How do I identify spammy backlinks on my website?
There was a time when SEO marketers recommended you buy all possible links to build your backlink profile – a black hat SEO technique. Since the launch of Google Penguin in 2012, websites that use this tactic have been penalized.
Not all websites have done this or have already removed such links from their website, but there are still spam links to websites that are not considered trustworthy.
Even though Google has improved its algorithms over the years and is better at ignoring spammy backlinks, it’s still good SEO practice to clean up your backlinks from time to time.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to find and remove spammy backlinks on your website.
Avoid spammy backlinks
Before we get into finding and removing links, it’s important to know which links you should avoid in your backlink profile. Any link that is irrelevant to your website is a bad backlink – with the exception of a link from a major publication (The Guardian, Daily Mail, etc.).
There are some types of backlinks that you definitely shouldn’t associate with your website:
- Links from domains that have been penalized
- Links from link directories and link farms
- Links from “bad domains” like porn, “pharma” and online gambling
- Links from foreign language sites
- Lots of links from sites that have nothing to do with your own site
- Many links with exactly identical anchor texts
Links from penalized domains are of course poison for a website. Luckily, Google knows that anyone who wants to rank well would build links this way, so they ignore them completely.
Exactly matching anchor texts and links from third-party websites are viewed differently by Google. It is easy for them to create these themselves in order to manipulate the ranking. You could be punished with a penalty or a manual action, so it’s best to clean it up if you have one.
Find spammy backlinks
There are several tools to identify harmful backlinks that you want to remove. No matter which tool you choose – Ahrefs, SEMRush, and Majestic, to name a few – you should make a list of your current backlinks.
Any tool you use will display all your links, similar to Ahrefs (see above). Here you can analyze each domain, and see the traffic it brings to your site, as well as the trust flow and citation flow for the domain and the URL – in Ahrefs this is called URL rating and domain rating.
You can use these values to decide whether you want to keep a link from this page or not. The higher the trust and citation flow, the better the link is for your site.
SEMRush can perform a backlink audit that will give you a clear indication of which links are considered potentially harmful. The information you receive can be improved by connecting your SEMRush account to Google Search Console.
It’s easier to analyze all link data in one table. So make sure you click “Export” on each tool so you can collect the information into Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel.
Typical spammy backlinks to watch out for
1. Guest posting on low-quality websites
Guest posting is probably one of the most well-known tactics for building high-quality backlinks.
However, if you write guest posts frequently, things can turn gray without warning.
Maybe you’re unknowingly building low-quality links, or you’re a beginner who just got the taste for how a backlink drives traffic.
Whatever the reason, here are some things you should definitely avoid when looking for guest posting opportunities:
2. Blog networks
Blog networks are websites that provide backlinks to paying members. Google hates these sites and for good reason.
The easiest way to identify a blog network is to look at their guest posting guidelines. If they contain strict word count rules and an equally strict word-to-link ratio, it is better to avoid such a website.
Most good blogs don’t care if you only write 400-600 words or include links in the introduction of your article.
3. Article websites
Article websites are very similar to blog networks, with the big difference being that you can pay for each article you publish.
Most articles on these websites are written to generate backlinks and therefore tend to be of low quality.
Links from these pages usually do not harm the SERP performance of your website, but they do not bring any positive added value either, Google has made sure of that.
4. Web 2.0 Blogs
Also known as single-post blogs, these are one- or two-page websites usually built on WordPress subdomains.
Just like links from article websites, links from single-post blogs also do nothing to improve SERP visibility.
5. Bad press release sites
Another popular way to get really valuable links is through links from websites that publish press releases. However, not all news sites work the same way.
Those that truly have a good reputation that your website can benefit from often have strict quality and information verification standards. These standards are often so strict that they deter left-wing spammers.
It’s always easier for spammers to reach low-quality news sites that don’t ask for information sources or quality content. Additionally, it is easier for spammers to convince these sites that an unknown company or brand’s website redesign is newsworthy.
However, links that come from low-quality press syndicates are often not indexed or have no real SEO value. This means that while this tactic will not devalue the site, the time and effort you invest in securing such links will not benefit your site.
6. Directories
Backlinks from business directories have been a point of contention for some time. This is because there are high-quality directories like Yelp that adhere to strict quality standards.
On the other hand, there are business directories that only exist to provide backlinks.
For this reason, Google has decided to devalue links from certain business directories. Another reason why directory links provide little to no benefit is the high number of outbound links that directories have.
This means that the “link juice” is distributed across all outgoing links. For example, if you get a link from a directory that has 1000 outbound links, then the link juice value for you is 1/1000.
Google’s Matt Cutts offers some considerations you can make to determine whether a link from a particular directory will benefit your website. These are
Check how many entries the directory rejects. If virtually anyone can be included in the directory, it’s very likely that the links won’t be of any benefit to you.
