Whenever purchasing a website or an expired domain there are a lot of risks that need to be considered. One of the biggest is the exposure to a Google Penalty based on the sites backlink profile (penguin or manual un-natural link penalty).

In this article I will show you the 9 common kinds of backlink SPAM and how to quickly spot them.

For an even more in depth guide on performing due diligence before you purchase a website checkout https://www.motioninvest.com/buying-websites-for-sale/

With both my expired domain finding service and my recent focus on purchasing a couple of websites I have been deep diving into analyzing backlinks.

What is the Risk?

Several months ago I purchased a website which I knew had paid for a few links. I believe as a result of those links the site went from making close to $1,000 in the first month I purchased it(after making monetization changes) down to $250/month due to a penalty!

I was aware of the links and believed I priced the risk fairly into the purchase ($4k to buy the site)…unfortunately for me the site got hit pretty quickly after purchasing.

The 9 Types of Backlink Spam

I use MajesticSEO(not an affiliate link) to analyze backlinks because of the graphic representation of the link profile which makes it incredibly easy to quickly see the quality of the backlink profile.

PART 1 – ANCHOR TEXT

Anchor Text manipulation is pretty easy to spot in Majestic SEO. Using the Anchor Text section there are 2 key things to look for..

• First unnatural anchor text density
• Secondly obvious SPAM in anchor text keywords (porn/poker/pharmaceutical or completely un-relevant keywords)
  • Unnatural Anchor Text Density
    • bedandbreakfastparksville.ca – Not as obvious an example but with the large number of links and only 3 different anchor texts this site shows clear signs of manipulation.
    • naturesgoldspecialties.ca – This one is very obvious, 95% all with the same keyword – avoid!

• Obvious SPAM in Anchor Text
  • classic-purse.com – This example is subtle! Often the spam is far more obvious with Porn/Pharmaceutical/Poker or other highly SPAMMED niches like PayDay loan anchor text. Whenever there are obvious signs of anchor text manipulation avoid it! In cases like the one below we need to ask ourselves if the anchor text could naturally occur in the way that it is being shown?

PART 2 – LINK METRICS

• Large difference Trust Flow to Citation Flow – Links build naturally should be balanced between citation flow and trust flow (or for MOZ PA/DA should not show a large (~3x or more) difference between them)
  • bushybride.ca – Here there is an obvious mis-match with Trust Flow = 2 and Citation Flow = 15. Ideally we want that ratio to be close to 1:1 but anywhere up to 1:3 can naturally occur but be cautious whenever you get below 1:2 Trust:Citation.

• Root to URL completely different – This one is often miss-understood. When there are good metrics for one domain and then none for another it often means that links were intentionally built to one URL and then none to another. This represents link manipulation!

• • goteamintraining.com – Here the metrics on the Root Domain are ok but then the metrics at URL are non-existent!

VS…

• Concentration of Links on the TF vs CF Map – This is one of the reasons why Majestic is so great. A quick look at the TF vs CF graph can tell a lot about the backlink profile. The ideal graph is a series of domains spread along the line moving 1:1 from the origin. Two indications of a SPAMMY backlink profile is when there is an unreasonable concentration of links all in one location or when all the links are low trust. On the graph each dot represents a single link and the Trust and Citation score of that link.
  • whoswhere.ca – In this example shown below there are 2 concentration and another grouping along the bottom representing Trust Flow on each of those links of ZERO. Typically what occurs is when a link building service is purchased a lot of the links will come from similar sites with the same CF/TF which results in concentrations on the TF vs CF graph.
  • bedandbreakfastparksville.ca – Here there is one single high density concentration of links, there is a chance with this link profile that it could occur naturally but this is a warning flag. Whenever there is a single concentration of links on the TF vs CF graph there is a reasonable expectation that the links are artificially created. 

