Discovering Spam SEO Links

**hooperman** · August 16th, 2010, 03:33 PM

I've been to-ing and fro-ing on email with the owner of a site I wante(ed) to buy. Everything looked good until today when I discovered a boatload of spammy SEO links. It looks like they hired some cheap SEO firm to get them. The linking pages look like auto generated junk with about a billion links on each one. It's not just one or two, there's maybe 10 linking pages on each of 14 different domains. And I haven't finished looking yet....

I'm not convinced that spammy links can hurt your site in teh SERPs (though I'm open to the possibility). What I'm worried about is the possibility that those crappy links actually helped the site rank in the first place, but that Google will eventually discover them and remove their SEO benefit. I think there's a risk that rankings might drop.

It would be an easy decision for me to walk away from the site if all the links were spammy, but the site actually has some good links too (1 dmoz, 2 edu, 1 gov, a variety of on topic sites).

What would you do? Would you touch this site with a barge pole?

**benitez17** · August 16th, 2010, 04:15 PM

I would use the information to beat the seller down on his asking price.

How important are the SERPs for this site?

**hooperman** · August 16th, 2010, 04:34 PM

Originally Posted by benitez17

How important are the SERPs for this site?

Exactly. I'm still waiting for Google Analytics access, but SEMRush shows decent traffic from Google. Of course, if that's dwarfed by traffic from other sources (that SEMRush doesn't show), I'll care less about those links.

Originally Posted by benitez17

I would use the information to beat the seller down on his asking price.

It does feel a little risky now I know about the links.

**benitez17** · August 16th, 2010, 05:30 PM

Without knowing how much traffic the site receives from SEs (and how profitable that traffic is), it's hard to say what I would do.

In general, I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what Google is or isn't going to do about any particular site, but I know others do, which is why I think you can use this information to lower the seller's expectations quite a bit.

If the site is totally dependent on Google for traffic and the asking price is expensive, I would be nervous about it, whether it had these suspect links or not.

**midascode** · August 17th, 2010, 03:47 AM

Lots of owners of perfectly decent, credible sites get 'conned' into thinking they need to build up loads of links, usually from some offshore SEO company - I'm sure we all have had the emails.

Thing is, we don't fall for is, but lots of perfectly genuine people with nice sites are surprisingly naive and think they MUST do it. Fact is if this site has 1 dmoz, 2 edu and 1 gov link then it is a credible site and a site of real value (which afterall is what Google is supposed to be looking for)

I would still be very interested in the site and provided we are not talking huge sums of money I'd be just inclined to use it as a negotiation tool and ask for price reduction.

What I can't work out from your post is if this site owner is also linking out to those spammy sites, if he is then I would be much more cautious

**hooperman** · August 17th, 2010, 04:12 AM

Originally Posted by midascode

Fact is if this site has 1 dmoz, 2 edu and 1 gov link then it is a credible site and a site of real value

You know, that's what I would have thought ordinarily, but the site is merely a bunch of links to other sites! I've checked the wayback machine and it's always been a "resource hub" since it was born in 2003. I can't understand why people link to these sites.

On the one hand I think that I could add some content that would do the site some good, but on the other I think "well, the site is just a bunch of links". Amazingly, it gets 13,000 visitors / month.

Originally Posted by midascode

What I can't work out from your post is if this site owner is also linking out to those spammy sites, if he is then I would be much more cautious

No, he's not linking to any of them.

I've just seen his analytics and 70% of the traffic is from the search engines. I'm not too attached to this site to be able to leave it. I'll see whether we can come to some kind of agreement on price.

**Clinton** · August 17th, 2010, 04:50 AM

When one's overall investment strategy is to reduce the portfolio's reliance on Google one needs to fight the temptation to pick up sites - however well priced - that rely largely on Google for traffic.

The only time I would do that is when I see a clear route to a quick resale.

**hooperman** · August 17th, 2010, 05:04 AM

I take your point Clinton. At the moment I'm seeing clear improvements I can make to the SEO of the site, better Adsense placement, potential affiliate sales - all weighing against the risk of those spammy links and the potentially high valuation I'm guessing the owner is going to reveal. Also on the negative side, the site is in a subject I have no interest in - yet I'm going to have to create some content for it. I think I'm talking myself out of buying it!

I'm all for an easy life, but this site will take some work to get it roadworthy.

**Clinton** · August 17th, 2010, 05:19 AM

Why don't you do a projection of likely traffic and income increase based on x hours invested? You could then compute with reasonable accuracy the likely selling price and the profit you could bank. If 20-30 hours invested immediately on taking the site over could be reasonably expected to result in a clear additional selling price of a few thousand, it may be worth putting other stuff on hold to spend a week on this.