user trust by consistently delivering valuable, reliable content and engaging with your audience authentically.
14. Monitor User Feedback: Monitor user feedback and reviews to address any concerns promptly.
15. Rebuild Brand Reputation: Use positive online reputation management to counter negative perceptions.
16. Measure Success: Continually measure the success of your recovery efforts through SEO metrics and user feedback.
17. Educate Your Team: Ensure your team is educated on SEO best practices and the consequences of manipulative link-building tactics.
18. Maintain Transparency: Be transparent with stakeholders, clients, or partners about any past penalties and your recovery efforts.
19. Seek Professional Help: Consider consulting with SEO experts or agencies if you face challenges in penalty recovery.
20. Adapt and Evolve: Stay adaptable in your SEO strategy, as search engine algorithms and guidelines may change over time.

The post Yep, Manual Link Penalties Still Happen and It’s Your Job to Regulate Guest Posts appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

DisavowFiles is a free, crowdsourced project. Upload your disavow files to the database and see what domains linking to yours have been disavowed by others, in turn. It’s a community project that everyone is invited to participate in to put the power of disavow transparency back into SEOs’ hands.

There’s been lots to learn along the way.

Since release, we’ve captured a lot of data. To date there are:

• 1,840,287,252,622 disavowed URLs
• 13,997,396 disavowed domains

This is a lot of data from the SEO community, so we thought we’d say thank you by sharing some crucial information about the disavow files that have been uploaded.

Enjoy!*

Top 10 Domain Wide Disavows

The following are the top ten domain wide disavows across all disavow files that were submitted.

1. http://prlog.ru
2. http://topalternate.com
3. http://askives.com
4. http://m.biz
5. http://the-globe.com
6. http://theglobe.net
7. http://theglobe.org
8. http://stuffgate.com
9. http://webstatsdomain.org
10. http://dig.do
11. http://mrwhatis.net

Top 20 URL Level Disavows

The following are the top twenty URL-level disavows across all disavow files.

1. http://prlog.ru
2. http://topalternate.com
3. http://similarpages.com
4. http://askives.com
5. http://vnseo.com
6. http://stuffgate.com
7. http://webstatsdomain.org
8. http://findeen.co.uk
9. http://botw.org
10. http://boxwind.com
11. http://wopular.com
12. http://popular.jp0.ru
13. http://ppfinder.com
14. http://busi-wiki.com
15. http://siterow.com
16. http://5go.cc
17. http://webstats7.net
18. http://trafficip.com
19. http://keywordslanding.net
20. http://ygaskme.com

Top 15 Disavowed IPs

The following are the top fifteen disavowed IPs:

1. 72.55.178.202
2. 184.168.143.37
3. 173.201.142.193
4. 67.222.20.174
5. 206.225.0.82
6. 108.160.146.227
7. 176.9.87.30
8. 78.46.68.41
9. 78.46.0.68
10. 72.55.190.165
11. 67.228.16.66
12. 67.222.19.62
13. 208.100.7.226
14. 173.193.5.161
15. 140.113.239.106

Most Disavowed ccTLDs (Domain Level)

The following are most disavowed ccTLDs on the domain-wide level:

1. .com
2. .net
3. .info
4. .ru
5. .uk
6. .pl
7. .de
8. .biz
9. .nl
10. .us

Most Disavowed ccTLDs (URL Level)

The following are most disavowed ccTLDs on the URL level:

1. .com
2. .net
3. .uk
4. .info
5. .pl
6. .de
7. .au
8. .cn
9. .ru
10. .nl

Good Sites People Disavowed

Sometimes good links can get listed on a disavow file, and that’s dangerous according to Google.

"Disavowing links from sites like CNN is batshit stupid" – Wise words from Gary Illyes #BrightonSEO

— Lian (@li4n) September 15, 2017

Below is the number of times people disavowed non-malicious sites like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

Obviously our data doesn’t include everything out there on the web, but it is still interesting to see what people are disavowing.

