Backlinks play a major role in an SEO strategy. They act as a sign of credibility and authority that you get to showcase to search engines. Without backlinks, your SEO strategy won’t be effective at all.
At the same time, there are some types of backlinks that may do more harm than good to your SEO strategy. These are the ones that are often found violating Google’s link spam guidelines, as someone placed them for SEO purposes instead of prioritizing user benefit.
These backlinks are called toxic backlinks. These backlinks can trigger a manual action or penalty from Google. This penalty can cause your site to get removed from search results or suppressed. However, there are ways to avoid such situations.
In this article, you will explore various ways to monitor and disavow toxic backlinks. You will also learn about the specific causes that turn a backlink into a toxic one.
Top Causes of Toxic Backlinks
According to experts of SEO in Brantford, toxic backlinks occur due to various reasons as given below:
Paying for Links:
You should refrain from paying or receiving other types of compensation for standard follow links that can have some SEO value. If you pay for a link in some way, the site owner should add a nofollow attribute.
You should also ensure that your backlinks are nofollow when using link-building activities. You can do so in the following ways:
- Placing digital ads
- Gifting any product in exchange for a review
- Partnering with influencers
- Paying for directory listings
Link Exchange:
A link exchange happens when two websites agree to link to one another just for SEO advantages. Such types of tie-ups can make Google’s search algorithms suspicious if you have too many of them.
If you have indulged in such a practice, make sure you have removed them with due effect from your site, as they may affect your website’s SEO campaign.
Working with Private Blog Networks:
Private blog networks are a group of websites that are owned by one party to provide links to a target site or a group of target sites. Google and other search engines can easily recognize PBNs.
Furthermore, owning or purchasing links from such sites can be dangerous. To avoid further complications, you need to remove these potentially toxic backlinks.
Furthermore, the usage of link-building bots, posting unnatural links on other sites, and business listing on low-quality directories.
Also Read: What are quality SEO backlinks?
How to Track and Disavow Toxic Backlinks?
Firstly, tracking the backlinks is an ongoing process in which you have to keep an eye on your website’s backlink profile. Although it is hard to fix what you don’t know about, there are several tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, SEMrush, and various other things that will help you track toxic backlinks.
After getting a suitable tracking tool, you need to identify toxic backlinks. This involves analysis of backlinks pointing to your site and looking for red flags. Some specific characteristics of toxic backlinks include:
- Links from spammy or low-quality websites: They often include irrelevant content, excessive advertising, thin content, or content that is automatically generated.
- Links from penalized websites: These are the links that come from websites penalized by Google. Any of these links can negatively impact your site.
- Links with over-optimized anchor text: Although relevant anchor text is good for a site, excessive used of exact-match keywords in anchor text from external sites can be considered manipulative.
- Links from link farms and private blog networks: As mentioned above, these websites are solely created for link manipulation. They go against Google’s guidelines.
- Links coming from suspicious-looking directories and bookmarking sites: Directories and bookmarking sites that are low in quality are often considered to be sources of spammy links.
- Links from Foreign-Language Websites with Irrelevant Content: Unless you specifically target specific languages, these links can be considered unnatural.
- Links from Irrelevant Websites: If a website that isn’t catering to your niche is linking to your website, it might make Google suspicious about this linkage.
Now, after understanding these characteristics, you need to do the following things to disavow these backlinks:
Collect the list of Toxic Backlinks:
You need to compile a list of the URLs or entire domains you would like to disavow.
Correctly Format the List:
You need to ensure that the list is correctly formatted. For that, create a plain text file(.txt) where every URL or domain to be disavowed is on a separate line. To disavow an entire domain, you need to prefix it with domain:. You can also add comments by starting a line with # if you are using Google Search Console.
Go to the Disavow Links Tool:
In Google Search Console, you need to go to the specific property you want. Then, search for the “Disavow Links” tool.
Upload Your Disavow File:
Select the formatted “.txt” file and upload it via the tool.
Submit Your Disavow List:
After uploading the file, click the “submit” button.
At the same time, you need to disavow such backlinks with some important considerations in your mind, as given below:
Disavow With Caution:
Google Search Console and various other tools are powerful in their jobs, which is why you need to use them carefully. Disavowing good links can impact the performance of your website. You need to disavow links that you know are harmful or toxic for your website’s SEO performance.
Removal is Always Better:
Attempting to remove the links directly is always the preferred method. You should always resort to disavowing at last.
It Doesn’t Happen Quickly:
Sometimes, Google takes some time to process your disavow file. Due to that, you will not see immediate changes in your rankings at some instances.
Regular Review:
Your backlink profile is something that keeps evolving constantly. That’s why you need to monitor it and disavow the latest toxic links as they appear.
Also Read: The Role of Backlinks in SEO and Content Marketing
To Summarize
Toxic backlinks can definitely take your digital marketing efforts down if you don’t tackle them on time. However, with the above mentioned tactics, you will be able to get rid of them and ensure that your SEO campaign helps you achieve your objectives and drive more organic traffic to your website through backlinks.
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