Recovering from toxic backlinks / negative SEO...
- Thread starter Joe666
- Start date
- Mar 10, 2010
- 42,695
- 107,107
Build quality links to off set them... at some point, with a fair amount of quality SEO, Google will disregard the garbage. Continue to disavow but go on the offensive and build quality to set a nice foundation so that those types of garbage links do not have an effect on your building.
Build Quality link such as outreach links, niche relevant guest posts, web 2.0 properties and Niche relevant forum and comments (for diversification). keep Disavowing spammy links and you will all set to go. The link you will built give you diversification, so those toxic and spammy links won't be count.
Thank you all - we do have a lot of quality links already and we have actively started building genuine links from high value sites. Having said that, the attack had an effect on our rankings. I will keep disavowing them as I find them.
Any idea how long it would take for google to take into account the disavow list? Is it weeks/ months..?
Any idea how long it would take for google to take into account the disavow list? Is it weeks/ months..?
yakuzaemme
Senior Member
- Sep 18, 2016
- 1,005
- 2,930
Look into MonitorBacklinks, great tool for finding toxic backlinks and disavow them all in one go (and alerts for new bad one coming in etc)
Thanks I'll have a look - I've been using a different tool monitor backlinks.
As a side note, almost all toxic sites I found only allowed google/bing/yahoo to crawl & index their links. As a result I wasn't aware of them until I looked in google search console - a lesson for the future.
YepCabbage
Newbie
- Mar 12, 2017
- 14
- 0
Had a similar situation happen to us 2 years ago. Site got hit with a large number of spammy links. Thousands of Russian links, Japanese links, etc. I monitored everything closely and decided to first see if a decline in metrics happens before we made an effort to combat negative side affects from these links. Specifically, I wanted to see in rankings plummeted. I let some time go by and I saw no decline what so ever. We did not do any disavow, we did nothing. Its been 2 years and the site is still gaining authority and increasing in rank.
Not sure how significant that it, but, we had backlinks from super-toxic sites that were marked as unsafe on both chrome and firefox - i.e. the type of site you get a warning when you try to visit it. Could be a coincidence but the toxic backlinks seem to correlate with a drop in our rankings. We'll see what happens, many people have the view that google is clever enough to know and ignore toxic backlinks. Maybe that's the case, hard to know.
- Jan 20, 2013
- 9,401
- 1,023
Check with your website backlinks frequently and remove the spam ones, built relevant and authority links to prevent your site from harm links to some extent. Sites with more spammy content will be taken care of google by deindexing. You can try to disavow and reporting from your side.
Aty
Elite Member
- Jan 27, 2011
- 7,631
- 5,301
Not really... I was just sayin` that because I for instance would not do it since I have no clue how it's done, and from what I've read here and there, if it's not done properly, disavow process can be harmful.
seo tracker
Junior Member
- Nov 15, 2017
- 141
- 20
Hello,
Just find the backlinks which are not indexed and disavow them. Be careful while finding those toxic backlinks. If it goes wrong, then your page will be affected.
Just find the backlinks which are not indexed and disavow them. Be careful while finding those toxic backlinks. If it goes wrong, then your page will be affected.
seo247527
Newbie
- Aug 11, 2018
- 7
- 4
Follow these Process to Prevent Negative SEO Attacks
1. Set up Google Webmaster Tools Email Alerts
Google can send you email alerts when:
Log in to your account and click “Webmaster Tools Preferences.”
Enable email notifications and choose to receive alerts for all types of issues. Click “Save.”
This is just the first step. Now, let’s move to the important one, monitoring your backlinks profile.
2. Keep Track of Your Backlinks Profile
This is the most important action to take to prevent spammers from succeeding. Most often, they will perform negative SEO against your website by building low quality links or redirects. It is vitally important to know when someone is creating links or redirects to your website.
