Russian backlinks from 10 years ago just now showing up?

[onlinesource]

Tonight, a site of mine just fell off of Google. Went from #2 for a top keyword to the third page of Google.

I just checked Google Webmaster Tools for a backlinks and out of the blue is this brand new backlink from a Russian site! The link is on 1 page but counts for 911 links. It was not there last week.

I went to the page and it's a link to my site in a blog comment from 2005! I had no idea it existed. Why would Google be scanning the back link now 10 years later? Should I just disavow it?

[Robert Charlton]

Sorry to hear about your drop. Is the site connected to the site you mentioned in this recent thread?...

Site has fallen since Penguin, clueless as to why
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4610347.htm [webmasterworld.com]

You mentioned Russian backlinks in that discussion too, and it's likely that your SEO company had lots of linking connections in Russia. Interesting it should pop up now.

Perhaps this Penguin update involved a deeper crawl, which unearthed some of these things. Any thoughts you can add to this? It might be useful information on the nature of this update in general.

[onlinesource]

Hi Robert.

Actually I own two ecommerce shops, generally the same products but the sites themselves are hosted on two different servers. The first site was hit but the second site remained a source of income. Now, site #2 has been site.

The SEO for both sites were handled by the same company at one point. I don't know if my SEO company had used Blackhat SEO or I was the victim of "Reverse SEO"? Either way, the bad urls are obviously hurting me and with Google's latest update, some newer ones have been found.

I think I'm going to hire a SEO company to go through all of these backlinks and filter out the bad ones because I really have no idea where to start. I also am having an issue with link building because my product is not the type of product people necessarily want to blog about (it deals with as sensitive subject and personal matter) which is why it is easy to want to buy likes or pay for links.

I feel like a lot of niche sites are in my same boat.

Some get away with it and some get caught. I got caught.

[Robert Charlton]

onlinesource - To note a disavow resource that was also mentioned in your other thread. I get the sense you didn't follow through, or you wouldn't be asking again about Russian backlinks again....

Up in the top of I believe just about every page on WebmasterWorld, in the upper left just next to our logo, is a free tools link [freetools.webmasterworld.com...]

The first tool listed is a backlink checker that I think will help...

Google Backlink Checker Tool for Penguin & Disavow Analysis
http://backlinks.webmasterworld.com/google-backlink-tool-penguin-disavow/ [backlinks.webmasterworld.com]

I strongly recommend that, before you do anything, you view the two videos about using the tool on the above page. Full disclosure... these tools and the videos have been posted by Jim Boykin, whose company owns WebmasterWorld. The tool is in beta, and is free.

The videos are the most granular presentation I've seen about the kinds of patterns to look for in analyzing backlinks for disavow... but watching them does take time, focus, and attention. I recommend watching them a second time if you don't get it the first time.

As the videos suggest, there's no pushbutton way to approach this. The patterns can vary from site to site. You will note that .ru backlinks are one of the things Jim mentions in the videos, and yes... unless you're selling vodka or caviar... I'd get rid of them.

Somethat that might help in your situation would be to look at your backlinks sorted by date... as that would help isolate links that the SEO company you'd hired might have acquired for you. That said, the timeline for those links might not be precise, so that alone won't solve your problem. Take a look at this article by Barry Schwartz...

Google Now Shows You Your Most Recent Links
Jul 18, 2012 at 9:39am ET by Barry Schwartz
http://searchengineland.com/google-now-shows-you-your-most-recent-links-127903 [searchengineland.com]

This may be one of the more useful feature upgrades to the link reporting tool within webmaster tools. Being able to quickly see your most recently acquired new links might be helpful in tracking link acquisitions, as well as determining which links might have caused a penalty.