Hi, for several months I have been ranking well in Google for a new site, yet about 4 weeks ago my search queries cratered. One thing I note is alot of spammy sites suddenly linking. Mostly Russian. Could a competitor trying to sink me by linking from bad neighborhoods, and if so, how can I combat this? What follows is an abreviated list of some the spammy sites linking in from Awstats. It started in August and has increased in September. hxxp://photoshoplessons.ru hxxp://remont-ustanovka-tehniki.ru hxxp://wmrzarabotok.ru hxxp://gribnoybiz.ru hxxp://www.wood-expert.ru hxxp://gaspaco.ru hxxp://u-laguna.ru hxxp://deviceservice.ru hxxp://www.rospromtest.ru/kody-tnved/ hxxp://timermet.ru hxxp://www.echomsk.spb.ru hxxp://dagitalgaz.ru hxxp://sadovodst.ru hxxp://energiya-lyubvi.satom.ru hxxp://narkologicheskaya-bolnica.ru hxxp://remont-mobile-phones.ru hxxp://icase-online.ru hxxp://victory2011.ru hxxp://vsekonteinery.ru hxxp://www.narugka.ru
You can combat this by creating a webmaster account at Google, then using something called a disavow tool. This allows you to essentially disavow the spammy links, and they will no longer be factored by Google. You can upload a text file with all the bad links and upload it using this tool. If these bad links are what's causing your site to crater, your site should pop back up after you do this. I can't post links since I'm a new member but if you Google "disavow tool" you should find the page where you can do this.
Don't discount the algorithm change that occurred August 24th or so. http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change
Y Yes , you can use Disavow tool in webmaster tools and send the request to not to count these links and yes most probably google hummiongbird has been released that can make this happen.
I have heard conflicting information using the "disavow" tool, and while I think it is worthwhile to let Google know, I understand that this tool should be used with caution... a google engineer talking about this... "The disavow backlinks tool should be used with caution since it can potentially harm your site's performance. However, if you see a considerable number of spammy, artificial, or low-quality links point to your site, and you're confident that the links are causing issues for your site, you can use the disavow tool to disavow those links. In most cases, Google can assess which links to trust without additional guidance, so most normal or typical sites will not need to use this tool." https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/ydhv117MSAA/discussion
I found this through googling one of the referer URLs above. Same here: iphone--5.net photoshoplessons.ru narugka.ru rada.ru sdelaysama.com web-uroki.ru reklama1.ru base-concept.ru kinostore.net lifeshen.biz ibankworld.ru albummusic.net newcitylife.ru dneprshop naobmodui.ru heskamusuv.ru medius-spb.ru ideomvok.ru ezavokabel.ru cinanovod.ru lekcialetn.ru ezavokas.ru kamaidgan.ru nociarad.ru lektradel.ru tajapadlen.ru rsyvhdenija.ru good.sale-go.ru emufkabel.ru I just ban all traffic per IP 31.23.* when having a .ru referer (and then ban all subsequent referers from that address) and most is gone. On a daily basis they hammer the server with 3..5 new URLs per day. if ((substr($ip,0,7) == "93.178." || substr($ip,0,6) == "31.23.") && is_integer(strpos($referer,".ru"))) // ban I guess they try to drop links to anything thay makes money. For me it costs money as I pay any excess traffic. From 81.31.* I got set 21318761111111111111 UNION SELECT CHAR(45,120,49,45,81,45) -- ]->[union select] / show_album.php?nr=21318761111111111111%20UNION%20SELECT%20CHAR(45 etc. in the URL. For that I have a table with "badwords" that scans *all* input in the URL. Permanent IP ban kicks in when I encounter such things. I see no point in reporting as they invent new URLs daily and old one won't come back.