Received toxic backlinks

[seo808]

Looking to know if anyone has done MAT releases on sites <snip> to get backlinks? Based on SEMRush some of the links are coming back as high toxic due to mirror pages. They found several identical pages on different domains linking to my site. They say it is a strong signal of link network. Which I get. but has anyone experienced this before?

[edited by: not2easy at 12:50 am (utc) on Dec 19, 2020]
[edit reason] No specifics please [/edit]

[phranque]

welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com], seo808!

i'm not sure if i understand the question - if you engage in a link scheme should you be surprised that it looks like one?

[seo808]

I guess the question is what does a link scheme look like? I published my article on a legit media distribution network. These articles allow brands to leverage their own content and the credibility of third-party media companies while reaching consumers on the local news sites they frequent daily.

[phranque]

what does a link scheme look like?

this is how Google describes Link Schemes [developers.google.com]

[martinibuster]

If the service offers "seo friendly" links, then it's probably a link scheme.

If the service explicitly says it will help with rankings, then it's probably a link scheme.

If the service says that it's a great way to build links, it's probably a link scheme.

If these are syndicated links on actual news sites, take a look at the code to check if the pages are cross-site canonicalized to another page and also if the link to your site is nofollowed.

Don't rely on SEMRush to tell you it's nofollowed. Look at the code with your own eyes.

Do NOT rely on tools to tell you if a link is bad. Use your own judgment.

Tools should only be used for data, not to tell you what to do.

[seo808]

Thanks. That's a good point on the relying on tools to say what is good and bad. So much now a days in SEO plays a role in determining factors.

I've noticed they all canonicalize to themselves ,but some are follow links. So that can't be ideal correct?

[martinibuster]

In general, it can be problematic if it's clearly written by your organization AND it has highly optimized keyword anchors that are not nofollowed.

That's a generalization and not an exact rule of how things work.

[ShortyShorty]

Hi @Seo808 - to be honest, SEMrush's "link toxicity" tool is a really great concept, but testing it out myself, I tend to disagree with about half of it's findings - in both directions... For example, it refers to ALL forum signitures, Blog comments, Profile links, and forum posts indiscriminantly as "forum signature spam", "blog comment spam", "profile link spam" and "forum post spam" (respectively) accross the board - which simply isn't true. Obviously all of those types of links CAN be done in a way that is spammy, but that is not the same thing as saying all such links are spam (Matt Cutts and John Mueller seem to agree).
Other links, which I would say are PURELY spammy such as 4mark (dot) net social bookmarking links - they marked as safe... ultimately it's about as reliable as MOZ's "spam score" which is not at all... Great concept bad idea....

Use your best judgement with your syndication platform. Hubpages, Medium, steamit etc is not going to get your site penalized - they have editorial practices in place to prevent it from becoming a link farm full of terribly written and inaccurate content created for the purpose of building links....They exercise quality control - and that's the key element to look for when determining which syndication partners to use.

If it's an article already published on your site, as long as they are canonicalizing it, you're fine - that tells Google that you are the original author of it, and you won't get penalized. it being a dofollow is not at all negative, in this instance it's more likely actually in your favor - because it's showing that a site with strong quality control is sending a bid of confidence towards the original author of that content...

Beware of over-dependence on tools - they are great for getting an idea of what areas to take a closer look at, but don't let them be your decision makers or your master. They are not capable of objective thought or reasoning and cannot analyze information the same way you can. You have a brain and human intelligence, don't allow it to rot.