What’s Next for Disavow Files?

Googler Gary Illyes recommends judicious use of disavow files, saying that disavows can directly impact SEO.

"If it makes you feel better, use the disavow tool. Be mindful that is a very powerful tool. " @methode #brightonseo

— Aleyda Solis (@aleyda) September 15, 2017

We hope you will use the tool to gather insight on your disavow data and provide intelligence to the community. Upload your disavow files at DisavowFiles.com.

*Disclaimer: This article is not an instructional piece giving information about which sites to disavow. Our only aim is to provide the SEO community with insight about the common tendencies of disavow files. Bruce Clay, Inc. recommends that all the domains you elect to disavow be reviewed and approved by an SEO expert prior to submitting to search engines. For further direction or assistance, please see our Complete Guide to Disavowing Links for Google and Bing or consider our SEO Penalty Assessment Service.

The post What Are the Most Frequently Disavowed Domains, URLs, IPs and ccTLDs? DisavowFiles.com appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Big news in the world of search this morning. Google released a major update to its link analyzing algorithm, Penguin, today. This latest update is the long-anticipated upgrade that will help sites previously penalized by Penguin get out from under the SEO shadow of spammy paid links.

If you’re an SEO services or penalty assessment client of Bruce Clay, Inc., expect to hear from your analyst with a Penguin Update impact report ASAP.

The announcement was made by Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes this morning on the Google Webmaster Blog.

As the fourth significant enhancement since its initial launch in 2012, Penguin 4.0’s most noteworthy upgrades include:

1. Real-time data refreshes as part of the core ranking algorithm and
2. A more granular approach to the way it filters spam.

Bruce Clay, Inc.’s VP Duane Forrester‘s response to the Penguin update? “About time! But now the real work for many begins. Those working hard on managing their link profiles or cleaning up old link building programs have reason to be optimistic. Those thinking old tactics will still work are about to fall on hard times.”

What a Real-Time Update Means

“With this change, Penguin’s data is refreshed in real time, so changes will be visible much faster, typically taking effect shortly after we recrawl and reindex a page,” writes Illyes.

With real-time data refreshes, Penguin becomes part of Google’s core algorithm, which “also means we’re not going to comment on future refreshes.”

We turned to Duane again for comment: “A real-time factoring of link quality into the mix means as soon as they see it, they decide. Everything is on the fly, so it’s the algo at work here, making the call on good, bad and ugly as it sees links. If you’re still thinking buying links works, you’d better be careful. Those days are behind us.”

What a Granular Filter Means

In his blog post, Illyes writes: “Penguin is now more granular. Penguin now devalues spam by adjusting ranking based on spam signals, rather than affecting ranking of the whole site.”

SEO industry news outlet Search Engine Land requested further comment from Google on what “granular” means in this context.

Previously, Penguin was a sitewide penalty. So, does being “more granular” mean that it’s now page-specific? Yes and no, it seems. We asked Google for more clarity about this, and we were told: “It means it affects finer granularity than sites. It does not mean it only affects pages.”

More Answers on the Penguin Update

Illyes took to Twitter to answer SEOs’ questions about the latest Penguin update.

On how many pages are affected by the Penguin Update:

@emerikusz_ we don’t have a number to share. The number is never stable with realtime algorithms: today it may be 1, tomorrow 42

— Gary Illyes (@methode) September 23, 2016

On whether the roll-out of Penguin is complete:

@dr_pete it will never be “complete” for a recrawl+reindex may change its effect on pages any time.

— Gary Illyes (@methode) September 23, 2016

On how manual actions are now handled:

@SEO @JohnMu yes, manual actions haven’t changed with this launch

— Gary Illyes (@methode) September 23, 2016

On the utility of disavowed links in the link pruning process:

@BruceClayInc we haven’t changed our recommendations for the disavow tool with this launch

— Gary Illyes (@methode) September 26, 2016

SEO power tip: Visit DisavowFiles.com for a free tool to check your disavowed links against more than a trillion other disavowed links.

