Member Avatar for ManzarOx

hello Dani community. hope you guys are doing fine. My name is Manzar the comapny i work for as SEO strategist happens to be a fashion house that owns two online fashion stores namely www.dressrepublic.com and www.raneemstore.com

The SEO guy before me inserted the inbound link of Dressrepubic (DR) store into the footer of Raneem Store (RS) to improve the ranking of DR website (as you can see at the bottom of the home page of Raneem store with the anchor text "eCommerce Solutions") which resultantly has created over 22,000 inbound links for Dressrepublic.com coming from Raneem store.

My question is: in a post-penguin world, are these links still good for Dressrepublic store in terms of SEO, or should I Disavow all those links as Matt Cutts can potentially flag them as spam? i personally think i should disavow all those links and also remove the inbound link for DR in the footer of RS to cage the beast! thanks for your time!

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Dani AI

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Short expert note: sitewide, identical anchor-text links from one property to another are low‑value signals today and can look unnatural to search engines. That does not automatically mean a manual penalty, but it can skew anchor‑text distribution and hurt algorithmic performance. Start with a focused audit and conservative fixes before using the disavow tool.

Actionable checklist (in order):

  1. Check Google Search Console for Manual Actions and export the Links report for both properties. Compare organic traffic and ranking timelines in your analytics to see if performance dropped after the link was added.
  2. If you control the source site, remove the sitewide footer link or relocate it to a single contextual page (e.g., an about/partners page). If removal is impossible immediately, neutralize the link value by changing the anchor to branded/neutral text or adding a rel attribute.
  3. Document every removal request/change (screenshots, change logs, emails). If a Manual Action exists, this documentation is essential for a reconsideration request.
  4. Use the disavow tool only after removal attempts fail or if you have clear evidence the links are harming the site.

Simple examples to neutralize a link:

<a href="https://target.example" rel="nofollow">Brand Name</a>
<a href="https://target.example" rel="sponsored">Brand Name</a>

A few practical notes: keep anchor text natural and brand-focused; large numbers of identical anchors from one domain are treated as low‑quality signals; recovery after changes can take weeks to months while Google recrawls. Agree with that removal is preferable; is right that link quality matters; and ’s caution about penalties is valid—take measured, documented steps before disavowing.

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Member Avatar for LaxLoafer

If you're able to remove the back-links then there's no need to disavow them. The disavow tool is intended to be used as a last resort, when all other efforts have failed.

Whether you should remove the links is another matter. Are they having a detrimental affect? This is something you could possibly test for, as the site is under your control, but you might find the answer is already in your analytics data. Did traffic from organic search results fall off when the links were introduced?

I suspect you'll find the 22,000 links have little influence.

Thousands of links from a single domain, all with exactly the same anchor text, is strongly indicative of a footer link. It's not difficult to identify them and I wouldn't be surprised if search engines simply count them all as just one.

As for linking from a site under your control to another, this has to be one of the easiest ways to gain a back link. What value do you think search engines might place on such a link?

Will the link get flagged as spam by Matt Cutts? I think this depends on relevancy, and possibly topic. For example, linking from a fashion site to 'pay day loans' and with misleading link text could look extremely spammy. You should be safe. Is Matt is reading this post?

Member Avatar for mayaestat

Its benefotial for your website to rank on Google for a targted keywords. the quality of inbound links also does matter in this case.

Member Avatar for canadafred

Matt Cutts? Oh you mean that Google puppet who flings misinformation all over the place in order to keep the masses of you wannabe' SEO's confused and drooling. Silly OP.

Member Avatar for era27

It could be bad if search engine find your link s on that site you could be penalised.

Member Avatar for ManzarOx

okay thanks everyone especially Lax Loafer!!

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