7. Forum spam
For SEO newbies, it may seem like a “hidden way” to get links from forums, but in reality, it is far from being a legitimate way to get a backlink.
The logic is simple. Forums, similar to social media sites, have little control over the quality of links posted by users. Virtually anyone can get a backlink from a forum.
For this reason, Google has deindexed the links from most forums. This means that while these links won’t hurt your site’s SEO results, they won’t help either.
8. Comment spam
Blog comments were a popular link-building strategy until a few years ago. The reason for this was simple: it is incredibly easy to get a backlink from an unmoderated comment section.
The catch, however, is that most unmoderated comment sections have hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of outbound links.
Additionally, most websites with unmoderated comment sections are usually of poor quality.
For these two reasons, it’s probably not a good idea to get links from unmoderated comment sections.
Now that we know where spam links come from, we can actively work to avoid them.
However, as mentioned earlier, it is possible that your website already has some spammy backlinks pointing to it. Even if you behaved well and never did blackhat SEO, it’s possible that you got some backlinks from negative SEO practices from unethical competitors.
We’ll see how you can identify these and prevent them from hurting your website’s SEO results.
9. Too many links from non-niche websites
In many cases, you can benefit from a backlink from a website that has nothing to do with your website.
A link from a local non-governmental organization (NGO) or local authority website will give you SEO benefits, regardless of whether their niche is related to yours or not.
However, the examples above may be the only cases where a link from a website unrelated to your niche won’t hurt the results of your SEO efforts.
The most common mistake in this regard is that websites start giving each other links. Such a link exchange, where you link to another website and that website links to you, almost always makes sense for niche websites.
Just like your website is expected to get backlinks from other websites, it’s only natural that you link to them.
However, if such reciprocal links between unrelated websites are noticed, Google will consider this as unnatural link building and may penalize you.
10. Backlinks from websites in other languages
If your website is in English, Google expects most links to come from other websites that use the same language.
An exception to this rule may be when a company website serves users in another country.
But even in this case, Google expects your website to receive links from websites that use the same language as the people who make up the majority of your online audience.
This means that if the majority of your audience lives in France and your website or business is based in the UK, Google expects you to receive links from websites in French and English.
If your website has backlinks from a website written in Japanese, for example, Google will notice and assume something is wrong.
If the Google algorithm detects multiple links from such websites, the links will be devalued in your backlink profile.
11. Links from generally spammy websites
So far we have discussed a number of spam websites, including link farms, low-quality business directories, and link exchange networks.
However, there are some other types of spammy websites like porn websites and gambling websites.
Don’t get me wrong: if you have a website that operates in one of these niches (I’ve heard it’s incredibly profitable), getting backlinks from similar websites makes a lot of sense.
However, if you have a “reputable” business, you need to make sure you don’t get (or even distribute) links from such sites.
Website Removal Request
After analyzing your backlinks, you will have selected the links you want to remove. Google recommends that you request removal from a website before asking them to ignore the link.
However, the chances of a low-quality backlink being removed from an offending website are next to zero. In most cases, you will not be able to find the contact information of the webmaster who has access to the website. Some don’t have a page where you can contact them.
You can use Whois.com – Free Whois Lookup to find the owner of a website.
If you can find an email that allows you to contact the site owner, you can request that your link be removed. There’s a good chance you won’t get an answer to your request.
Create a Google Disavow file and submit it to Google
You can skip the above step entirely and submit a disavow file to Google. This is a list that you create that contains all the links that you want the Google search engine to ignore. Once created as a text file, it can be submitted via Search Console.
You can either select specific URLs to ignore, or you can ask Google to ignore links from a specific domain entirely.
It is important that you be particularly careful with the links you submit in your disavow. If you accidentally submit a high-quality link, it can really hurt your rankings.
Remember what we said earlier about exporting your backlinks from tools? In these tables, you will perform a thorough analysis to ensure that the links you want Google to ignore are included.
Once you submit it, you need to be patient. The document will take a while to be processed, so all you can do is wait for it to have a positive impact on your rankings.
Ahrefs created a video explaining how to remove disavow links using the tool:
Conclusion
Spammy backlinks can come from various sources and sometimes it’s not even your fault if spammy backlinks point to your website. However, in the eyes of the search engine, spammy links are associated with a spammy website.
That’s why it’s important to check your website’s backlink profile regularly to identify spammy backlinks and remove them.
Luckily, thanks to SEO tools like RankWatch, this task, when done regularly, doesn’t require a lot of time and effort.
The little bit of time you have to spend identifying and removing spammy backlinks is a small price to pay for not hurting your site’s performance in search results.
Do you have any more questions about spammy backlinks? Or did I forget to mention a source of spammy backlinks that you discovered?
Whatever it is, share it with me (and all readers) in the comments section below.