Stay tuned as we learn more on how Penguin 4.0 is affecting our clients’ sites.

The post The Long-Anticipated Real-Time Penguin Is Live appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

The quick version: This time, the search engine targeted sites linking out because the links looked like an attempt to boost the destination site’s rankings in search results. Google took action by devaluing all of the linking site’s links as untrustworthy.

Granted, we saw this coming as an SEO services company that’s successfully mitigated countless penalties for clients. But here’s why this outbound link penalty shouldn’t have surprised anyone paying attention.

Warning Signs That Penalties Loomed

Just a few weeks before the penalties came down, Google noted that those receiving compensation for things such as product reviews needed to take steps to call out any links from their site to the product site, page, or supplier.

In a Webmaster Blog post, Google spelled out exactly how to disclose such a relationship, when to use a nofollow tag, and so on — items that are already clearly explained in the guidelines. That was a clear warning sign that a crackdown was coming.

At a more basic level, disclosure is also covered by federal law. In the U.S., Federal Trade Commission guidelines require businesses and individuals to identify when they have been compensated for a review, whether that’s through payment or just free products, for example.

All in all, this outbound link penalty shouldn’t have caught anyone unawares.

Overreacting Can Hurt Your Website

Here’s what is surprising: the reaction of some websites to simply nofollow ALL links across their website. (For those not up on SEO lingo, “nofollowing” a link means applying a “nofollow” attribute to the link tag.)

Such a drastic move is an attempt to avoid any problem with Google in the quickest way possible.

Unfortunate reality check: By “nofollowing” all outbound links, webmasters simply create other issues for themselves.

In fact, when he saw this happening last week, Google’s John Mueller posted this urgent advice in a Webmaster Help Forum: “There’s absolutely no need to nofollow every link on your site!” (source: The SEM Post).

The Appropriate Reaction to a Penalty

First, check your messages in Google Search Console to find out if your site received a manual action for outbound linking. If you were penalized, then the best solution is to call out things naturally. For example, wherever you’ve linked to a product you’re reviewing, you should:

• Explain in the article the relationship with the company supplying the item to be reviewed.
• State the circumstances (full disclosure).
• Add rel=”nofollow” to links to the product supplier within the article itself. Many plugins exist for the popular CMS’s to enable on-the-fly editing of nofollow on links at the article/publishing level.

Search engines see the internet as a connected entity. If you suddenly nofollow all of your outbound links, then it makes your site appear reclusive. It also hurts the sites you’re linking to that are natural links, relevant to your subject matter, and qualified to receive your vote of confidence.

There is simply no logic behind cutting off all link equity flowing out of your site, and we highly recommend avoiding this action.

Instead, you need to take legitimate actions to clean up the problem. There are no shortcuts here.

It will pay dividends for any website to be clear about why they are linking to other pages across the web.

Taking time to review your outbound links is good business. Over time, things change, so a page you linked to several years ago may be entirely different in its focus today.

Domains are bought, sold, and then expire, only to then later be purchased, parked, and plastered with ads.

While these normal activities and link-location changes have always been factored into the search engine algorithms, it’s never too late to ensure you’re linking to — and thus sending your patrons to — quality web pages at relevant, related websites.

After you review your outbound links and nofollow the ones that are unnatural, you can submit a reconsideration request to get back into Google’s good graces.

A Sign of Penguin?

A final point to keep in mind. In the past, we’ve seen minor moves like this ahead of more major updates by Google.

Remember that Penguin we’re all waiting to be updated? We’re not willing to say definitively that this outbound link penalty action is the precursor to a Penguin refresh (as many have predicted already).

However, the fact remains that when the teams are working on one portion of the algorithm, the rest is often close at hand. There can be economies of timing when making algo updates, from the search engine’s perspective. So don’t be surprised if the refresh we’ve been waiting for is near.