PART 3 – TYPE OF LINKS

• Non-Relevant Link Pages/Directories/Blog Network Pages
  • legal-professionals.net (non-relevant links) – Non-relevant backlinks like the ones to this site provide no value.
  • trendier-diaper-bags.com (directory) – Here is an example of a site that only uses directory links. Relevant human-reviewed directories are good but having only non-relevant free  directories are bad!
  • nadafhospitality.com (directory) – Here is another example of too many low value link/directory pages.
  • howtotreatkidneystones.net (PBN & Hacked Sites) – Sometimes most metrics can look good but when you visit the pages linking to it it becomes obvious the links are all blog network links or sites that have been hacked.
  • kitchenexhaust.info (SPAM sites) – When the sites linking to the URL are only SPAM sites then it is obvious the site provides no value and should be avoided.
  • theweddingdiamonds.info (non-relevant directories) – Again relevant directories and link pages can be natural however, low value directories as shown by these links are bad.
  • whoswhere.ca (Blog Network) – There is the famous quote from Judge Potter Stewart stating in regards to Porn vs art “I know it when I see it” and this applies to most of us who look at websites and can quickly determine if the site is built only for links or not. When the majority of the links pointing to a domain was clearly built for the purposes of providing a link, like in this example, we should avoid it.
• Blog Comment or Forum SPAM
  • allhandbags.info (Forum) – Blog comments and forum SPAM are old low value black-hat tactics that still many domains have links from. In these cases it is important to look at the comment and forum post and just think if it is reasonable. Blog comments and forum links that are real are fine, blog comments and forum links that are only left for the purpose of the link are bad! Another fast way to tell is to see if there are A LOT of useless comments on the post…if that is the case then the site likely has auto-approve comments on and has been hammered by low-value black hat SEOs. 
• Foreign Language Links
  • fantastic-bags.com – Here is an example of english links on foreign language websites. This is almost always a sign of link manipulation and if spotted should be avoided.

Summary

Most of the instructions above are pretty obvious. The intent of this post with the videos was to hopefully show a nice effective way to quickly determine the quality of the backlinks pointing to a site. Using MajesticSEO daily is a huge time saver for me and I wanted to share some of the tricks I have learned analyzing thousands of domains and dozens of sites over the last few months.

What other tools do you use to analyze a sites backlink quality? Ahrefs? OpenSiteExplorer? other?

 

Over the last 8 years my team has been finding domains, buying domains and building PBN sites for both my own portfolio as well as clients. One of the most important parts in the whole process is finding quality domains that can give your PBN some power, and in turn give your money site some power.

 

Most people believe that just going based on metrics such as Domain Authority (DA), Page Authority (PA), Trust Flow (TF) and Citation Flow (CF) are really the only things that matter when deming whether or not the domain is good. However most people forget that these expired domains were once used for something else and so checking the backlinks of the domain to ensure there isn’t anything spammy going on is very important and is often overlooked. You don’t want to put your money site at risk by getting links from a domain that has spammy links pointing to it because Google could penalize you for that.

 

Below, is a step by step guide on how you spot check the backlinks of the domains to ensure they were not once abused. For looking at the backlink profile, we always like to use Majestic as it is one of the more reliable tools that we have used.

 

Example of a Bad Domain

For this example, we are going to use the domain ablasor.com

 

As we can see in Majestic, it has a bit of TF and CF (although you want to try and get to as much of a 1:2 ratio as possible. If you can get a 1:1 that’s even better.

But there are two other places that need to be checked. The anchor text profile and the backlinks.

 

For the anchor text profile, you can see that their are not only spammy words being used but also foreign anchor text. This is a clear sign that this domain has been abused.

However, sometimes the Anchor Text appears to be normal and we would have to also check the backlinks to ensure there isn’t any foreign or spammy links.

As you scroll through the list of backlinks, first check to see if there are any unusual or foreign texts.

If there isn’t anything that stands out, click on a few links and open them up to see if there is anything suspicious that pops up. When we open up a few we get some pages that look like the below. This is a clear sign of spam.

Example of a Good Domain

In this example we are going to look at the domain platinumassetdiscovery.com

 

That domain has good TF and CF and has a pretty close ration of 1:1 which is a good start.

When looking at the anchor text profile of the domain, we can see that the anchor text words are relevant to what the domains topical trust flow is which is Society/law. There is also no spammy or foreign words.

When we go and look at the backlink profile we can see that they all look good and no foregin words are present.

When we open them up they go to sites that are relevant and not foreign content.

What’s Next?

After you have looked at the domain in Majestic.com, you then want to check it in archive.org and check a few different dates to see what the domain once was. Ensure that the domain wasn’t used in an inappropriate way or that it had foreign content on it.

