The Internet Marketing Driver

  • GSQi Home
  • About Glenn Gabe
  • SEO Services
    • Algorithm Update Recovery
    • Technical SEO Audits
    • Website Redesigns and Site Migrations
    • SEO Training
  • Blog
    • Web Stories
  • Contact GSQi

The 5 Minute Guide to Identifying Spammy, Paid Text Links Using Open Site Explorer

March 1, 2012 By Glenn Gabe 15 Comments

Share
Tweet
Share
Email

How To Find Spammy, Paid Text Links Open Site Explorer

It’s 5AM and I launch Outlook to check my email. There’s one email in particular that catches my eye, based on the subject line “SEO Help”. It’s from a Director of Marketing that’s reached out to me for SEO assistance after reading one of my blog posts. Her organic search traffic just got blown away by Google for some reason. You can feel the tension through the words in her email. There’s even a screenshot of their analytics reporting for Google Organic Search. It looks like traffic dropped off a cliff. She asks if I can help them identify, and then fix the problem. My next move is…

I wish that scenario was unique, but it’s not. I get emails like that one all the time. Situations like this can kill companies (literally), so I tend to take each of those emails seriously. After reading a message like that, my mind starts running through possible scenarios. Did they get hit by Panda, were they cloaking, were they keyword stuffing, were they buying paid text links, etc? Or, were they simply collateral damage (which is an unfortunate reality when Google updates its ranking algorithm).

At this point, there are several items I can analyze for the website at hand. One piece of the analysis takes 5 minutes (literally). During this 5 minute check, I can quickly review the website’s link profile. My goal is to quickly see if it looks natural, or if it looks suspicious (or downright spammy). A spammy link profile filled with rich anchor text links could mean a dreaded paid text link situation. And that could very well be the reason why the site got hammered recently. More about anchor text and paid text links soon.

Open Site Explorer
I use several tools for analyzing backlinks, but my favorite is Open Site Explorer from SEOMoz. Open Site Explorer provides a wealth of information about a website’s inbound links, and is a phenomenal tool for any SEO to have in his or her arsenal. I’m not going to cover all of the functionality in Open Site Explorer now, since my goal is to show you how to quickly identify paid text links (or spammy links). Also, while I’m walking you through the process, keep in mind how quickly this is happening. Then think about how quickly Google could also identify the issue.

A quick primer on Paid Text Links:
Inbound links with rich anchor text are powerful for helping boost search engine rankings. Therefore, many companies have tried to game Google’s algorithm by acquiring inbound links using the anchor text they want to rank for. One of the acquisition methods is buying paid text links from sites they believe are powerful to Google. This is clearly against Google’s guidelines and can get you in a lot of trouble with Big G. There have been some high profile cases of sites getting penalized for engaging in paid text links, such as JCPenny and Overstock.

So, if a company gets hammered by Google overnight, it very well could be that the company was engaging in paid text links. One quick way to identify this is to analyze the anchor text leading to a site. Note, a natural link profile will contain some rich anchor text links, but will also be balanced with other types of links. For example, a normal link profile might contain links that contain the URL, the brand name, non-descriptive links like “click here” or “learn more”, etc. Rarely (if ever) will a website naturally contain 99% rich anchor text links. Now let’s get back to the tutorial.

How To Find Spammy, Paid Text Links Using Open Site Explorer
1. Enter a URL in the text box
When you launch Open Site Explorer, simply enter a URL in the text box. Open Site Explorer will return the inbound links it has found for the URL at hand. The default view is for the page you entered in the text box, but you can easily change that to view all inbound links for the subdomain or root domain.

Entering a URL in Open Site Explorer

2. Click the Anchor Text Tab
The “Anchor Text” tab will show you all of the anchor text leading to the URL or site at hand. Anchor text is the actual text used in the link that’s pointing to the site you are analyzing. For example, imagine you had a link on your page for Twitter. The text “Twitter” in that link is the anchor text.

Clicking the Anchor Text Tab in Open Site Explorer

3. Identify Links Using Rich Anchor Text
Now the funs begins. First, you will filter you results, based on the URL you entered earlier. Keep the option for “show anchor text phrases” and then use the dropdown to select “for links to all pages on this subdomain”. Then click the “Filter” button.

