5 varieties of unhealthy backlinks you don't need
Backlinks point to url links from other websites that point to your website. Yes, it's all in the name. They are links back to your website.
Backlinks are an important part of a successful SEO strategy. By maintaining a network of backlinks from various sources, you can improve the relevance and reputation of your website with search engines.
However, not every backlink is created equal. Some can drive huge traffic and improve your SEO. Others negatively affect your website.
Fortunately, there are ways to find those bad backlinks and clean up your link profile so that your overall optimization can improve and users can find your website.
Good versus Bad Backlinks and Why It Matters
In the epic battle between good and bad backlinks, the source plays a role. This is what really matters in determining whether a link is good or bad.
Let's take a few steps back and talk about why search engines matter in the first place. Why are they giving credit to the sources of some backlinks while berating others?
It depends on the user experience.
We all want to provide our customers with the best possible experience with our products or services.
Search engines like Google and Bing are no different. They also want customers who keep coming back because their experience has been great.
How did you have a great experience in a search engine? You will get the results you want and find trusted websites that will answer your questions.
Search engines prioritize websites with a positive online reputation. However, for backlinks to be effective, the websites you link to also need a good reputation.
How do you know what a good backlink is?
The best links are created organically (i.e., you don't pay or trade for them), add value to the site, and help the user better understand a topic. Websites that provide useful content to their users are generally a source of good backlinks.
Bad backlinks are pinged by search engines and diminish your appearance in search engine results. On the contrary. They are artificial, forced, or irrelevant. They may be out of date, from spam websites, or from some other website you own.
5 Bad Backlink Types To Look For
As you work on SEO for your website, keep in mind that there are several types of broken backlinks that you don't want.
In general, you want to avoid anything that feels indecent or too good to be true. SEO takes time and doesn't happen overnight. While reviewing your SEO game, these are five of the top types of backlinks to avoid.
1. Links from spam sites
Spam isn't always easy to define, but most of us know what it is. They are ads that are irrelevant to you or websites that talk about illegal or predatory products. It's no different with spam backlinks.
These are links to your website from places you don't want to be associated with your brand.
It's usually more than that. It's not just a single backlink from a random competitor. They are irrelevant links from places that could damage your brand's reputation.
Some have described these type of spam sites online as three Ps – pornography, pharmaceuticals, and poker. We all had to remove these types of comments from blog posts and social media comments.
Your website may get backlinks from such places and search engines can penalize you especially if you get tons of spam backlinks.
If you've never researched your backlinks before, now is the time to do it. Use our backlinks tool to get a list of the backlinks to your website. Read them through and you will notice the spam messages.
What can you do when you notice these bad spam backlinks?
Google recommends that you do your due diligence first to contact the websites that your backlinks are from and request removal.
You can then use the Google Search Console disavow tool to request the removal of these links.
Remember, however, that a spam link or two won't hurt your website's SEO. So treat them accordingly.
The Google algorithm ignores these types of bad backlinks when assessing your SEO. If you or an SEO specialist you work with can find an exorbitant number of these backlinks, it may be worth your while to turn them down.
2. Links from Link Mill Web Sites
Link mill websites or paid link schemes have been popular for years. It's easy to see why. They bring with them the number of backlinks that many website owners find necessary to improve their SEO game.
The problem is, more links aren't always good, especially when they come from dubious sources like Link Mills.
In general, Google and other search engines have worked to make their algorithms less manipulable. In other words, they don't want search engine results to go to the person who bought the most backlinks.
Google calls these link schemes and may contain links that were purchased for money or other resources. This is especially true for stacks of links or the quick and easy link building.
There is a good chance that you will encounter all kinds of opportunities that fall into this category. Anyone who promises tons of backlinks that will improve your SEO for cash quickly falls into this category.
Large amounts of bad, low quality backlinks are not worth it in the end. Search engines keep getting smarter, and no matter how clever the newest scheme seems, it will eventually be found out.
What's the alternative? In the same article about the link schemes linked above, Google recommends creating quality marketing content. Links are not about quantity. It's about quality.
Of course, you want to create consistent content over time, but you want to keep it great. When you create content that real people want to read, they'll share it and use it as references in their content. This creates a natural, high-quality link back.
3. PR release links
Press releases can lead to bad backlinks. However, this does not mean that every press release penalizes your website.
The problem is how you do it. Google announced that they don't like press releases with backlinks that don't add value.
But here are the details. Yes, you can still create high quality press releases and match them to relevant news sources.
However, you should avoid filling a press release page with dozens of keyword heavy links to your website and then spamming them on dozens of newswires. The problem really occurs when brands do this repeatedly and try to build backlinks to improve their SEO.
It's about manipulating the search engines. SEO takes time. Trying to do this with seemingly simple solutions like pumping out link-laden press releases just won't work.
Search engines have gotten too smart and will either ignore or punish these methods.
4. Links from websites unrelated to your industry
We've talked a lot about spammy and slimy backlinks, but sometimes bad backlinks are just not relevant to your business or valuable to your readers.
For example, if you run an e-commerce pet store, a link from a pet care website can be helpful – it's relevant to your audience. A link from an Italian cheese maker, not so much.
Not every backlink is great if it's completely irrelevant or from a place that has nothing to do with what you're doing. I'm not just talking about these three Ps that we mentioned above.
When you start building backlinks to your website from areas and industries unrelated to your own, it can lead to confusion.
When a lot of backlinks are coming from places unrelated to your brand (i.e. using keywords unrelated to your brand) things can get mixed up. All of a sudden, search engines think unrelated keywords are relevant to your brand, and you can start lowering results for keywords that actually matter.
At NeilPatel.com we write about everything digital marketing related, including creating an Instagram bio, creating backlinks, and even improving your mobile website's rankings.
If I started writing about the best dog leashes, it would likely confuse search engines. You would think I should rank this and water down the ranking for terms that I want to rank.
How can you fix this problem? If these backlinks are spam, as explained above, then you don't need to worry too much. Search engines are smart enough to ignore them and you can opt out of them if you need to.
However, these types of links are usually related to your content marketing strategy. If you've written on a topic unrelated to your brand, you may get a lot of backlinks from other places related to that topic. Search engines may focus on that rather than the main theme of your brand.
If this sounds like you, it's time to get your brand back on track. Move this unrelated content to other websites and build that reputation on a new platform while creating more content relevant to your industry.
5. Links to discussion forums and blog comments
In the early days of the internet, discussion boards were all the rage. Even in our more modern online age, sites like Reddit are proving that discussion boards are a popular place to chat with others interested in similar topics.
It's a great way to get information about your car model, create the latest home improvement fad, or get the right education on a topic you love.
So post and share on forums that get you excited. Have real conversations. These aren't the types of activity that backlinked you to ping yourself.
However, as mentioned earlier, avoid spam manipulation movements. You want to avoid links being randomly thrown across the board.
Like this one in one of my posts on how to make your website load faster:
Not relevant, and these links are of no help to your website at all.
Search engines can tell when backlinks are just keywords filled with links in the forum after the forum. Thanks to AI and natural language processing, they become smarter and notice when it's not a conversation but a broadcast.
If you find a stack of discussion forums while looking for backlinks to your website, you can opt out of them as described above. If someone you hire creates these types of links, it may be time to hire a new person.
Conclusion
Link building is a crucial factor in building your online marketing strategy. You want to establish a natural link network across the internet to let search engines know what your brand is about and to prove that you are relevant to your target market.
However, to be effective, backlinks should be organic and not spammy. Identifying and removing broken backlinks can help you improve your search engine ranking.
What types of backlinks do you need to remove from your website?
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