One SEO Professional was concerned about a traffic increase they had sustained after a Google core update as a result of a disavow file/spammy backlinks.
They aren’t sure if it’s because of spammy backlinks or something else.
They have been working to solve the issues but they are still unsure whether or not the traffic increase occurred because of spammy backlinks.
John explained that, while it’s hard for him to really go into more detail without in-depth site information, in terms of generalities, the core updates are more about the relevance of a site overall, rather than being related to spammy links.
He would not expect the results of a core update to be triggered because of spammy links.
Because he doesn’t believe anything they experienced would have been the result of spammy backlinks, using a disavow file would not change all that much.
He reiterated that it’s more about understanding the relevance of the site itself overall.
Furthermore, because there are three sites that are mostly similar, it’s likely not the case that one of them’s very bad.
He said they could also ask themselves – “What are the things we could do to make the site even more relevant in the search results?”
John offered a tip that they could also take advantage of user studies to determine what the differences are between them.
This happens at approximately the 00:44 mark in the video.
John Mueller Hangout Transcript
SEO Professional 1 0:44
So we have three online pharmacies in Switzerland [inaudible] and Sonic store, you may have heard of them. And for Avita, in summer, we got a lot of spammy backlinks. And I also talked with you about that. And from what I know already, usually Google can manage those types of backlinks. But after Google updates core update in July, we got really hurt in our visibility for Amavita, just specifically for that shop that we got spammy backlinks. I tried a lot to disavow them by Google links. But at the same time, Avita and Sonic store have increased like double in traffic and visibility. But so I’m really not sure if this was because of just spammy backlinks. I assume that. So I would like to get your recommendation on that. What should I do? What can we do? We try to figure out things, we try to solve technical problems that we have, which we have, but so far, I still believe that happened because of spammy backlinks, but not sure.
John 2:08
Okay. It’s hard for me to say without digging into the details, but in general, with the core updates, if you’re seeing changes there, usually that’s more related to trying to figure out what the relevance of a site is, overall, and less related to things like spammy links. So that’s something where I wouldn’t expect any reaction in a core update based on random spammy links that go to your website.
And also with core updates, if, like, you can make incremental changes to improve your site over time with regards to the overall quality, and that will incrementally help there. But if it was a really strong adjustment with a core update, then you probably need to wait until the next core update to see those changes.
And because I don’t think it would be related to the spammy backlinks, I don’t think disavowing those backlinks would change anything. It’s really a matter of us trying to figure out what the relevance of the site is overall. And that’s something that almost relies on the overall site’s quality. And I imagine it’s tricky if you have multiple shops that are fairly similar.
In that, it’s probably not the case that one of them is really bad and the other ones are really good. But it might still be something where you can use maybe user studies to figure out what are the differences? What are things that you could do to make it clear that this site is particularly relevant.
And I think especially with regards to websites, like pharmacies, it is something where our algorithms probably try to be a little bit more critical, just because there’s so much more involved. It’s not a random website that has a story and a funny picture. It’s like people’s health that’s involved.
SEO Professional 1 4:16
Thank you. Thank you so much. So we need to work more on the quality of the content it seems because we have kind of same content on all shops, because of restriction, we cannot always change that. And also we are solving and already solved another four or four pages in sitemap but thank you so much. Yeah. So yeah,
John 4:39
I Yeah, especially with regards to things like 404 pages and technical issues that would not be related to core updates. So core updates are really more about understanding your site’s overall quality and its relevance, and less about technical issues and less about spam.
SEO Professional 1 5:00
Okay, thank you so much.
John 5:02
Sure. Good luck.