You can use tools like Ahrefs or Open Site Explorer, from time to time, to manually check if someone is building links to your website, but the one I recommend you use is MonitorBacklinks.com. It’s one of the best and easiest tools that can send you email alerts when your website gains or loses important backlinks.
Instead of having to manually check your backlinks every morning, Monitor Backlinks sends everything you need to know to your inbox. Here’s how you can use it:
Once you have created your account, it will require you to add your domain and connect it with your Google Analytics account.
It usually shows your backlinks immediately, but sometimes it can take a few minutes. By default, your settings are set to send you email notifications when your website receives new backlinks. This is what an email alert looks like:
3. Protect Your Best Backlinks
Very often, spammers will try to remove your best backlinks. They usually contact the website owner of the link, using your name, and they request the webmaster to remove your backlink.
To prevent this from happening, you can do two things:
Select your backlink and click “edit.”
Add your tag, so you can later filter and find these backlinks easily.
After you have created your list, filter them by your tags, and monitor if their status changes. If any of these links are removed, you should contact the webmaster and ask why they removed your link.
4. Secure Your Website from Malware and Hackers
Security is extremely important. The last thing you want is spam on your website without you even knowing about it. There are several things you can do to secure your website:
One of the most common techniques spammers use is content duplication. They copy your website content and post it everywhere they can. If most of your content is duplicated, there’s a big possibility that your website will be penalized and lose rankings.
You can check if your website has duplicate pages on the internet using Copyscape.com. Simply add your website, or the body of the article you want to verify, and it will show you if your content is being published somewhere else, without your permission.
6. Monitor Your Social Media Mentions
Sometimes, spammers will create fake accounts on social media using your company or website name. Try to remove these profiles by reporting them as spam before they start to get followers.
To find out who is using your brand name, you can use tools like Mention.net.
As soon as someone mentions your name on any social media or website, you will be informed, and you can decide whether you should take action.
Create an account and click “Create alert.” Name your alert, and add the keywords you want to be alerted about. You can use multiple languages, too. Click “Next step.”
Select the sources you want Mention.net to look for, and add the domains you want to be ignored. Click “Create my alert,” and you will receive alerts every time your keyword (company name) is mentioned on social media, blogs, forums, and news.
7. Watch Your Website Speed
If your website suddenly has a very high loading time, make sure it’s not because someone is sending thousands of requests per second to your server. If you don’t act fast to stop this, spammers may put down your server.
A great tool that can help you monitor your server uptime and loading time is Pingdom.com.
Create an account and activate “email alerts,” so you will know when your website is down. If your site is being attacked, contact your hosting company and ask for support as soon as possible.
8. Don’t be a Victim of Your Own SEO Strategies
Make sure you are not hurting your website rankings by using techniques that are not acceptable to Google. These are some of the things you should not do:
There is no reason to create enemies. Don’t ever argue with clients because you never know who you are dealing with. There are three types of spammers and reasons why they spam:
1. Set up Google Webmaster Tools Email Alerts
Google can send you email alerts when:
- Your website is being attacked by malware
- Your pages are not indexed
- You have server connectivity problems
- You get a manual penalty from Google
Log in to your account and click “Webmaster Tools Preferences.”
Enable email notifications and choose to receive alerts for all types of issues. Click “Save.”
This is just the first step. Now, let’s move to the important one, monitoring your backlinks profile.
2. Keep Track of Your Backlinks Profile
This is the most important action to take to prevent spammers from succeeding. Most often, they will perform negative SEO against your website by building low quality links or redirects. It is vitally important to know when someone is creating links or redirects to your website.
You can use tools like Ahrefs or Open Site Explorer, from time to time, to manually check if someone is building links to your website, but the one I recommend you use is MonitorBacklinks.com. It’s one of the best and easiest tools that can send you email alerts when your website gains or loses important backlinks.
Instead of having to manually check your backlinks every morning, Monitor Backlinks sends everything you need to know to your inbox. Here’s how you can use it:
Once you have created your account, it will require you to add your domain and connect it with your Google Analytics account.