The post Google’s Outbound Link Penalties: How to React without Overreacting appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

In April 2012, Penguin made its first flaps in the Google algorithm. Since that time, the SEO industry has developed stringent best practices around link building, also called link acquisition or link earning, as well as for backlink auditing and SEO penalty removal. This SMX East session titled “Link Auditing & Best Practices for Acquiring Authoritative Links” starts with timeless methods to attract quality relevant links through content marketing. The speakers then lay out the backlink auditing process and recommend critical tools for link research and removal.

Moderator: Alex Bennert, SEO Consultant, Independent (@alexbennert)

Spotlight sponsor: Bruce Clay, Founder and President, Bruce Clay, Inc. (@bruceclayinc)

Speakers:

• Eric Enge, CEO, Stone Temple Consulting (@stonetemple)
• Megan Geiss, Director, Marketing Strategy, Merkle | RKG (@MeganGeiss)
• Sha Menz, Penalty Recovery Specialist, rmoov.com (@ShahMenz)

Bruce Clay kicks off the session on link building and auditing by explaining how we can crowdsource disavow files. We give Google our disavow files and have no idea if our links have been disavowed, or if we our own site and links have been disavowed. As individuals and as an industry, we can collectively empower ourselves to get all that info we give Google. Users of DisavowFiles can tell if someone is linking to you with a link that’s been disavowed. It’s a tool designed for the Bruce Clay, Inc. SEO analysts and it’s free for all to use.

BCI launched the tool at SMX Advanced in June. Here are statistics of DisavowFiles users and how many disavowed links are included in the DisavowFiles database so far (about 4 months). Check your domain with the external lookup tool at DisavowFiles.com to see if your pages have been disavowed now!

Eric Enge: How to Excel at Content Marketing or, How Can I Get Me Some?

Content marketing is a way to build SEO value, as well as overall reputation and visibility online.

Little known fact: He had brain surgery in 2003. It’s a long story, it’s all fine, and 100% fixed.

So, how does content marketing drive SEO? There are a number of myths:

• Links are no longer important.
• Primary focus should be on links.
• Social links drive SEO.
• All my links need to go to money pages.
• All I need to do is publish great content.
• Content marketing is too crowded.

Content marketing goals:

• Build your reputation.
• Grow your visibility.
• Grow your audience.
• Yes, get some links, too.

Why links are secondary:

• Reduces your risk of Google penalties.
• It’s about the ecosystem.
• The ecosystem is about relationships.
• Focusing on links strains relationships.
• The content marketing approach gets the best links, anyway.

Today’s environment online is an ecosystem.

You should be reaching out to media, influencers, bloggers, and your audience.

The basic mechanics of content marketing:

1. Publish great content on your site.

Great content … it’s important to understand that great content is non-commercial content that is designed to help people. Good content isn’t good enough. It has to be 10X content — way better than what’s already in the space. [Editor’s note: See our liveblog of Rand Fishkin’s Pubcon keynote for an explanation of 10X content.]

Links pass value via a bank shot:

The other thing that great content does is enable offsite opportunities. Studies allow for related guest posts on third-party sites, such as interviews for major media publications.

2. Publish great content on third-party sites.

You have a bit of control over where you want links to go. Publishing on third-party sites gets you exposure to other networks. Some people who view your content there wander over to your site and you build your audience. Links to your guest post make the links back to your site more valuable.

Working the Ecosystem

Social media links are nofollow. The links from social media sites don’t directly help you.

Another point — do people always read the articles they share? This graph says no. Content with high social activity had low read time, and high read time articles have low social activity. This explains why search engines don’t put much value in social signals.

What social media CAN do is drive links indirectly. You get traffic, links and new subscribers through content shared on social media.

Social media sharing can build your audience. Larger audiences increase visibility. More visibility through influencers, more media, and larger secondary audiences happen through social media sharing.

Enge recommends ways to build relationships with influencers:

• Read everything they write.
• Follow them on social media.
• Start interacting.
• Don’t pitch them; be patient.
• Wait until they start to notice you.
• Then you can suggest ways to collaborate.

