Can piracy sites linking to you hurt your SEO?

[marynau]

Hello,

Our website sells software that we have developed, but there are piracy websites that offer a crack/keygen to our software and are linking to our site. From an SEO perspective, are those sites hurtful to us if their spam score is below 30 and their DA is not 1? We'd like to understand if there is any action we need to take from an SEO point or if our site's SEO is not affected by it.

Thank you!

[Nigel_Carr]

Hi Marynau

I doubt very much that they will do you any harm. It's more to do with how spammy the site is and whether it has 1000's of outbound links. Install the MOZbar in chrome and check the spam score. If it's high ie 4-7 then consider this:

1. Ask them directly to remove any links to your website. Email them.
2. If you get no reply after a week or so upload a disavow file here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main. Download the template first so you know the format.

I use SEMrush and that gives me an indication of my clients (what SEMrush call) toxic links. MOZ has something similar but it's not as obvious which are the really bad ones.

It's simple to add them to a list of sites to contact and request removal. Old spammy directories are the worst but I have seen a lot of spammy links recently from Theglobe and similar mega directories. It's always good to keep an eye on your backlink profile.

Note that the disavow file should always contain ALL of the links you want to disavow - you don't add and add - they should all be on one csv. Also, it's simple to 'un-disavow' a particular URL, just remove it.

I hope that helps

Regards

Nigel

[marynau]

Thanks, Nigel! Some of the sites have high spam score (25-30% based on Moz's new spam score system) but also have high DA (between 48-65). Which metrics would you take into account more when making a decision to disavow?

[Nigel_Carr]

Hi Marynau

Look on the right side of teh Moz bar and they give a rating out of 17. I'd say anything over 6/7 would be considered bad. Having said that I rely on SEMrush to tell me if it's toxic or not.

Best Regards

Nigel