Everyone does things they regret once in a while. If you participated in some black hat SEO tactics—specifically spammy links—back when they were an everyday occurrence, this is likely one of your regrets. Sure, at the time it seemed like the thing to do, at it probably boosted your rankings, but times have changed, and these spammy links are now the downfall of your search rankings.
Whether you received these spammy links via a link exchange, you bought them, or you got screwed over by your last less-than-admirable SEO company, one thing is for sure: You need to do something about these spammy links, and you need to do it now. Google’s algorithm gets smarter every day, so you really can’t afford not to take action immediately.
Before you can do any rank-saving work, you need to figure out which inbound links are actually harming your site. When you take a look at your backlink profile, there are a few red flags you need to locate:
Now that you have figured out which links are wreaking havoc on your site, you need to remove them ASAP. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. You pretty much have two options:
If you have put an admirable effort into removing your spammy links on your own, but you still have several that remain, then it may be time to disavow the links. Essentially, this is asking Google to ignore the spammy links when crawling your site. It sounds easy enough, but Google is very upfront in saying that this should only be a last resort. Not only that, but the disavow tool is only to be used by an expert—if you use it wrong, it will do more harm than good.
While it may seem like all hope is lost, you do have one more option: You can ditch your old site and start from scratch. However, this is not a viable option if you already have a large following or you have put a tremendous amount of work into creating and developing your site. It’s really only a wise choice to start over if you are a relatively new site and you haven’t spent much time or money on building up its online presence. It is also crucial that you score a domain name that is just as easy to remember and suitable for your product/service as the last one.
After reading all of that, is your head spinning? Yes, dealing with spammy links is a very daunting process, but you don’t have to attempt it alone. At Zero Gravity Marketing, we have turned many sites around, and we can do the same for you. If you are ready to see your business back on the top of the search rankings (who doesn’t?), give us a call today. You don’t have time to waste.