Spam links - what would you do?

[N2Digital]

Hello,

A few months back our website was hacked which we noticed quickly and got fixed. However, there still is a lot of dodgy backlinks, linking to the spam pages. They come up in Webmaster Tools, Moz and SEM rush.

According to the Moz Spam tool, a few of them have been given 7 flags which Moz suggests gives a 30% chance of being penalised by Google. The website has great rankings (position 1-3 in most targeted keywords) so I am scared of doing something that will harm the rankings, however I also aware that Google may do an update which could take these spam links into account. I have no experience of using the disavow tool but from reading up about it, it should only be used as a last resort. So my question is - what would you do?

[FedeEinhorn]

I got a little confused. Are those links you are trying to get rid off on your site? Or are those backlinks coming to your site from Spam sites?

[Carson-Ward]

Honestly, Google is pretty smart about these spam links. They see hacked sites all the time, and chances are good that those spam links are not related to the content you're actually building the site around. That means the real risk is likely very low. That's especially true if the spam pages on your site created by the hacking are now 404ing. It's clear you're not trying to manipulate rankings.

You can feel free to add spam links to the disavow pre-emptively.

https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2309486/matt-cutts-use-the-link-disavow-tool-even-if-your-site-hasnt-been-penalized

Just make sure you only blacklist a site if the entire site is pure spam. Otherwise use the page disavow feature. I'd say you may as well do this, but it wouldn't be my top priority. The exception to this is if you were hacked and the spam links are relevant.

Example: If the hacker created doorway pages about viagra, and your site is about sports memorabilia, I'd not be too concerned. Just make sure all the pages about viagra are dead. You can still submit a disavow. I probably would just to be on the safe side, but only once I got around to it.

If the hacker created doorway pages about sports jerseys, and your site is about sports memorabilia, I'd be concerned. This could look like an attempt to manipulate Google's rankings, so I'd step on the disavow. And again, make sure any pages created by the spammers are 404ing or 410ing (even better).