What are bad Backlinks?: Backlinks are links from other websites that bring people to your website. If you want to know how many links you have (that direct website traffic from other sites to your site), type in the name of your company or different keywords. Every link that you or your company does not set up is a backlink. If you want high SERPs rankings (meaning you’ll come up higher on a list when people use Google to look for a company with your services), you want to have a good number of backlinks. The number of links directly influences how high Google and other search engines rank you. However, not all backlinks are equal. Even good links have some that are bad too. In this guide, we will discuss what bad backlinks are and how to remove them?
What is Bad?
Bad backlinks refer to those links that come from low-authority websites. Such backlinks can be harmful to your website if they are irrelevant to your website’s content. On the other hand, good backlinks help establish the authority and credibility of your website. Moreover, they play an essential role in your SEO strategy.
What Makes one Bad or Toxic?
From the search engine perspective, several factors can amplify the toxicity of a backlink. These factors include:
- Low Domain Authority (DA): It is based on the backlinks from the high domain authority to the domain providing that backlink. A low-rank website means that the domain score can be inflated artificially.
- Mirrored pages: If the multiple pages have the same page are linking to you from the similar anchor text, Google or other search engines may see it as spam or link-building strategy.
- Page layout: If you have a low text to HTML ratio, it may indicate that the linking page is inferior in quality.
Different types of bad backlinks
There are six main types of bad backlinks: directory links, spammy websites’ links, PR release links, links from link-mill websites, PBNs, and links from websites unrelated to your industry. However, all are slightly different, but each is equal to your website’s health.
Directory Links
There’s no doubt that web directory submissions are a great way to get excellent and high-quality linking organically. However, this is only true if these links come from reputable web directory submission websites specifically relevant to your niche. If you get links from low-DA directories, then you will have the opposite effect. Google My Business, Yelp, Better Business Bureau, Alignable, and Chamber of Commerce are considered good directories.
Links from Spammy Sites:
The links you get from websites that have nothing to do with you are considered as bad. Worse yet, such websites also have inappropriate content that could be a cause of your bad reputation in the future if things get out of hand.
Links from Link-Mill Websites:
Building up a range of backlinks not only helps you improve your website’s authority in Google’s eyes, but these links should be authentic. However, there is a lot website where you can get backlinks, but not all of them offer the real value that will increase your website’s authority. It would be best if you created high-quality links to get rank on the search engine result page.
PR Release Links:
The press release is not only a way to announce exciting news about your brand or business, but it helps garner attention too. However, if your press release is full of keywords, then this kind of backlink will not help you get on the first page of Google.
Links from websites Unrelated to Your niche
PBNs:
Private Blog Networks, a.k.a. PBNs, are used to build backlinks to optimize your website and get ranking on Google. PBNs are used to get significant gains and randomize your footprint. Now, it can be harmful to your website and cause it to lose its organic traffic. As it can tank your website, Google can detect it. Some PBNs may take more time to spot such PBNs than others, but search engines will catch on.
How to Remove The Bad Ones
Following are some steps that you need to follow to remove bad links:
Collect Your Data
Compile a list of backlinks that are coming to your site. Use a checker to collect this data.
Identify Bad Backlinks
Audit every backlink and identify bad backlinks. If the backlinks do not relate to your niche and do not add much value to your profile for inbound links, consider them bad backlinks.
Remove The Bad Backlinks
Now, send a removal request to the owner of these websites. Keep in mind that don’t threaten them and specify the exact location of your backlink that you want them to remove.
Track and Monitor
The next step is to track and monitor that whether your bad backlink has been removed or not. If the webmasters don’t respond to you within 7 to 14 days, send them a follow-up email to remove the bad one(s).
Disavow Links
The last step is to disavow all these links with Google. The search engine will see it as you don’t want these links to count when it assesses your site ranking. You can delete the page that is showing up as low quality. However, it is not an ideal option, but it will help your site be of high quality.
Bottom line:
When it comes to digital marketing strategy, backlinks are considered a crucial factor. But it would be best if you made an excellent backlink to tell the search engine that your business is relevant to your target audience. You need to have organic backlinks and avoid spammy ones to get a better ranking in SERPs. Removing bad ones can help your rankings and improve your website positioning on Google’s first page.
What are Bad Backlinks? | Blog Article | SEO After Coffee | All Rights Reserved | South Carolina | June 17, 2021