Today’s “Ask An SEO” question comes from Yvonne of Whitby.
“Our old website, which is now taken down, was hacked some time ago. Now it seems like thousands of spammers are spamming our current website using different but similar domains. Sending good backlinks.
The hacked site no longer exists (the files were all deleted months ago), but I see tens of thousands of these spammy backlinks to my current site.
I’m not an SEO expert, but I’m in charge of managing the website for my company. I use Google Search Console, Ahrefs and other tools that still show backlinks for this removed website.
Can we expect these backlinks to show up in our reports? Will disavow links help? Should we worry more about spam links?”
Hello, I’m Yvonne.
Great question. TL;DR, don’t worry or stress. It’s an easy fix.
- Disavow the URL.
- Ignore tools.
- Focus on what you can control.
Additionally, if you believe something is going on, you can report malicious activity or bad practices to Google.
But I don’t think it applies to your situation. This is primarily for others to read.
Let’s dive into each of the three steps.
deny
First, disavow at the domain name level.
Disavow at domain level because you deleted a site that should have been deleted.
That way, you don’t have to worry about whether the hack created more pages or whether there were more links.
The domain name level applies to all pages within your site.
ignore tools
Second, don’t worry about what the tool says.
The tool has many bogus indicators and is not always accurate.
They are meant to help you identify problems, but that’s where it ends.
Each site should be displayed differently. Some sites have no problem putting thin content on some pages.
Not all pages appear in search results.
The tool will flag these as problems and prompt you to build them.
But that’s not a good use of your time and can lead to cannibalization and over-optimization.
Tools are not Google either. Google Search Console may not be accurate or related to some of the actual algorithms.
Google has also made significant improvements in recognizing and ignoring link spam from hacked sites.
You will not be dropped out of our tools or Google Search Console.
it’s out of your control. If you deny, no problem.
focus on what you can control
Links are something you have no control over unless you create them.
Instead, focus on practical items you can implement.
Are there problems your customers are trying to solve with your product or service?
If yes, convert them into blog posts or create product and service pages for them.
When was the last time you crawled your site for internal links?
Pages that are supposed to be ranked may become new and old internal links may be updated.
A new page is created and you can get the “juice” out of your old blog posts and PDPs (product detail pages).
There may be links to different pages from the same word, sending conflicting signals to search engines. change them.
Have you updated the schema so that the library properly reflects your business?
You may have moved to a new country or region. Check the area service schema for this.
Work on PR and build relationships with journalists and editors to get media coverage for your company
This allows quality backlinks to overwhelm spam and mentions in authoritative publications, potentially increasing your site’s EAT and conversion rates.
You don’t have to worry about hacked sites spamming you links from the same domain.
If so, use the disavow tool to make it stress free.
There are many ways to improve any site.
Focus on what you can control, not what you cannot control.
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