Viewing anchor text for inbound links in Open Site Explorer

4. Expand Rich Anchor Text to View All Linking Pages
Open Site Explorer is going to return the links leading to the site in question, organized by anchor text. You will see a plus sign (+) next to each anchor text listing, which enables you to view the pages using that anchor text to link to the website you are analyzing. As you scan down the list, you might come across some fishy anchor text. Again, you should see a natural balance of anchor text. If you see exact match anchor text that’s extremely descriptive, it’s time to click the plus sign to view the linking pages.

Viewing linking pages in Open Site Explorer

5. Click Through The Top Linking Pages To View Them
Once you find fishy anchor text, all you need to do is click the plus sign to view all of the pages using that anchor text to link to the site at hand. Beware, if a company is engaged in paid text links, some of the linking sites could be risky to visit. Just keep this in mind while drilling through the pages. At this point, you should be able to quickly identify spammy links. For example, you might find a blog that is writing spammy, thin content about 50 different subjects. As part of each post, you might find rich anchor text links to various sites (from each post).

It’s bad enough if you find a few of these links. But if you find many like this, you could be dealing with a company that’s heavily engaged in building spammy inbound links (and could very well be paying for them). I’m referring to the company that contacted you in the first place about its drop in rankings.

Finding Paid Text Links – Next Steps
Let’s say you took the 5 minutes to analyze a website’s link profile and found a boat load of spammy links. Now it’s time to get back to the company who contacted you. At this point, you could go down a few different paths. The company clearly broke the rules, so some SEO’s will pass on helping them. Others might want to dig deeper to learn why this was done, and if the company is trying to clean up the situation. For example, there are times that new VP’s or Directors of Marketing take over and have no idea what was done in the past. That’s a much different situation than someone who has dug a deep hole SEO-wise by engaging in paid text links. How you choose to proceed is your prerogative.

And as I wrote earlier, if this process took you 5 minutes to uncover spammy, paid text links, how quickly do you think Google could find them? I’m not saying Google always picks up and penalizes sites running paid text links, but it absolutely does happen. Remember that trending cliff I mentioned earlier? :)

GG

Share
Tweet
Share
Email

Filed Under: google, seo, tools

Connect with Glenn Gabe today!

Latest Blog Posts

  • Amazing Search Experiments and New SERP Features In Google Land (2022 Edition)
  • Analysis of Google’s March 2022 Product Reviews Update (PRU) – Findings and observations from the affiliate front lines
  • How NewsGuard’s nutritional labels can help publishers avoid manual actions for medical content violations (Google News and Discover)
  • What Discover’s “More Recommendations”, Journeys in Chrome, and MUM mean for the future of Google Search
  • How to extend a multi-site indexing monitoring system to compare Google-selected and user-selected canonical urls (via the URL Inspection API and Analytics Edge)
  • Favi-gone: 5 Reasons Why Your Favicon Disappeared From The Google Search Results [Case Studies]
  • Google’s Broad Core Updates And The Difference Between Relevancy Adjustments, Intent Shifts, And Overall Site Quality Problems
  • Google’s December 2021 Product Reviews Update – Analysis and Findings Based On An Extended And Volatile Holiday Rollout
  • The Link Authority Gap – How To Compare The Most Authoritative Links Between Websites Using Majestic Solo Links, Semrush Backlink Gap, and ahrefs Link Intersect
  • How to identify ranking gaps in Google’s People Also Ask (PAA) SERP feature using Semrush

Web Stories

  • Google’s December 2021 Product Reviews Update – Key Findings
  • Google’s April 2021 Product Reviews Update – Key Points For Site Owners and Affiliate Marketers
  • Google’s New Page Experience Signal
  • Google’s Disqus Indexing Bug
  • Learn more about Web Stories developed by Glenn Gabe

Archives

  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • GSQi Home
  • About Glenn Gabe
  • SEO Services
  • Blog
  • Contact GSQi
Copyright © 2022 G-Squared Interactive LLC. All Rights Reserved. | Privacy Policy

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

The Internet Marketing Driver
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

3rd Party Cookies

This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.

Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.

This site also uses pixels from Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn so we publish content that reaches you on those social networks.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!