• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4. I have a lot of spammy links coming to my 404 page (the URLs have been removed now). Should i re-direct to Home?

        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.

        I have a lot of spammy links coming to my 404 page (the URLs have been removed now). Should i re-direct to Home?

        Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        2
        2
        1211
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • jagdecat
          jagdecat last edited by

          I have a lot of spammy links pointing at my website according to MOZ. Thankfully all of them were for some URLs that we've long since removed so they're hitting my 404.

          Should i change the 404 with a 301 and Re-Direct that Juice to my home page or some other page or will that hurt my ranking?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • PatrickDelehanty
            PatrickDelehanty last edited by

            Hi there

            What I would do is take advantage of a backlink audit and assess which links are toxic enough for removal or disavow.

            I would not redirect spamming backlinks to your homepage - try to remove these and if you hear nothing back, disavow them.

            The way I assess spammy links:

            • Does this link help my website?

            • Is this link relevant to my website?

            • Would I trust this site (that's linking to me) if I landed on it?

            • Is the website or content in which I am being linked from topically relevant to my website?

            • If you check metrics - does anything about the metrics (domain authority, page authority,Majestic, SEMRush traffic/ranking data, etc) make me feel uneasy?

            • Are the links from directory templates? (example)

            • Inspect URLs with blatant spam words

            • Free

            • Porn

            • XXX

            • Submit

            • Directory

            • Paid

            • Links

            • URL

            • Sex

            • etc.

            • Check for multiple domains and URLs on the same IPs

            • This can usually show link farms or spam

            Pull your backlinks from a few different sources like OSE, Majestic, Ahrefs, and most importantly, Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools), as different tools pull different data.

            If you see spammy links, redirecting will potentially hurt your ranking. Be safe and take the proper steps listed above.

            Hope this helps! Good luck!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            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.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • Chris_Mc

              Home Page Title - Google Overriding my Title Tag

              title tags

              Hi, We have noticed our home page title tag has now been replaced by our brand name (by Google I'm assuming). We have also noted that the page is dropping off SERPS for our main keywords, I suspect they are related but ofc I cant be sure. I know the recent Google update has impacted titles but I wasn't sure if it would apply here. Has anyone any advice on this and/or having the same issue? We normally rank well for grass seed (UK search) https://thegrasspeople.com/ I also noticed some strange mark up in our source code which seems to have been left behind by Sketch - we are getting this removed. <title>Combined Shape</title> <desc>Created with Sketch.</desc> Chris

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris_Mc
              0
            • Kingalan1

              Removing Toxic Back Links Targeting Obscure URL or Image

              There are 2 or 3 URLs and one image file that dozens of toxic domains are linking to on our website. Some of these pages have hundreds of links from 4-5 domains. Rather than disavowing these links, would it make sense to simply break these links, change the URL that the link to and not create a redirect? It seems like this would be a sure fire way to get rid of these links. Any downside to this approach? Thanks, 
              Alan

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
              1
            • Wizkids964

              Company Name in Home Page Title? If and Where?

              My guess is you want to do the  {title} | {company name} format as I would suspect Google gives slightly more weight to the words at the beginning of the title?   (This is assuming your company name isn't a generic word or you are specifically trying to rank your home page for your company name when it isn't ranking well already) But what about cases where you have like 5 or 6 keywords that are really important and used in the title gives you like 50 characters and your company name pushed it up to like 65 increasing the chance Google will use some other source to list the name of your home page in the search results? Obviously one can experiment, but wondering what the general consensus is - long keyword title, or longer title with company name?  The company name can be included in the meta description and the domain name of the url displayed also gives the indication to the company.  But maybe the algo "respects" long itles that have company name more than ones without as then it looks more like a keyword stuffing title?  So many factors to consider.  Yes - on page SEO isn't just about the title, but for this thread I'm just talking home page title.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Wizkids964
              1
            • PeteC12

              Do I have to many internal links which is diluting link juice to less important pages

