Google’s John Mueller has answered a question about what to do with spam links. The link and subsequent “penalty” coincided with his one date of Google’s 2021 spam update.
Mueller provided guidance for this particular situation.
Spam links and correlation
The questioner was concerned with spam sites linking to non-existent pages and triggering 404 responses.
Google Search Console may warn publishers of 404 error responses, but that’s not a problem per se.
Those”error” means you need to fix it. However, the word “error” simply means that a browser request for a web page resulted in the requested page not being found, and the server responded that the browser request was an error.
When the word error is used in the context of a 404 Page Not Found response, it means that the error is on the browser side.
The W3C, a non-profit HTML standards body, states that the client (meaning a browser or web crawler) requesting a web page encountered an error because the page could not be found. .
The W3C document states:
“The 4xx class of status codes is intended for cases where the client appears to have erred.”
The 404 response code is called 404 Not Found in W3C documentation.
“10.4.5 404 Not Found
“The server did not find anything matching the Request-URI.”
So the fact that a spam site was triggering a 404 page not found response does not mean it is harmful.
Mueller shows in his answer why links that cause 404s are neutral.
This is the question:
“What do you do when you have thousands of spammy links continuously being placed as backlinks on malicious domains?
These contain spam-like keywords and cause a 404 on your domain.
We can see a strong correlation between these spam links and the penalties Google received after the 2021 spam update.
We have disavowed all spam links and reported the domains listed as the source of link spam.
what else can i do? ”
John Mueller divided his answer into three parts, the first discussing the importance of 404 responses, and the second discussing denials.
Finally, I would suggest what the asker should do.
Links to missing pages are removed
The first part of my answer explained how Google handles links to pages that don’t exist.
Mueller replied:
“As a site owner, I always find this very frustrating.
When you see it, it’s like someone else is ruining my chances in search results.
However, there are two important things to mention in this particular case.
On the one hand, if these links point to a … page on your website that returns a 404, they are essentially linking to pages that don’t exist, and since there is nothing related, they links are not considered. them on your website.
Basically people are linking to missing places, but I can’t see what this link can do or connect to anything, so I’ll remove it.
That’s kind of the first part, and a lot of them seem to have probably already been dropped. ”
This aspect of spam links pointing to pages that don’t exist means that Google didn’t count those links at all. These links made no difference and did not cause any spam-related ranking drops.
Denial further removed the link from the system
Muller continued:
“The second part is that you said you disavowed those spammy backlinks. You can do that using domain entries.
And that essentially removes them from our system as well.
So while we continue to list them in our search console, they are there and can be a little confusing, but basically have no effect at all.
If they are disavowed, tell the system in a positive or negative way that these should not be taken into account. ”
Google’s John Mueller Discusses Spam Links
The real reason for the drop in rankings
This is an area many publishers and SEOs struggle to get a clear picture of. It’s clear that the spam link accurately correlates with the specific date of his Google update. But that’s a false correlation.
But if you think your site is perfect and you see spammy links, spam links are to blame. However, as Muller has shown, in this particular situation this was not the case.
There were other reasons for the drop in ranking.
Muller explained:
“From a practical standpoint, both on the 404 side and the disavowal side, these links probably aren’t hurting your website.
Also, if a search reveals any significant changes to your website, I wouldn’t focus on those links, but rather take a closer look at what might be within your own website. increase.
Get a little better idea of what the real value you’re providing there is and what you can do to stand above all other websites when it comes to the great value you’re providing to your users. Could you please be as clear as possible?
That’s kind of the direction I take there.
So don’t waste your time with those spammy backlinks. You can disavow the entire domain they’re coming from and then move on.
There is absolutely nothing you have to do there.
Especially if you’re already linking to a 404 page, it’s already ignored. ”
Takeaway
Mueller’s answer has multiple takeaways.
- Links to 404 pages are removed by Google and have no effect, neither good nor bad.
- If disavowing spam links does not resolve the issue after several months, the original issue may not be the link, but something else.
- Keep in mind that problematic sites are not perfect and have issues that need to be diagnosed.
Quote
Read Google’s explanation of 404 responses
Are 404s bad for your site?
Dealing with spam links
See Google’s John Mueller at the 20:54 minute mark.
