An SEO strategy without backlinks is like a human body without bones.
A grotesque analogy, perhaps, but a fair one.
Strong backlinks provide a sturdy foundation on which you can develop your website’s authority, and it’s practically impossible to dominate the search engine results pages (SERPs) without them.
That said, some backlinks are better than others. And some backlinks are downright rotten. Toxic. Capable of actively hurting your campaign.
Yeah. It can get ugly.
But don’t worry. Bad backlinks are relatively easy to spot – once you know how to spot them.
So what exactly do bad backlinks look like?
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Backlinks: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
First, we need to clarify exactly why some backlinks are better than others. In the context of SEO, backlinks function as an indication of trust. Google and other search engines look to see how many backlinks are pointed to a given website, and how authoritative those links are, to determine the overall authority of the destination website.
Obviously, Google can’t weigh all links equally in these calculations. For starters, referring sources come in many varieties, and some of them simply aren’t authoritative sources. On top of that, Google needs to disincentivize webmasters from engaging in link building practices that are bad for the average user. Accordingly, it weighs some links as more favorable and some links as more disfavorable.
What Makes a Bad Backlink?
What exactly is a bad backlink?
As you might imagine, bad backlinks come in many varieties, but some of the hallmark qualities of bad backlinks include:
- Irrelevance. Bad backlinks are easy to spot because of their lack of relevance in one application or another. These links may be considered irrelevant to the publisher, irrelevant to the reader, or possibly even irrelevant to the destination page included in the link.
- Manipulative intent. You might also flag bad backlinks because of their manipulative intent. Google doesn’t want to reward websites that practice ranking manipulation; instead, it wants to reward websites that can naturally and authentically earn links pointed to them. Manipulative intent itself can be determined in a variety of ways. For example, it might be clear that a link was shoehorned into an article because there are no other links in the article, or a bad backlink might be flagged because of egregiously specific anchor text.
- Low domain authority/trust. Domain authority of the referring domain plays a major role in determining the value of a given link. Generally, the higher the domain authority of the referring domain, the stronger the link is going to be. Conversely, if the domain authority is especially low, or if the site is known for spammy practices, the link can ultimately harm the destination website. In other words, a link on a bad source becomes a bad link.
- Lack of value. Google wants the web to be full of valuable content for users, as well as positive experiences for those users. If your links lack value in any way – in other words, if they don’t lend themselves to a positive experience for users – they may be considered bad backlinks. Accordingly, your links should serve some kind of purpose, providing users with meaningful, related content or citations.
- Extreme frequency. Bad backlinks can also be identified by their extreme frequency. Natural backlinks are built gradually and without adhering to particular formulas or patterns. Conversely, rank manipulators often build backlinks with the sole intention of building as many as possible as quickly as possible.
more specific examples of bad backlinks include things like:
- Overt spam. Sometimes, it is obvious that a link is spam. If the link is unwelcome, if the link is totally irrelevant, or if the link doesn’t meaningfully add to the conversation, it might be flagged as such.
- Empty PBN links. Private blog networks (PBNs) were once highly popular among link builders and other SEO professionals. Essentially, these were tight clusters of related websites, often owned by the same people, making it easy to build links on multiple websites without spending much time or money doing it. While it’s still possible to utilize these networks for legitimate link building, these sources have fallen out of favor with Google when used improperly.
- Link farms and link schemes. Some link building companies practice link farming or other types of link schemes designed to manipulate ranking, rather than providing value to users. In most cases, it’s easy to spot link schemes in action.
- (Most) blog comments. A couple of decades ago, building links via blog comments was one of the best ways to support your rankings in search engines. But these days, Google is aware of how easily accessible blog comments are, and blogs aren’t quite as relevant as they used to be for facilitating conversation, so the value has gone down. Including a link in a blog comment isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s not a great sign to start with.
- Forum links. Similarly, the ease and accessibility of forum comments makes them unlikely to function as good link sources. Only the most relevant, valuable links on the best possible sources should be considered in this category.
- Thin press release links. Press releases can be valuable opportunities to build links, but only if you have something truly newsworthy to report on. In the 2010s, digital press releases exploded in popularity as more brands discovered how easy they were to write and syndicate. Now, links in press releases have been downgraded in consideration – so if you want any value from your press releases, you need to make sure they meet strict quality standards.