              Hello Mozzers, I was looking at my homepage and subsequent category landing pages on my on my eCommerce site and wondered whether I have to many internal links which could in effect be diluting link juice to much of the pages I need it to flow. My homepage has 266 links of which 114 (43%) are duplicate links which seems a bit to much to me. One of my major competitors who is a national company has just launched a new site design and they are only showing popular categories on their home page although all categories are accessible from the menu navigation. They only have 123 links on their home page. I am wondering whether If I was to not show every category on my homepage as some of them we don't really have any sales from and only concerntrate on popular ones there like my competitors , then the link juice flowing downwards in the site would be concerntated as I would have less links for them to flow ?... Is that basically how it works ? Is there any negatives with regards to duplicate links on either home or category landing page. We are showing both the categories as visual boxes to select and they are also as selectable links on the left of a page ? Just wondered how duplicate links would be treated? Any thoughts greatly appreciated thanks Pete

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC12
              0
            • Blink-SEO

              Do internal links from non-indexed pages matter?

              Hi everybody! Here's my question. After a site migration, a client has seen a big drop in rankings. We're trying to narrow down the issue. It seems that they have lost around 15,000 links following the switch, but these came from pages that were blocked in the robots.txt file. I was wondering if there was any research that has been done on the impact of internal links from no-indexed pages. Would be great to hear your thoughts! Sam

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Blink-SEO
              0
            • Waismann

              Different Header on Home Page vs Sub pages

              Hello, I am an SEO/PPC manager for a company that does a medical detox. You can see the site in question here: http://opiates.com. My question is, I've never heard of it specifically being a problem to have a different header on the home page of the site than on the subpages, but I rarely see it either. Most sites, if i'm not mistaken, use a consistent header across most of the site. However, a person i'm working for now said that she has had other SEO's look at the site (above) and they always say that it is a big SEO problem to have a different header on the homepage than on the subpages. Any thoughts on this subject? I've never heard of this before. Thanks, Jesse

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Waismann
              0
            • Kingalan1

              Effect of Removing Footer Links In all Pages Except Home Page

              Dear MOZ Community: In an effort to improve the user interface of our business website (a New York CIty commercial real estate agency) my designer eliminated a standardized footer containing links to about 20 pages. The new design maintains this footer on the home page, but all other pages (about 600 eliminate the footer). The new design does a very good job eliminating non essential items. Most of the changes remove or reduce the size of unnecessary design elements. The footer removal is the only change really effect the link structure. The new design is not launched yet. Hoping to receive some good advice from the MOZ community before proceeding My concern is that removing these links could have an adverse or unpredictable effect on ranking. Last Summer we launched a completely redesigned version of the site and our ranking collapsed for 3 months. However unlike the previous upgrade this modifications does not URL names, tags, text or any major element. Only major change is the footer removal. Some of the footer pages provide good (not critical) info for visitors. Note the footer will still appear on the home page but will be removed on the interior pages. Are we risking any detrimental ranking effect by removing this footer? Can we compensate by adding text links to these pages if the links from the footer are removed? Seems irregular to have a home page footer but no footer on the other pages. Are we inviting any downgrade, penalty, adverse SEO effect by implementing this? I very much like the new design but do not want to risk a fall in rank and traffic. Thanks for your input!!!
              Alan

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
              0
            • Found

              Generating 404 Errors but the Pages Exist

              Hey I have recently come across an issue with several of a sites urls being seen as a 404 by bots such as Xenu, SEOMoz, Google Web Tools etc. The funny thing is, the pages exist and display fine. This happens on many of the pages which use the Modx CMS, but the index is fine. The wordpress blog in /blog/ all works fine. The only thing I can think of is that I have a conflict in the htaccess, but troubleshooting this is difficult, any tool I have found online seem useless. Have tried to rollback to previous versions but still does not work. Anyone had any experience of similar issues? Many thanks K.

              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Found
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            • Digital Marketers
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.