Blocking Bad Back Links

Blocking Bad Back Links and Blocking IP’s or Bad Neighborhood Links

Here is the process I use to block bad back links;

The problem; Google bowling or bad SEO created multiple bad back links from porn sites but you can’t contact them (or don’t want to spend the weeks it could take) to get them removed.

The Solution; Download the back links from Majestic SEO. Run them through the bulk URL check at LinkResearchTools.com (strength tool). Isolate the url’s that you want to block.

If the site is on an Apache server you can build the block into the htaccess file from the cpanel. I believe you can also configure a mod rewrite for this but haven’t done it myself and you would only want a 403 to be returned for specific IPs.

If you have control of the server you can use pre-built GUI programs like PG2, Peerblock or ProxyBlock

Last option is to contact the ISP (like with domains that will not allow cpanel/backend access) directly and ask them to block the list of IP’s. This is a bit more difficult because the last time I went through it (4 yrs ago) many of the tech guys didn’t know how to do this without detailed instructions.

I have also built the htaccess file with bad IP’s already in it and sent it over with simple instructions to look it over and then upload it and this seems to work if they understand what you are doing it for.

By
About the author: ""
View all posts by Gary Beal →

  • Pete Austin @marketingxd

    Re: “Here is the process I mentioned yesterday to block bad back links”.

    Sounds interesting, but you forgot to provide a (back?) link and there doesn’t seem to be any blog post yesterday. Please could you re-post and link, so as to provide context for today’s post.

  • Gary Beal

    Sorry mate it was a cut and paste from an internal email in which i menioned bad back links.

    I edited the post :)

  • Social Media Kent

    Hi Gary,

    There’s some great advice in this post. It seems that over the last few months (with lots of new algorithm tweaks from within the Google camp) that search engines are really cracking down on “bad link neighbourhoods”. The problem can be a little tricky for those syndicating their content with RSS feeds, as it’s difficult to control where your work ends up.

    Best wishes, Alex.

  • Koozai Mike

    We had a problem with IP’s scraping our site that was very hard to resolve, as whenever we reported it, the IP shown would be our own rather than that of the original domain. We were able to resolve it, but it was frustrating and hard to get the hosts to understand.

  • Dave Naylor

    I’m sorry but that just will not work, the link which is placed on the bad site will still be present and the search engines will still index that link, you are only blocking a server from accessing your pages, you not stop the webmaster or spambot accessing other sites and adding bad links to you, and you aren’t stopping google bot from seeing those links ..

  • http://twitter.com/kevinmspence Kevin

    This doesn’t make any sense.

    How does blocking access for spam sites have any impact on how Google treats inbound links?

  • Gary Beal

    Sorry Dave but your wrong here. If the IP is blocked the link is broke and the SE’s can’t follow it. I’ve done it this way since bowling was a major issue a few years back, and its currently working right now on sites we are blocking server side and the links are de-indexed.

  • Gary Beal

    Its basically a broken link…which is why it works. At the end of the day it malicious SEO and the method/advice came directly from Google when bowling was a much bigger issue.

  • William Cross

    Actually, DaveN is NOT wrong. Blocking the refering servers IP only stops traffic from that specific server, it does not stop googlebot from indexing the link, it does not stop visitors from that porn site from getting to yours. The only mistaken one here is you Gary.

    • Martin Woods

      This Blog post was based on personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect the views of Blueclaw. On closer inspection we would agree that this wouldn’t stop the link juice, but could be seen as a good will gesture by Google.

  • William Cross

    Martin: google would never SEE the block. ONLY the blocked server would. So no, it is not seen as a good will gesture, it is simply not seen by google in the least.

    • Martin Woods

      William we are saying the same thing, I agree that Google doesn’t see the block. But when you ask for reconsideration via a request from GWMT, you are can say this has been done. This might not be visible to them, BUT it is something to talk about. At the end of the day, anything that appeals to the human nature of the person reviewing the site penalty is worth doing, as it will all come down to one persons opinion sadly. When I said “but could be seen as a good will gesture by Google” I meant to the person reviewing the site. This person might not necessarily know this affects it one way, or the other.

  • Barry Adams

    The logic in Gary’s ‘solution’ (and I use the term loosely here) uses similar reasoning as the head-burying ostrich that thinks that the rest of the world ceases to exist once it stops seeing….

  • Gary Beal

    Precisely Martin. Shedding a penalty requires 1st person contact with Google (for those of us that can get it) and claiing ignorance or showing the blocks are in place means you took the necessary steps and have done all you can do.

    Try calling them with nothing and calling them with this verifiable info and see what happens.

    Think things through guys, what you’re stating is the obvious…see past that.

  • elison manjobo

    Thanks for this , we have been constantly looking for a way to block some of the links we have pointing to our sites and this is by far the best solution ive ever come across.

  • Chris Parker

    O.k. I’m tech illiterate. Looking to hire someone to block “bad” back links to my site.