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.
Sitewide nav linking from subdomain to main domain
-
I'm working on a site that was heavily impacted by the September core update.
You can see in the attached image the overall downturn in organic in 2019 with a larger hit in September bringing Google Organic traffic down around 50%.
There are many concerning incoming links from 50-100 obviously spammy porn-related websites to just plain old unnatural links. There was no effort to purchase any links so it's unclear how these are created.
There are also 1,000s of incoming external links (most without no-follow and similar/same anchor text) from yellowpages.com. I'm trying to get this fixed with them and have added it to the disavow in the meantime.
I'm focusing on internal links as well with a more specific question: If I have a sitewide header on a blog located at blog.domain.com that has links to various sections on domain.com without no-follow tags, is this a possible source of the traffic drops and algorithm impact? The header with these links is on every page of the blog on the previously mentioned subdomain.
**More generally, any advice as to how to turn this around? **
The website is in the travel vertical.
-
Hi Shawn,
1, if you spot clearly spammy and unnatural links.. go ahead and disavow them. Keep in mind that there is the possibility to disavow entire domains. Here for more information about it. Disavow backlinks - Google Search Console.
2, No, sitewide links from a blog or in any part of your own website won't be a cause of penalty like this one. Google is able to recognize sitewide links a few years back. I wouldn't worry about that.
3, There are many areas to focus after an organic penalty. I'd suggest trying to understand which queries and URLs are the ones losing traffic and rankings, mostly from Google Search Console. Then, analyze what's going on with the User Experience and Site Speed, comparing your website with the ones that outrank you. And, last but not least, content! Check your content whether is the one that should be answering user's queries.
Hope it helps,
Best luck.
Gaston
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
-
Question regarding subdomains and duplicate content
Hey everyone, I have another question regarding duplicate content. We are planning on launching a new sector in our industry to satisfy a niche. Our main site works as a directory with listings with NAP. The new sector that we are launching will be taking all of the content on the main site and duplicating it on a subdomain for the new sector. We still want the subdomain to rank organically, but I'm having struggles between putting a rel=canonical back to main site, or doing a self-referencing canonical, but now I have duplicates. The other idea is to rewrite the content on each listing so that the menu items are still the same, but the listing description is different. Do you think this would be enough differentiating content that it won't be seen as a duplicate? Obviously make this to be part of the main site is the best option, but we can't do that unfortunately. Last question, what are the advantages or disadvantages of doing a subdomain?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | imjonny0 -
How does Google determine if a link is paid or not?
We are currently doing some outreach to bloggers to review our products and provide us with backlinks (preferably followed). The bloggers get to keep the products (usually about $30 worth). According to Google's link schemes, this is a no-no. But my question is, how would Google ever know if the blogger was paid or given freebies for their content? This is the "best" article I could find related to the subject: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2332787/Matt-Cutts-Shares-4-Ways-Google-Evaluates-Paid-Links The article tells us what qualifies as a paid link, but it doesn't tell us how Google identifies if links were paid or not. It also says that "loans" or okay, but "gifts" are not. How would Google know the difference? For all Google knows (maybe everything?), the blogger returned the products to us after reviewing them. Does anyone have any ideas on this? Maybe Google watches over terms like, "this is a sponsored post" or "materials provided by 'x'". Even so, I hope that wouldn't be enough to warrant a penalty.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jampaper0 -
How do you change the 6 links under your website in Google?
Hello everyone, I have no idea how to ask this question, so I'm going to give it a shot and hopefully someone can help me!! My company is called Eteach, so when you type in Eteach into Google, we come in the top position (phew!) but there are 6 links that appear underneath it (I've added a picture to show what I mean). How do you change these links?? I don't even know what to call them, so if there is a particular name for these then please let me know! They seem to be an organic rank rather than PPC...but if I'm wrong then do correct me! Thanks! zorIsxH.jpg
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Eteach_Marketing0 -
Disavow links leading to 404
Looking at the link profile anchor text of a site i'm working on new links keep popping up in the reports with let's say very distasteful anchor text. These links are obviously spam and link to old forum pages for the site that doesn't exist any more, so the majority seem to trigger the 404 page. I understand that the 404 page (404 header response) does not flow any link power, or damage, but given the nature and volume of the sites linking to the "domain" would it be a good idea to completely disassociate and disavow these domains?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MickEdwards0 -
Should I Do a Social Bookmarking Campaign and a Tier 2 Linking?
I don't see anything bad in manually creating links on different (about 50) social bookmarking services. Is this method labeled as White Hat? I was wondering if it would be fine to create Tier 2 linking (probably blog comments) for indexing of the social bookmarking links? Please share your thoughts on the topic.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | zorsto0 -
Disavow - Broken links
I have a client who dealt with an SEO that created not great links for their site. http://www.golfamigos.co.uk/ When I drilled down in opensiteexplorer there are quite a few links where the sites do not exist anymore - so I thought I could test out Disavow out on them .. maybe just about 6 - then we are building good quality links to try and tackle this problem with a more positive approach. I just wondered what the consensus was?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | lauratagdigital0 -
Are expired domains for Godaddy backlinks already reset by googel ?
When does Google actual reset backlinks to a domain. If i am buying expired domains from godaddy action for linking purpose am i wasting my time.Also if that the case whats the point of buying expired domains with many links pointing to them. If the backlinks to the expired domain still show up under my Google webmaster tool window does that mean Google counts that link?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ryguy870 -
Link Building using Badges
In light of penguin update, is link building using badges(like "I love SEOMOZ" badge) still considered a white hat tactic? I have read old posts on SEOMOZ blog about this topic and wondering if this method is still effective. Look forward to feedback from MOZers.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Amjath0