Remove Old Poor Quality Links Proactively?

[PegCorwin]

I'm working with an ecommerce site where various predecessors have created 5 Wordpress.com blogs containing 5 links on each back to the site.  Should I disavow those links and take down those sites if I can get access?

Should I close a second YouTube channel and Google Plus account under another name set up to create links back to the site?

No penalties yet.

Advice much appreciated.

[Toddfoster]

Hello Peg,

For best results, here is what I would do:

1. Retain Wordpress.com blogs and build them up with new content to generate further links and traffic - closing them will only hurt you unless the links or content are poor quality and likely to be penalized in the near future. If you are on a large budget, try boosting them simultaneously. If not, try working on one at a time per month until they are each built up. This will help you more than disavowing them, which will land you back at square one.

If they are producing traffic and are quality content/link producers, keep them.

2. Close one of the YouTube accounts unless both are generating fair amounts of traffic. Consider the value of a YouTube channel and if only one (or neither) are generating any value, then you only need one active. The same goes for the Google+ Accounts - if both are successful in generating leads/clients, then keep them (there is no penalty associated as long as they are under separate names). If only one is successful, remove the other. If neither is successful, then remove either one.

This isn't too big of a deal - there won't be huge penalties either way. However, you do stand to gain if you build on the previous work, assuming it was well-conceived and structured.

Hope this helps!

[PegCorwin]

Thanks for your thoughtful comments.  Let me clarify.  Each piece of "content" is  single product photo and copied product descriptios.  Products may even be out of stock so links may 404.  Could links like this hurt, as they are so blatantly linking strategies?  Is there any reason to keep these sites? Just ignore ? Or disavow?

[Toddfoster]

Oh that does make a significant difference - yes, in that case I think it might be best to take them down, especially if they 404. I was operating on the assumption there was originality in the blogs.

With copied content there is no penalty but you are not gaining the benefits that original content would provide you. This may change in the future as algorithms are altered but for now there is no penalization for copy/pasting content like that. I have an ecommerce client that previously used this strategy and it didn't "hurt" them, per-say. However, when we adjusted with updated, original content, their rankings jumped considerably.

If you have control of/access to these blogs, it still might be more useful to your cause to update with new content and build up the links' authority. However, if you do not want to put the time and effort into creating a legitimate fix on the issue, then disavowing is probably a better option - just as long as you are aware that you are likely to suffer some short-term ranking drops.

In order of preference, I would say:

1. Build up blogs to create relevance
2. Disavow links
3. Ignore problem

You might also take a middle route and disavow broken/404 links and continue with others - in the grand scheme of things if your link profile is generally strong, this shouldn't hurt you too much either way.

[PegCorwin]

Great advice.  Thank you very much for helping me think this through.