Links with very bad anchor text!

[maldiniii]

I have a client with an online shop with auto parts in Romania, on google.ro. The site is quite old but it hasn't good links.

The only links (about 700 seen in OSE) the site have are from porn sites/forum/blogs with all kind of obscene words in the anchor text. Those links were placed by competitors, i am sure of that.

Now how Google treats those links? Does he know that those links were not placed by any normal human? Does it gives credit to them or doesn't?

The site is on a very competitive niche and it is not ranking so good.

[SimonCullum]

Hi Maldinii

This could potentially be harming, though mainly because you say the only links are from bad sites with poor anchor text.  If the website also had a reasonable number of good links, then it wouldn't matter, probably.

This is because Google in particular simply discount irrelevant links from poor websites/websites in a bad neighbourhood rather than penalise a site for having those kind of links.  Except for when it's apparent that those links have been purchased as a part of a link building scheme to try and artificially inflate rankings, when both link provider and link receiver are at risk from a penalty.

For some reassurance, have a read of this blog post entitled "What if My Competitors Point Spammy Links to My Site?" and in particular, the section "Defending Yourself from Potential Link Attacks".

Also, view the whole of this video from Rand entitled "I'm Being Outranked by a Spammer" which has some relevant information for you around what I've described here, which is poor spammy links being discounted by Google, so no harm will likely be done purely from having these links.  Still need to have some good links coing in though otherwise the overall SEO will be poor and indeed, you probably won't rank highly.

There isn't much that can be done about those unwanted links pointing in, which is a reason why it won't usually attract a penalty purely for having those links.

What you can do is to start some ethical link building, create some great valuable unique content and distribute it well to start attracting some of the right kind of links from relevant authoritive websites.

I hope that helps

Regards

Simon

[maldiniii]

Thanks Simon for your detailed answer.

I still think that Google doesn't give any credit to those links, because he knows that nobody is that stupid to buy those kind of links to his site. I think Google asks the same question as i do. Why would i buy/place crappy links pointing to my site? What is the logic in it.

I know that if i want to rank high i need lots of quality links, and for the moment it is possible to not rank higher because of those links. I'll see when i'll start to build some links, for the moment i have some big problems on site.

Thanks again.

[SimonCullum]

You're welcome  

You're right there, those links most likely won't be passing on any link juice or benefit .  They could potentially be harmful though as there are not any high quality good links pointing in, though there's also the chance that they won't have any negative effect.  Cannot know either way with 100% certainty, just can be sure that some high quality relevant authoritive links will help for sure.

Sounds like you're doing things in the right order;  getting your website in shape by addressing the on-site issues that you mention, with focusing on the link building once that is sorted out.

Hope it all works out well,

Simon