Bottom line with influencers: It’s not about you but about what value you can add to them. Sometimes that value is simple, but you need to figure out how to start engaging with them. Don’t pitch yourself. Wait until they start noticing you.

How do you create content that stands out?

It’s not that there’s too much content. It’s that there’s too little high quality content.

1. Leverage a megabrand. Megabrands may partner with you because they don’t have the budget, focus, subject matter experts, they can’t make the business case, and you may be faster moving.

2. Invest more. Best Made (bestmadeco.com) invested more in Instagram. Find a vertical area to focus on one brand theme. Then invest more in that area than others do.
3. Be unique. Seventh Generation pushes an eco-friendly theme. If you go to their website, they push eco-friendly at a strong level. Their home page gives the appearance of a blog. Find a vertical concept that you can lead. Focus your content on that concept. Develop the subject matter expertise. Engage and build followings around that area and establish a leadership role.
4. Get the early mover advantage. When a new social network starts, jump in. The risk is that the new platform won’t take off. But the potential reward means you can be the big star of the platform before anyone else is there.
5. Promote better. This is the basics. Use best practices like attention-grabbing titles, compelling images, leveraging influencers and doing follow-on content.
6. Work harder. Do something that others won’t. Take one thing and work harder on that. Leverage data others haven’t, go deep.

Megan Geiss: Link Practices Keeping You Out of Jail

Is it Penguin or a manual action?

• Penguin: Usually there’s a significant drop in traffic that is not due to other site architectural or crawling issues.
• Manual action: You should see a notification in Google Search Console.

Link Audit Process

• Gather all backlinks: Get the most comprehensive list. No one source will give you all your backlinks. Don’t use only one source. Then de-dupe the list. Use tools like:
  • Google Analytics referral anomalies
  • Google Webmaster Tools
  • Bing Webmaster Tools
  • Opensiteexplorer.org
  • Mine the SERPs
  • Majestic SEO
  • SEMRush
  • Ahrefs
• Rank by quality: This is the first pass. Majestic lets you filter by Citation Flow and Trust Flow. Kerboo (formerly LinkRisk) and DisavowFiles flag you to suspect links.
• Analysis: This is the most time consuming step. You don’t want to get rid of all your links, so you manually evaluate the master list. When you’re analyzing, look at quality metrics, referring domains, C-blocks, anchor text. A lot of links with the same anchor text to the same place is a huge red flag. You may also look at the geo-location of links; for instance, if the top-referring international domain is from Malaysia — does that make sense for your business? Highlight Citation Flow and Trust Flow via Majestic.
• Outreach for removal requests: Gather contact info for the identified removal targets. Make a minimum of two outreach attempts. Document all communication. You most often don’t get a response. If payment is requested, document it.
• Follow up.
• Disavow tool: After you’ve reached out to the linking site’s webmaster and gotten no reply, you have a way to tell Google that you want to be disassociated with the website. There are specific things you should know, including the file type, one URL per line, and whether you want to disavow whole domains or specific URLs. Avoid mistakes such as disavowing everything or disavowing “just enough.” Don’t overwrite your previous disavow file without including all your older disavowed links.
• Reconsideration request.

Sha Menz: Penguin Wars

She goes to war with rampaging penguins. She recommends thinking about some of the interesting things that Eric Enge was just saying about how to naturally acquire links.

In case you think you only want to build good links, know that the smartest people listen to the best experts. Actively disavow and remove low quality stuff, because otherwise it’s there dragging down your good links.

Google has been talking about building Penguin into the core algorithm for a long time. [See Bruce Clay’s interview with Gary Illyes in September 2015.]  Whenever it happens, just be prepared so that the Penguin doesn’t get you.

Look at high-risk links, which are not relevant, obviously scaled and repeated, manipulative or SEO-focused in intent. Menz recommends Spamflag’s http://www.spamflag.com/link-identification-guide as the ultimate guide to manipulative links.