Other Tools

I used MajesticSEO here and personally use ahrefs and SEMRush as well. However there are an amazing number of tools to help with backlink checking. Here is a complete guide reviewing the best backlink checkers. 

Conclusion

I find that a lot of people miss a few of these steps which can be vital when looking at potential domains to link to your site. If you have any questions at all or need some further clarification on how to follow these steps please let me know!

 

So the big question…. ARE PBNs STILL WORKING IN 2017???

See the case study process and results below and how I generated 800 organic visitors in a day!

This post is a case study aimed at identifying the potential power of expired domains with actual traffic data and link metrics revealed.

Some of the results are pretty surprising…

PBNs have been a very controversial subject to talk about but have also been the most systematic way of ranking a website I have found. (more…)

Today I have some special Cyber Monday deals on my productized services businesses.

At whatever stage you are at in your business I hope one of these deals below helps you progress in your business!

For the last few years we have found that creating teams and systems to deliver productized services to clients focusing on complex activities in the SEO / internet marketing space has been a good niche for our team. (more…)

Since 2013 I have been talking about, using and building PBN sites to help rank mine and other websites.

There are very few people that talk about PBNs in a balanced way. I hope this post helps answer some of the common questions people have.

If you have any questions feel free to drop them in the comments section and I will respond.

 

What is a PBN?

A Private Blog Network is a network of real, relevant and authoritative sites that are perceived to be independent from one another in the eyes of Google but you control and can link to your money site. These links being real and relevant drive ranking improvements within Google.

My Team Offers Two Services To Help:

• DONE FOR YOU PBN BUILDING SERVICE (let my team build and manage a PBN for you to exclusively use!)

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• USE MY PBN – BUY PREMIUM LINKS (get links on my premium PBN network with some of the most powerful domains available!)

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Frequently Asked Questions About PBNs…

 

ONE – Do PBNs Still Work to Rank Websites?

The short answer is that backlinks from relevant authoritative sites definitely still works! The question of how much does it work is answered in more detail below but I can say that it definitely does work on both my sites and clients.

Each week we receive emails like this one received last week…

TWO – What is the Best PBN Hosting Options Now?

Hosting can be a massive pain! I now have 1 person who works full time to manage all my hosting accounts.

I now have two simple recommendations for people who are looking to host a PBN…

• Best Option for Large Network or Agency – Use multiple popular shared hosting accounts like we do to ensure your referring IP profile is as natural as possible. This strategy ensures your PBN sites are not located in a “bad neighbourhood” of other PBN sites.
• Best Option for Individuals – EasyBlogNetworks offers hosting that is essentially a dashboard for multiple cloud hosts.

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(prices increase for this host Sep 1, 2016)

THREE – Do PBNs help all websites rank and how many backlinks do I need to rank on the first page?

The type of sites that seem to respond the best are those in “boring” niches that traditional white hat link building is the hardest in!  This usually involves an affiliate site or a business site.

The sites PBNs don’t make a lot of sense to use on are sites that have an easier time to build links. For example a “mom blog” would do better to allocate its money for SEO to guest post outreach and creation.

Sometimes the ones that don’t respond the best are either the crazy competitive local niches (unless a lot of links are sent at them) or the large magazine style site who need a monthly link velocity way higher than the package purchased.

To help people answer the question of “how many links do I need” I wrote this post and provided a free guide.

 

FOUR – What is the risk of using a PBN?

There is risk with every marketing strategy online. I have an issue with SEOs who don’t try and communicate the risk of using PBNs.

The right level of risk vs reward to accept is highly dependent on everyone’s personal situation.

What I can share to try and help quantify the risk is that our lifetime deindexation rate over the course of 3,000+ sites being built is…

• Over 3,000 sites have been built
• 8% for done for you niche relevant exclusive PBNs (done for you PBN service)
• 23% for Use my PBN, exclusive but shared PBN service with most of those deindexations coming in 2014 (see what I wrote about it when it happened here)

What will happen if sites do get deindexed is that the rankings benefit of the use of those PBNs is lost.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND someone only use PBNs as their SEO strategy. It is critical that your sites footprint remains distributed and not easily identified as a site that exclusively uses PBNs.

