I know there's a debate saying that inbound links cant hurt you But im starting to thing they CAN We submitted a client's site to some directory --- and somehow that directory replicated to like 25 other directories, with the same anchor Our client's site dropped to the bottom of the 2nd page (it was always first page) Not only that.... the site has stronger backlinks, better content, etc. than the competitors I think Google thinks it has unnatural linking and is penalizing the site And guess what? I read Google admitted inbound links can hurt in "border line situations" before... I am going to find the article It said something along the lines that "inbound links do not hurt, except in some borderline situations" Does anyone have any experience with this?
Maybe you can show us the article. For me I think it is common sense that inbound links should not hurt. Reason being, if it does, all I need is to link to my competitor with lots of inbound links to make his site disappear or go down in ranking. It will be chaos.
I found it: webpronews.com/topnews/2008/06/18/google-debunks-link-sabotage-theories "In a mildly direct way, Mueller suggested the site's low quality, not the inbound links, needs work. As far as evil linking and site rankings go, Mueller said in a follow-up that in theory the linking cited could cause a problem in some "borderline situations," but still suggested the webmaster in question needs to study Google's quality guidelines." So basically theyre saying nahh dont worry about it... but yeah itll hurt you in borderline situations!!!!!
I don't think this could hurt. If Google allowed this then people would build bad links for their competitors.
Well heres the thing why Im believing it Our clients site has all these .EDU backlinks, STRONG backlinks, etc. ... best content best everything But all these directory links among other links look unnatural And then there are competitors with hardly any backlinks... ranking VERY HIGH... but with natural looking backlinks (even though theirs are bogus blog posts etc.) I think "Google Bowling" is true.... and one of Google's employees mentioned it in that article
sometimes you will drop soon after submitting new links, but it's just the google dance. You should come back stronger than ever.
I hope so.... but Ive been 2nd page now for a while Im wondering if its something to do with my on page optimization..... ... but that cant be since I WAS on the first page.. so the on page optimization must be right.... it has to be the backlinks
I agree that inbound can not hurt , otherwise i will start submitting my top 3 competitors to crappy directories!
Even no-follow links get your hurted but only in border situations. I think its better to get rid of that directory where you are getting links from. Its sure that you are getting penalized and best is to get rid of links that are from illegal or clone websites.
According to a Google Employee, backlinks cannot hurt a site: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-interview-with-googles-maile-ohye http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/10/dealing-with-low-quality-backlinks.html
I think you have build more links within short days so it's happened with you, don't worry your web will come after some week.
Can you please tell me the name of that llnk directory? I want to pay to have 20-30 competitors listed on it.
IMO it is extremely difficult to determine the reason for a drop in position. G delays any action normally for months so that you can not determine the the effect of any one change. /*tom*/
If you gain backlinks sharply they may hurt you. Sounds like you submitted to one of the directory networks, the dirs are probably all on the same IP too.
This isn't something new. It's an over optimization penalty. Backlinks will hurt you if they all have anchor text and you are doing good search engine optimization. It happens to me all the time actually. I build quality links and my pages drop. However, if you stop getting links and you wait a few months, you will eventually get the rankings from the work put in. You just have to get out of the penalty which expires with time.
Google should change that, it's not your fault if you don't know the directory is in relationship with others.. But, I think it's not only that, SERP is big theory.. sometimes, they change it without reason, I had the same problem with one of my sites.. and still is, I'm nowhere, and was on first page
i have a new sight i'm putting lots of links in doing it manually and nothing bad with me. I think its a matter of if you do it manually or auto myself