If you think you found the next great trick to fool Google — that’s a bad idea.

Examples: Links in Exchange for Promotion

• Rap Genius is an example of asking for links in exchange for promotion. If they purely promoted people rather than making it for links, that’s when it went wrong.
• Thumbtack tried to gamify link acquisition. Gamification in a community can naturally earn links because it’s something shareable that people want to promote. They could have done it right by not explicitly asking for links.

If you can sell it, it isn’t natural.

Disavow files work. The disavow tool has multiple uses: actively managing negative SEO, trust management, and penalty resolution. However, there are some pitfalls you need to be aware of.

Beware of site variants:

If you’re only seeing one variant of a site, you may never see notification of a manual action.

Here’s a tip from Maile Ohye (of Google): Disavow is canonical.

More Tips for Using Disavow

• Don’t update your disavow file without adding the old and new information. Otherwise, you lose your previous disavow list.
• Beware of comment bloat, which could put you over the 2 MB file size limit. Comments in your disavow file should be for your own information.
• Heads up! Don’t disavow IP addresses unless you have absolutely no other option. The best practice is to disavow entire domains, although there are some edge cases for which you might want to do URL-level disavowal.
• Disdit.com is another crowdsourced tool that searches a disavow files database.
• If Google’s cache has updated, the disavow file is processed.
• Don’t think of disavow as a temporary fix.
• Know that disavowed links won’t be removed from the Google Search Console.

On using Trust Flow:

Don’t use Citation Flow or Trust Flow as a direct metric. Rather, divide TF by CF and locate links that are under a threshold.

One final point to remember before disavowing or requesting link removal: Check your analytics and don’t remove high referrers.

The post Link Auditing and Best Practices for Acquiring Authoritative Links – #SMX Liveblog appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

“Please share a post about how to classify good and bad quality links.”
–blog commenter Mike Jone, July 25, 2015

Backlink analysis is a much-needed skill today. Our SEO analysts spend hours analyzing backlinks for clients — whether they come to us specifically for help removing a Google penalty or not.

Let’s dive into the details of effective SEO link building and analysis. Here’s a handy Backlink Evaluation Flowchart you can refer to when doing backlink analysis and cleanup. (Click to open it full size.)

Share this infographic on your site

<p><strong>Please include attribution to Bruceclay.com with this graphic.</strong></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <p><a href=’http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/backlink-analysis/’><img src=’http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Backlink-Evaluation-Flowchart-452×1024.png’ alt=’Backlink Evaluation Flowchart’ width=’600px’ border=’0′ /></a></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <p>

Overview of the Backlink Eval Process

These days, all webmasters need to keep an eye on their backlink profiles to identify good links to count as wins and bad ones to target for link pruning. Here we’ve outlined our internal process for analyzing SEO client backlinks to judge which links to keep and which to get rid of.

1. Understand your goal. Approach backlink cleanup differently when working to remove a penalty vs. performing regular backlink maintenance.
2. Create your master list. A spreadsheet is your tool for keeping track of your research and backlink analysis activities.
3. Check your site’s backlinks against any previously submitted disavow files. If you’re inheriting a website that has had search engine optimization management, you may find that a Google disavow file has been submitted. It’s always a good idea to confirm that the previously created disavow file was accurate and did not prune links unnecessarily. Once you’ve confirmed that the disavowed links are low quality, you can continue to include them on future disavow files.
4. Score backlinks (keep, request removal, disavow) with tools. Tools including DisavowFiles, Ahrefs, Majestic and Moz can indicate quality of backlinks.
5. Visit the pages linking to your site. While you can get some idea of backlink quality with tools, nothing can evaluate topical relevance and overall appropriateness like a human visitor.
6. Choose to keep, request removal or nofollow, or disavow each link. Then take action.

