A spam ring that linked to us has vanished

What happens when spammers link to you?

[eschulma]

We have had an interesting experience, which I am sure has happened to others, so I am curious about any feedback/stories:

A while back, a spam ring operating on < a free web hosting service > set up a slew of pages in our market, with keyword titled pages and the usual JavaScript tricks, designed to draw visitors to their pages; if a user performed a search there they made money. Broadly speaking, they were competing with us, but as part of their attempt to rank well they linked to a number of other sites, including us. The anchor text they chose for us was pretty much ideal for what we wanted to rank for.

The total number of links was not small -- out of about 400 links that Google reports for our main page, 150 were from < this source >.

However, it appears that < this host > has gotten wise and shut off all of their pages. This happened no earlier than June 11, possibly later (the Google tool doesn't seem to report any links past June 11 which is incorrect). And now, we are seeing quite a slide in the Google SERPs, though interestingly, we appear to be doing better than usual on Yahoo and MSN.

Does anyone have a similar experience? Do spam rings really have a big effect or is this a coincidence? Any thoughts on whether Google will realize this giant link drop is "not our fault"? Or do I just hope these guys set up on a new network. :->

[edited by: tedster at 1:12 am (utc) on June 30, 2007]
[edit reason] edited the specifics [/edit]

[Quadrille]

You don't say if you were linking to them.

THAT is the issue. If you were linking to them - or to a member of their scam - sorry, scheme - then Google will (quite rightly!) deem you to have some responsibility.

If they were linking to you, with NO link back, directly or indirectly, in any way, shape or form, then a bomb dropping on them would give you zero collateral damage; any changes are pure coincidence. But still likely link related.

Don't worry about who links to you (unless you link back, HOWEVER indirectly); do worry about who you link to.

And if you cannot, in all sincerity, recommend those sites to your visitors, then Good Practice, SE Guidelines and sheer survival, says "Remove Them Links!"

[tedster]

It sounds like at least some of your previous ranking may have been due to link pop from this ring. If so, the value to you in this moment could be a signal to give some attention to acquiring more backlinks.

If you've got some great link-worthy content, a friendly message to other sites whose communities might value that information can do wonders. Slowly growing wonders, yes, but very solid wonders. If you don't have much naturally link-worthy content, then that could be a first step.

[londrum]

some people reckon that google gather data from their toolbar and analytics etc, and include it in the algo.
so with 150 links, presumably this site was giving you a lot of traffic. (have you noticed a drop in traffic?)
if google has noticed that your traffic has dropped significantly then maybe that has something to do with it.

[mattg3]

I had a 100% IBL link increase (1200 IBL over 10 years up to 2500 with 3 months) and continously decreasing traffic (Also compared to last year). Webmastertools shows SEO spam site and some poem (our site is pretty much about everything but poems) site have listed us + gazzillion of Yahoo IBL's .. with SESSION IDS.. I mean aehm... wonder really that Google still can't exclude session ID's ...

well we were rising again but the jump from 1700 to 2500 was the killer it seems..

My newly opened site (Pr 1) with 12 IBL now ranks above the PR6 ...

Google bowling exists as far as I can see...