Using SEO links for promotion (“Minusinsk”)

This violation means that the Minusinsk algorithm was applied to the site because it uses SEO links for promotion in search engines.

Note. The “Minusinsk” algorithm was launched in 2015. It lowers the ranking of websites that use SEO links for promotion. Webmasters use these links to improve the position of promoted sites in the search by cheating.

SEO links are links created to influence ranking in search engines. Such links include, in particular, links that are bought through link exchanges and aggregators. Such links are placed on third-party sites, in no way improving them, and don't bring any benefit to visitors of such sites.

Yandex detected that I have this violation. How do I fix it?

You should completely refuse from using SEO links and remove them from the donor sites. After our robots re-crawl the pages of such sites and track changes, the restrictions will be lifted. This happens automatically, so you don't need to contact the support service to lift the restrictions.

You can use the I fixed it button on the Security and violations page in Yandex.Webmaster to inform the robot of the actions you completed.

The violation mark will disappear when the robot detects that there are no more links and lifts the restrictions for the site. This usually takes from one to several months.

Note.

You can click the I fixed it button again for the same site after a month. Further, this period is increased up to three months to avoid the button misuse. Therefore, we recommend using the button only when you are sure that there are no more violations on the site.

If multiple users have website management rights in Yandex.Webmaster, agree on who will send the website for re-checking and when. After clicking the button, none of the users will be able to click it again within a month.

I removed all SEO links. When will the restrictions be lifted?

On average, removing the mark about such violations takes from one to several months. The restrictions will be lifted after the robot re-crawls the donor pages and detects that there are no links. Reindexing occurs automatically in accordance with planning policies and depends on many factors, such as the quality of the site where the link was previously placed. If there are a lot of links, reindexing may take several months.

How can I find out which links lead to my site?

Information about links that lead to your website is provided on the External links page in Yandex.Webmaster. The information about links is updated only when the search databases are updated. This means that if you remove a link from the site, the robot must first find it by indexing the page where the link was, and there must be at least one search databases update after this.

I can't remove all links, some of them are beyond my control. What should I do?

Remove any SEO links you can control. You can contact popular link exchanges and demand to disable all projects involving your site, or contact the site owners where SEO links are located and ask them to remove the links.

The algorithm lifts restrictions is the number of removed links reaches a certain threshold. When the robot reindexes a certain number of donor pages and detects that SEO links are removed, the link profile of your site improves and restrictions are lifted. The threshold is determined by the algorithm individually for each site.

I never bought SEO links. Where did they come from? Maybe my competitors harm me.

If you ordered promotion from third-party SEO companies or you have your own promotion specialist, contact them with this question. When designing “Minusinsk's” we accounted for the possibility that unscrupulous competitors can buy links and excluded the possibility of such manipulations.

Note. If your site's promotion is handled by contractors, we recommend that you clearly state in your contract that they should not use paid links or other pseudo optimization strategies.

Will my site's position get worse if I remove all SEO links?

Experience shows that sites that remove SEO links don't experience any significant loss of traffic from search engines.

The violation mark was removed but the site is still missing from the search results. What should I do?

The removal of the mark means that our algorithms decided to lift restrictions from the site. In some cases, it may take some time for these changes to appear in the search. This usually happens after one or two search database updates, which takes about two weeks on average.

I clicked the “I fixed it” button a month ago, the mark didn't disappear, and the button became active again. Should I click it again?

You should use this button if you deleted more SEO links leading to your site over the past month. Otherwise, you shouldn't click the button again.

I can't click the “I fixed it” button as it is inactive. What should I do?

Any user with confirmed rights to manage the website in Yandex.Webmaster can click this button. Check who else has site management rights and ask if anyone used the button. You will be able to use the button again in a month.

I removed all the links I could. After several months, there's no result. What should I do?

Perhaps the robot didn't yet have time to re-crawl all donor sites. Check if any SEO links remain in saved copies of pages where they were previously. Make sure that the maximum number of SEO links was removed. To do this, we recommend contacting SEO optimizers who promoted your site or currently work on it. In complex cases, we recommend contacting well-known link exchanges with a request to remove them or contacting administrators of sites where SEO links are located.