At the end of the article you’ll find additional backlink cleanup resources:

• Criteria for judging backlink quality
• How to nofollow links

Backlink Analysis

Analyzing backlinks is a messy and time-consuming business. When we perform SEO penalty assessments and link pruning services for our clients, the most tedious part is manually evaluating the individual backlinks. It’s like sorting laundry, or weeding a lawn, or separating trash into recyclables and, well, garbage. But all of these tasks must be done.

Have the Right Attitude for Your Goal

Keep in mind that backlinks are necessary and good to help a website rank. Don’t go waving your machete around too wildly or you might hurt your website more than help it. Still, as Bruce Clay says, every site has its weakest link — and depending on the site, you may have a lot of spammy links that need removing.

Have a penalty? If your site has been penalized for unnatural links, then you should be harsher in your backlink analysis. Your site is already bleeding traffic and revenue. Find the bad links and cut them off! Websites not in a penalty situation can be more lenient in their backlink analysis. Adjust how strict you are in your attitude towards backlink cleanup based on your site’s situation.

Create a Spreadsheet to Track Your Findings and Decisions

Backlink analysis is a process that has many steps that may not be happening linearly or along the same timeline. Every one of your thousands of backlinks could be in a different stage of the process. Use a master list to combine the data from several different sources in whatever spreadsheet program you’re using (Excel or Google Sheets). Basically, you want to take the different spreadsheets you created doing the various downloads and combine them into one.

We recommend downloading your backlinks in bulk from Google Search Console and at least one of these additional sources:

• Bing Webmaster Tools (free)
• SEOToolSet Link Analysis (free, limited)
• SEOToolSet Pro Link Reports (fee-based)
• Majestic Site Explorer (fee-based)
• Moz’s Open Site Explorer (fee-based)
• Ahrefs Site Explorer (fee-based)

In your spreadsheet, use the linking URL as your key identifier in one column, the root domain in an adjacent one, and get the various other data fields lining up. Merge and delete your duplicates to create a workable list of backlinks.

Your spreadsheet may have hundreds or thousands of web pages that link to yours. Here’s an example of how you might set up the combined list, with columns for Source, URL, Root Domain, Action, Trust Flow, Citation Flow, Nofollowed, Not Found, Notes, and Whois.

Check for Disavowed Links First

Save yourself some work and find out right away whether the website has ever submitted a disavow file to Google, which is the list of links a website asks the search engine to ignore. Get a copy of the most recent disavow file that was submitted (because each new disavow file submitted to the search engine supersedes any previously submitted versions for that site).

If either the specific URL or the domain of the linking site (which is the main site name, such as badsite.com) have been disavowed, consider the link disavowed also. The good news is that, once you are satisfied with the disavow file’s accuracy, you won’t need to do any more backlink analysis on those links! You’ve already asked the search engine to ignore them, so you can, too.

Find Out More about the Linking Sites

With the remaining (non-disavowed) backlinks, you need a way to tell the good from the bad. Can you tell just by looking at the URL? With practice, sometimes you may be able to. But usually, you’ll need some extra information in order to evaluate them.

The tools below provide quick intel for backlink analysis. They can help you judge the quality of websites linking to yours. Which ones you choose depends on your budget, time and tool preferences.

• Majestic: Trust Flow and Citation Flow
  Majestic’s metrics top our list because our SEO analysts think this tool gives the most accurate, up-to-date link information available. In fact, we integrate our SEOToolSet Pro software with link data pulled from Majestic to provide link reports for subscribers. So if you gathered your original backlinks list using either your own Majestic account or an SEOToolSet Pro Link Report, then your spreadsheet should already contain columns for Trust and Citation Flow. Briefly … Citation Flow is a number from 0 to 100 that shows how much link juice the site has (based on how many sites link to it). So this number roughly shows how influential a backlink from this site may be, whether for better or worse. Trust Flow (also 0 to 100) shows how trustworthy the site is based on how close those links are to authoritative, trustworthy sources. In other words, this number shows whether a backlink from this site could be helpful or not.
• Moz: Page Authority and Domain Authority
  Moz’s Open Site Explorer product shows you scores (on a 100-point scale) estimating the authority of a specific web page and of the site as a whole.
• Ahrefs: URL Rating and Domain Rating
  Ahrefs’ proprietary scoring system can help you judge backlink quality. Ranking scores attempt to measure the authority of a URL (page) and its domain based on backlinks, similar to Google’s PageRank.
• DisavowFiles.com (a free service of Bruce Clay, Inc.)
  DisavowFiles compares your backlink profile (pulled from Majestic) against disavow files others have submitted into a crowdsourced database, telling you how many times a particular linking site has been disavowed by others in the database. Knowing which of your backlinks have been disavowed by others can help you easily identify sites you might want to disavow, too. There’s no stronger red flag for backlink cleanup than knowledge that a site is a frequently disavowed suspect.

