Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Why have I lost 1/3 of my backlinks (about 5,000) in 3 months?
-
In August, my client's site (I work at a marketing agency) had about 15,000 backlinks. Now they suddenly have about 10,000 backlinks. And their Domain Authority has dropped from 48 to 40!
Can someone please help me understand what could've happened?
At first I assumed this had something to do with the latest Penguin update, since I knew my client's site had some extremely spammy backlinks they hadn't cleaned up yet. (The site was hacked at some point and hidden pages were created as part of some kind of link-building scheme, and there were lots of links from sketchy sites to those pages. The hidden pages have been taken down and the URLs now redirect to my client's home page.) But that would only explain a sudden drop in Domain Authority, right? How could Penguin suddenly cause my client to lose 5,000 backlinks? And if it's not Penguin, what could it be?
Thanks in advance for any insight that anyone can share!
-
It's entirely possible that indexation issues are contributing to what you're seeing, Matt. I'd also suggest reading through this Q&A thread by Rand:
-
Mello Matt,
If it was my site I would seriously consider getting rid of any redirects from old dodgy pages, you could force Google to consider for the content still exists. If it goes to a 404 Google can then see clearly it no longer exists.
But would be interesting on what others have to say on that.I would source my back links mainly from Google search console.
Hope that helps.
-
Hey Matt,
Our site saw a massive up tick in links and then an even larger drop in links from one index to the next. Read this post below from Moz about their last index and about their not-so-great indexing over the last year. That might give you the answer you are looking for.
I can't remember everything in the article, so rather than try to explain it myself, I'll let them do it for me. Hope that helps.
-
Thanks for the response! And thanks for the advice – I'll definitely look into all those steps.
The redirects from the hacked pages are occurring automatically somehow. I guess that must've been set up by the agency that redesigned the client's website last year. They must've specified 301s for certain key pages and had all other old URLs redirect to the home page.
To answer your question, I'm using Moz for backlink analysis. Could their update be the reason I'm seeing such a drop?
BTW – Search Console shows no notifications that would relate to this issue, and no manual penalties...
-
Sorry just a question, where are you getting your back links list from? It's not unknown for tools to be inaccurate.
Another point I forgot to mention, Moz did update their index in the past few days, lots of people have seen a DA drop.
-
Firstly, sounds like you do have a penalty of some sort.
Secondly, I would not have redirected the hacked pages back to the site anywhere, you could give yourself a penalty that way. You could be passing bad authority or worse from anywhere else on the web, completely out of your control.
Thirdly, don't discount the potential of a website problem. Broken script, user damage, another hack etc
1. Do a thorough link cleanup.
2. Consider taking down any pages that are not relevant or earning any value.
3. Check search console for any notifications or manual penalties.
4. Check the website for performance and functionality.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Blog post outreach for backlinks
Hi all, My understanding of obtaining backlinks by way of blogpost outreach is that it's best to include several outbound links to related high domain websites within blog post copy (as well as a link to the website you're marketing, obviously) such as this post https://www.scoopearth.com/why-should-you-use-royalty-free-music-for-youtube-videos/ or this one https://small-bizsense.com/how-to-create-quality-content-for-your-business/. However, I've recently read a few articles that suggest that from a human perspective only having one clear link in the copy, such as this post https://www.clichemag.com/entertainment/movies/the-benefits-of-royalty-free-cinematic-music-for-your-videos/, increases the chance of the reader visiting the site in question. I guess the thinking is that if there's only one link to be clicked on it increases the chances of click-thru, as opposed to the reader possibly clicking on another external link that's only there because of current SEO advice. So is it best to follow SEO guidelines and include several outbound links within guest blog posts, or is it better to only have the one link to your client's site (to focus the readers attention on it)?
Link Building | | JCN-SBWD0 -
I want to know about the Impact of Do-follow backlinks and No-follow backlinks for increasing DA.
Have Do-follow backlinks and No-Follow backlinks same value to increase Domain Authority in Moz? Recently, I have created 290 profile backlinks which was do-follow. But from yesterday I have seen all backlinks are no-follow now according to the decision of sites' owners. My site's DA has already increased up to 35. Will this DA fall gradually from now? Apart from it, if I have created same backlinks for my another site; will my DA be 35? Please try to clarify it. My site is: Homeworkpaper.net Thanks. Waiting for your valuable answer.
Link Building | | darrellpc1 -
Directory Listings no longer counted in Backlinks?
Interesting situation when I looked at Google Search Console this morning, I found that back-links from directories had dropped off and am wondering if anyone else is seeing this? Specifically, I am in Australia and had links from Yellowpages.com.au and Truelocal.com.au to my primary domain. Interestingly, Yellow Pages had gone a bit crazy recently in that the number of links to my site seemed to balloon exponentially from about 50 when I first listed to 700+ to 1500+ to 1800+ and then the balloon popped. Truelocal in contrast was only ever showing the 1 link. There have not been any changes from my end, and I only ever had one listing in these directories so not sure what generated all these extra links in Yellow Pages. Anyone else in Australia noticed a sudden drop off in Google Backlinks from Directories? If not it may just be a temporary blip.
Link Building | | Excal0 -
Backlinks from ads on parked domains? Is this possible?
Hello Moz Friends, So as I was researching some competitive backlinks and I noticed a lot of backlinks that a clients competitor has are on parked domains and they appear to be google ads from some point. You know the pages that this page no longer exists, or hey do you want to buy this domain? and it has like 6 google ads on it? Yep those pages. My clients industry is construction and their competitor has links from zombie websites, foreign, websites and more. But the links are no longer on the page. Like when it was crawled, their ad was showing. Does this make any sense and is it usually temporary? Thank you for your thoughts friends!
Link Building | | asbchris0 -
Backlinks from the Same Domain (But Different Pages)
Wayyy back when (in the days of yore) Mr Cutts spelled out in a video that page rank is distributed equally between the external links on the page. If there are two links on a page, each gets passed 50% of the available page rank etc. (Perhaps an oversimplification but bear with me). As a result of this, the company I worked for at the time (this was the dark ages when sidebar homepage links were in vogue) decreed that we would only ever approach a site about a link for a client once, as additional links had little extra SEO Value. Now you could argue that if there are 5 external links, each acquiring 20% of the power, and your site has 2 of those, you are getting 40% of the power, but lets forget the basic math for a minute. I have scoured the web and Mr Cutts' videos and I cannot find the answer to my question: If my site (Site A) has a backlink from SiteB Page 1, and a backlink from SiteB page 2 - does this count as two separate links in the eyes of Google? If the SAME site links out to my site, linking to different pages in different posts, does this give me more SEO benefit? Thanks for your time!
Link Building | | Turkey0 -
Where/should I post my press release/articles on my own website?
I have started a long-term article marketing campaign and press release distribution. I will have about 4 articles and press releases in total every month. Although the press releases will not be self-promotional, sometimes they will be talking about a certain product that we unveil. The question is, due to the high quality of these press releases, should I put them on my website as well as publish them on third party websites? If so, because they target a specific service/product which we already have a dedicated page on our website, wouldn't that put Google in the position of choosing between the two pages? I was thinking to put them on my blog and link internally from there with the keywords that I target on those pages as anchor text. The same question for articles. Any suggestions?
Link Building | | echo10 -
Are backlinks to a domain that redirects useless?
I am working on trying to get backlinks. We are currently redirecting a few Domains to our current domain name. One of the Domains that is redirecting is the main Domain, we will be advertising in the near future. Can I send backlinks to the redirected URL or does it only carry link juice if it is to the main Domain?
Link Building | | hfranz0