 

FIVE – For the Use My PBN Service do links on my PBN stay live after someone cancels?

Yes, links on my use my PBN service stay live even if someone cancels.

The most common reason people have for cancelling is that their rankings have jumped up to where they want them and they no longer need the service. So a lot of people tend to use the service until they achieve the ranking goals for their site or clients site and then cancel the service.

 

SIX – Can I Add More Articles for the Done For You PBN Service?

In our done for you PBN building service we create 1 article per site every 5 months. There are times that people would like to add more.

When we build your PBN with our done for you service we provide you with admin access to the site and you can post as many articles as you would like.

Many SEO agencies use this access for when they add a new client. A lot of our clients have a network relevant to a specific industry or geography and then when they add a new client use that existing PBN to build relevant/authoritative links to that new website.

 

SEVEN – Does it Work for Reputation Management?

With the growth of the online reputation management industry we have seen an increase in the number of people using our service for Reputation Management.

The basic strategy for reputation management fits well with our services…

1. Create positive pages about the individual
2. Drive links to those positive pages/profiles (using Use My PBN or Done for You PBN Service) to push them in front of the negative posts

Similar to the agencies mentioned above a lot of reputation management consultant clients we work with like to use a combination of having their own PBN network managed by us and as they add new clients simply post new posts to that network.

 

EIGHT – Does it Work for Videos?

Although it works for videos and clients have seen substantial ranking improvements there are a lot of strategies that are higher risk/lower cost that seem to be able to rank videos more cost effectively.

The reason is that the domain strength of YouTube is strong enough that if you throw some crappy links at the video it usually doesn’t result in the post getting penalized.

However, I believe this will continue to move in the direction that higher quality links will have a bigger and bigger impact driving results for your site.

 

NINE – Can I Rank My Amazon Private Label Listings?

This is a fun one I have been experimenting with lately.

The answer is that YES you can influence which Amazon listing shows up in Google.

It is either Feast or Famine when it comes to rankings Amazon Listings. Since Google only shows a couple results in Google you need to be in the top 2 for Amazon listings for the given keyword or you get no benefit.

Here is the basic strategy I have tested with success…

1. Identify keyword to rank for, target relevant, buyers intent keyword with low competition (KC score < 30)
2. Analyze the Amazon competition currently showing up in Google to determine the number of backlinks they have using this strategy.
3. Based on the number of links you need go ahead and build links to that Amazon listing. I like to use the powerful links from my Use My PBN network to boost my Amazon listings to show up in Google.

 

TEN – Should I Hide My Sites from Crawlers like Majestic, OpenSiteExplorer and AHRefs?

I go against the grain when it comes to my recommendation to NOT hide your PBN from crawlers.

The reason?

You are only asking the crawlers to not index the links from your site and it would be easy for Google to create a crawler that looks for the sites that request to not have the link networks track their links.

Now once they have a list of all the sites that have hidden themselves from Majestic, AHRefs and Moz what is the chance that they are all PBN sites or doing something sketchy…. I would theorize it would be pretty high!

For that reason a better approach is to build a PBN that is real/relevant and could stand up to a manual review if necessary.

 

Eleven – When is the right time to start building a PBN or Links?

People that are just starting out often wonder what the right approach is to the timing for building their PBN.

The short answer is that as soon as you know you are going to be going into a niche it is a good idea to start building out a niche relevant PBN but do not let that stop you from getting started.

 

TWELVE – What is the PBN backlinking strategy I use now for new sites?

So, what do I do today to get a site moving up the rankings?

It of course depends on the competition and the number of links I suspect I will need to rank. Like I have mentioned above using PBNs exclusively is NOT the best strategy but using them strategically still makes a lot of sense for me.

What I really like about the strategy of using PBNs as the cornerstone of ranking a website is that it is scalable based on the results. Because of that here is the basic strategy I use with a new site…

1. Build a 5-10 site relevant, niche specific PBN right away
2. Once the site is created start dripping use my PBN links to it
3. Measure the results of the ranking improvements and create a plan to scale up the links as needed.

 

• DONE FOR YOU PBN BUILDING SERVICE (let my team build and manage a PBN for you to exclusively use!)

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• USE MY PBN – BUY PREMIUM LINKS (get links on my premium PBN network with some of the most powerful domains available!)

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