What Makes a Good Backlink?
On the other end of the spectrum, what makes something a good backlink?
- High domain authority. Domain authority of the referring domain might be the single most important factor for determining the quality of a link. The higher the domain authority of the referring source, the more respect and juice that link is going to carry. Even if the relevance isn’t perfectly spot on, a link on a sufficiently valuable source is likely to stand and pass good value to your brand.
- Topical relevance. You also need to consider the topical relevance. Is this publisher related to your industry? Is the topic of the article relevant to your website and the page you’re linking to?
- Contextual relevance. Similarly, what is the contextual relevance of the link? Is it placed in a way that makes sense to readers? Does it interfere with any of the other goals of the content?
- Value to readers. Remember, good links add value to readers. There are many ways to add values to the reading experience, such as by citing facts, providing supplementary reading materials, or linking to resources that can clarify a complex topic.
- Appropriate anchor text. Your links should also have appropriate anchor text. Ideally, the anchor text will be relevant to the article at hand and natural to readers, but also relevant to the link in question and the destination page. Avoid the temptation to stuff keywords and phrases into your anchor text, as this can compromise your other goals.
- Reasonable pacing. Plan your link building pacing appropriately. It’s important to space your links out so they can be evaluated as natural.
Why It’s So Important to Avoid Bad Backlinks
Why is it so important to avoid bad backlinks for your campaign?
As the name implies, bad backlinks are bad for your link building strategy overall. For starters, if your brand builds egregiously bad backlinks or builds backlinks of poor quality with sufficient frequency, you could face a penalty from Google. Google manual actions are rare, but they can be devastating for your campaign. Even if you don’t face a manual action, your rankings may suffer as a result of your sketchy link building practices.
Beyond that, remember that many people will discover your brand for the first time or think of your brand whenever they encounter your links. If you build on disreputable sources or if your links seem spammy and irrelevant, it’s going to hurt your authority as a brand and potentially lead to worse first impressions.
How to Build and Maintain Better Backlinks
So how do you build and maintain better backlinks as part of your overall SEO strategy?
There are many potential approaches and tactics here. But to start, you need to have a commitment to building only the highest quality, most natural backlinks in your campaign. Only when you have this commitment in place will you begin prioritizing backlinks effectively. Once you do this, you can start designing processes, procedures, and systems in your business to support better link building efforts.
If you’re relatively new to the world of SEO, or if you just want to commit to the best work possible, it’s a good idea to work with a professional link building agency. There are many link building agencies out there, not all of which adhere to white hat practices, so make sure you do your due diligence before making a final selection. Once in place, you and your link building experts of choice can refine tactical approaches that help you achieve your SEO growth goals without compromising your link building integrity.
Backlink Audits
Even with the best possible link building practices in place, it’s possible for bad backlinks to slip through the cracks. You may have bad backlinks from before you took SEO seriously. There may be bad backlinks that accidentally get built as part of your campaign. There may even be bad backlinks built deliberately by your toxic competitors.
Accordingly, it’s important to practice regular backlink audits, so you can thoroughly evaluate your backlink profile, identify bad backlinks, and remove them.
How to Remove Bad Backlinks
Weeding out bad backlinks is a critical part of the link building process, and it’s something that you should do regularly. After a backlink profile analysis, you should be able to rapidly identify problematic links and flag them for removal
The easiest way to remove a link is to reach out to the Webmaster in charge of the website where the link is hosted. In most cases, this simple communication is more than ample to facilitate the removal of your link. This is your first line of defense, and should be your highest priority.
If that process fails, you can attempt to disavow the bad backlink in question via Google. Just keep in mind that Google will not approve every disavow request, it can take time to process this request, and this feature should not be abused.
Building Better Backlinks
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Backlinks are a hard piece of the SEO puzzle to master.
But we’ve got your back. We’ve got decades of collective experience developing SEO strategies, building links, and guiding clients to organic traffic generation success.
And we can help you achieve your SEO goals.
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Tim has spent more than two decades in organic online marketing, working with some of the most well-recognized online brands in scaling their content marketing campaigns.
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