Toxic backlinks can damage your site's SEO, reduce visibility, and even lead to Google penalties. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to identify and remove them effectively:
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What Are Toxic Backlinks? Links from spammy sources like link farms, irrelevant sites (e.g., gambling, adult content), or hacked websites.
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Why It Matters: Bad backlinks can lower your rankings, reduce domain authority, and hurt traffic and revenue.
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How to Identify Them:
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Use tools like Seobility to audit your backlinks.
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Look for red flags: low domain authority, irrelevant content, excessive links from the same domain, or spammy anchor text.
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How to Remove Them:
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Contact site owners with polite removal requests.
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Use Google’s Disavow Tool if manual removal fails.
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Quick Comparison of Backlink Audit Tools:
Regular audits and proactive link-building are key to maintaining a clean backlink profile. Start now to protect your site’s SEO health!
Toxic Backlinks: How to Find Them & Disavow Them
To spot harmful backlinks, you'll need a mix of manual inspection and SEO tools. Start by auditing your backlinks and looking for red flags.
Running a Backlink Audit
Follow these steps to identify potentially harmful links in your backlink profile:
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Export your backlink data from Google Search Console.
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Look for patterns like sudden spikes in domains, repeated IP addresses, excessive use of exact-match anchor text, links from irrelevant locations, or too many links from a single domain.
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Document suspicious links, noting factors like domain authority, content relevance, link placement, publish date, and traffic trends.
Backlink Analysis Tools
SEO tools can help by assigning scores to backlinks, making it easier to prioritize which ones need attention. Here's a quick comparison of popular tools:
"Most backlinks, even in a worst-case scenario, will not cause negative SEO, but rather will just be ignored by Google. In cases where a backlink is especially spammy, such as a bad traffic trend, or has outbound anchor texts like 'casino' AND it is completely irrelevant to your business, then taking action is recommended." – Greg Heilers and Morgan Taylor, Jolly SEO
Warning Signs of Bad Backlinks
When analyzing your backlinks, watch for these warning signs:
Content Quality Issues
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Poorly written or auto-generated content
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Excessive ads or pop-ups
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Lack of original material or mostly syndicated content
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Broken links or frequent 404 errors
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Outdated design and poor user experience
Technical Issues
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More than 50 outbound links on a page
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Over 25 backlinks from the same domain
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Sitewide dofollow links
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Alexa rank above 100,000
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Links from pages that aren't indexed
Contextual Problems
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Links in unmoderated comments
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Irrelevant footer links
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Links from unrelated topics or industries
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Suspicious domain history or frequent ownership changes
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Links from link farms or private blog networks (PBNs)
"I find that the truly toxic links…the ones that could have the potential to harm your site algorithmically (although you'd have to really overdo it, as I'll describe below), are rarely returned by an SEO tool."
Marie Haynes [3]
Instead of focusing on individual questionable links, look for patterns in your backlink profile. A single bad link is unlikely to cause major issues, but clusters of harmful links can lead to algorithmic penalties.
Removing Bad Backlinks
Once you've identified harmful backlinks, the next step is to remove them systematically while keeping a detailed record of your actions.
Contacting Site Owners
When reaching out to site owners, make sure your email includes the following:
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The URLs of both the linking and target pages
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A clear explanation of why the link should be removed
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A polite and professional tone
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A deadline for response (typically 8–10 days)
Here’s an example of a removal request email:
Subject: Request to Remove Backlink
Dear [Website Owner],
I represent [Your Company]. Your page ([specific page URL]) links to our site ([your URL]).
We’re currently reviewing and cleaning up our backlink profile. We kindly request the removal of this link.
Please let us know once it has been removed.
Thank you,
[Your Name]
"Bad backlinks are a problem not just because they can lead to penalties by Google. Backlinks with a negative traffic trajectory also provide a decreasing ROI as they age." – Greg Heilers and Morgan Taylor, SEO Experts, Jolly SEO
Managing Removal Requests
To keep track of your outreach efforts, use a spreadsheet with the following columns:
For better efficiency:
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Use tools like Seobility’s Backlink Audit for templates and tracking
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Set reminders for follow-ups
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Log all communications
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Record successful link removals
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Mark links that may need to be disavowed
If site owners don’t respond after multiple follow-ups, you may need to turn to Google’s disavow tool as a final option.
“We said multiple times that the disavow tool is a very heavy gun. And if you don’t know what you are doing, you can shoot yourself in the foot with it."
Gary Illyes, Webmaster Trends Analyst, Google
Using Google's Disavow Tool
When manual efforts to remove harmful backlinks don't work, Google's Disavow Tool can help. However, using it requires careful planning and precise execution to avoid harming your site's performance.
When to Disavow Links
You should consider using the Disavow Tool only in specific situations:
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You've received a manual action warning from Google.
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Your site has a large number of spammy or unnatural backlinks.
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Attempts to manually remove these links have failed.
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There's clear evidence these links are negatively affecting your site's performance.
Approach this process cautiously. Start small by disavowing 5-10 obvious toxic links, then monitor your rankings for 2-3 weeks. This gradual approach helps minimize the risk of unintended SEO issues.
Disavow File Creation Steps
Creating and submitting a disavow file requires accuracy. Here's how to format it correctly:
- Prepare Your List
Compile a list of URLs or domains to disavow. Add comments explaining why each link is being disavowed and when the decision was made.
- Format the File
Structure your file with one entry per line. For example:
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Submit to Google
Log in to Google Search Console, go to the Disavow Links Tool, and upload your file. Make sure to do this for all property versions (http, https, www, and non-www).
Regularly update and maintain your disavow file. Plan annual reviews to add new spam links while keeping previous entries intact. When updating, submit a single new file, as each upload replaces the old one entirely.
It may take Google several weeks to process your disavow file. During this time, keep detailed records of the links you've disavowed and monitor your site's performance to evaluate the results of your actions.
Backlink Profile Management
Once you've dealt with harmful backlinks, it's essential to keep managing your backlink profile regularly.
Schedule Regular Audits
Frequent audits are key to maintaining a strong backlink profile. How often you perform these checks depends on your website's size and link-building efforts.
By staying proactive, you can catch and address harmful link practices early.
Avoiding Bad Backlinks
It's always better to prevent toxic backlinks than to deal with their consequences. Building a strong backlink profile helps naturally fend off spam.
Here are some ways to maintain a clean profile:
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Publish engaging, high-quality content
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Collaborate with relevant and trustworthy domains
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Regularly review referring domains
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Use "nofollow" tags for sponsored or paid links
These steps will help ensure your backlink profile remains in good shape.
Measuring SEO Results
To see how your backlink management efforts are paying off, track key SEO metrics.
Keep an eye on domain authority, traffic fluctuations, manual actions, and competitor activity to evaluate the health of your backlink profile.
Next Steps
After cleaning up your backlinks, it's crucial to stay on top of things with regular monitoring.
Here’s a suggested schedule for monitoring:
To maintain a strong backlink profile, consider these steps:
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Keep an eye on your link acquisition rates to spot potential spam attacks.
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Set up email notifications for changes in your backlink profile.
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Track metrics like Trust Flow and Citation Flow for deeper insights.
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If you’ve removed harmful links, submit reconsideration requests to search engines.
Staying proactive with these practices ensures your backlink profile remains in good shape.