It usually shows your backlinks immediately, but sometimes it can take a few minutes. By default, your settings are set to send you email notifications when your website receives new backlinks. This is what an email alert looks like:
3. Protect Your Best Backlinks
Very often, spammers will try to remove your best backlinks. They usually contact the website owner of the link, using your name, and they request the webmaster to remove your backlink.
To prevent this from happening, you can do two things:
- When you communicate with webmasters, always use an email address from your domain, instead of using Gmail or Yahoo. This way, you will prove that you work for the website and that it’s not someone else pretending to be you. Your email should look like this: [email protected].
- Keep track of your best backlinks. For this, you can use Monitor Backlinks again. Go to your list of backlinks and sort them by Page Rank or social activity.
Select your backlink and click “edit.”
Add your tag, so you can later filter and find these backlinks easily.
After you have created your list, filter them by your tags, and monitor if their status changes. If any of these links are removed, you should contact the webmaster and ask why they removed your link.
4. Secure Your Website from Malware and Hackers
Security is extremely important. The last thing you want is spam on your website without you even knowing about it. There are several things you can do to secure your website:
- If you are using WordPress, install the Google Authenticator Plugin and create a 2-step verification password. Each time you log in to your WordPress website, you will be required to add a code generated by Google Authenticator on your smartphone (available on iOS and Android).
- If you are using WordPress, install the Google Authenticator Plugin and create a 2-step verification password. Each time you log in to your WordPress website, you will be required to add a code generated by Google Authenticator on your smartphone (available on iOS and Android).
- Create a strong password with numbers and special characters.
- Create backups of your files and database on a regular basis.
- If your website lets users upload files, talk to your hosting company and ask them how you can install antivirus to prevent malware.
One of the most common techniques spammers use is content duplication. They copy your website content and post it everywhere they can. If most of your content is duplicated, there’s a big possibility that your website will be penalized and lose rankings.
You can check if your website has duplicate pages on the internet using Copyscape.com. Simply add your website, or the body of the article you want to verify, and it will show you if your content is being published somewhere else, without your permission.
6. Monitor Your Social Media Mentions
Sometimes, spammers will create fake accounts on social media using your company or website name. Try to remove these profiles by reporting them as spam before they start to get followers.
To find out who is using your brand name, you can use tools like Mention.net.
As soon as someone mentions your name on any social media or website, you will be informed, and you can decide whether you should take action.
Create an account and click “Create alert.” Name your alert, and add the keywords you want to be alerted about. You can use multiple languages, too. Click “Next step.”
Select the sources you want Mention.net to look for, and add the domains you want to be ignored. Click “Create my alert,” and you will receive alerts every time your keyword (company name) is mentioned on social media, blogs, forums, and news.
7. Watch Your Website Speed
If your website suddenly has a very high loading time, make sure it’s not because someone is sending thousands of requests per second to your server. If you don’t act fast to stop this, spammers may put down your server.
A great tool that can help you monitor your server uptime and loading time is Pingdom.com.
Create an account and activate “email alerts,” so you will know when your website is down. If your site is being attacked, contact your hosting company and ask for support as soon as possible.
8. Don’t be a Victim of Your Own SEO Strategies
Make sure you are not hurting your website rankings by using techniques that are not acceptable to Google. These are some of the things you should not do:
- Don’t link to penalized websites.
- Don’t buy links from blog networks, and don’t buy links at all for SEO.
- Don’t publish a massive number of low quality guest posts.
- Don’t build too many backlinks to your website using “money keywords.” At least 60% of your anchor texts should use your website name.
- Don’t sell links on your website without using the “nofollow” attribute.
There is no reason to create enemies. Don’t ever argue with clients because you never know who you are dealing with. There are three types of spammers and reasons why they spam:
- For fun
- For revenge
- To outrank competition in search engines