Visit the Linking Sites

Once you’ve combined download sources, merged duplicates, removed already-disavowed links, and added trust metrics and intel, it’s time to review your master list. Now’s when you roll up your pant legs and prepare to wade through a little mud.

Just kidding. (Not really.)

Unfortunately, there’s no substitute for going to look at most backlinks manually to determine whether they are OK to keep. Since you may be working with thousands of backlinks, prioritize the work so you find the worst offenders first. You may not have to wade far before you’ve discovered and removed the links that are hurting your site the worst.

To prioritize your backlink analysis, sort your spreadsheet by the metric you feel shows trustworthiness the most clearly. For example, you could sort by Trust Flow (with Citation Flow and Root Domain as second and third sort levels). Invert the order if necessary (by clicking on a column heading) so that the lowest trust metrics appear at the top.

Make Decisions and Take Action

Create columns for where to put the results of your research. In the spreadsheet example we showed above, there were columns for Action and Notes. Use these to mark whatever you find out and what you decide to do, if anything, with each link.

There are several possible backlink cleanup decisions you can make from your backlink analysis.

• Ignore (keep the link)
  
• Request that the site remove or nofollow your link
• Request that the site change the anchor text of your link
• Disavow the linking page or domain

What Makes a “Good” vs. “Bad” Backlink

Unless the site engaged in illicit link-buying in the past and accumulated a slew of spammy links, most links are probably beneficial or at least neutral in their impact. You should be able to ignore the majority of backlinks in your spreadsheet for most non-penalized sites.

Good backlinks come from a trustworthy site, not a spam site. So look at those trust metrics you gathered. For example, a Trust Flow of zero could mean the site is new and hasn’t gotten any link love yet — but it also could indicate a problem. Watch out especially for a site with low Trust Flow and high Citation Flow — that means it’s getting a lot of link juice from all the sites linking to it, but they may all be spam! A link from that type of site could be poison.

Good backlinks come from web pages that are relevant to your page’s topic, as well. One or two links to your auto insurance site coming from a local dog groomer might be innocuous. But beware of patterns of unnatural linking. If every dog groomer in the state is linking to your auto insurance page, it could cause an eyebrow raise or even a penalty from Penguin.

Similarly, beware of global links to your site. For instance, if every page on a site has a followed link to your auto insurance quote page, that looks really suspicious to the search engines. If you see hundreds of links all coming from a single root domain, you should look to see what’s going on there.

Nofollowed Links Are Okay

Besides ignoring the good links you find, you can also ignore links that are nofollowed. Google won’t tell you which ones are and aren’t followed links to your site, meaning that they pass link value (for better or for worse). So it’s up to you to know how to tell the difference.

Look at the HTML source code of a page. If either of these are true, then the link is harmless to your site:

• The attribute rel=”nofollow” is contained in the link tag itself.
• The head section of the linking page has a meta robots nofollow tag.

Ongoing Link Maintenance

The first time you download links and go through them takes the most time. Once you have that initial work done and submit a disavow file with the stubborn links to Google, it takes a lot less time to do the ongoing maintenance of your link profile. Use our flowchart — feel free to print a copy for your wall — and make backlink analysis part of your regular (monthly or quarterly) SEO procedures.

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