How to Identify and Remove Toxic Backlinks in SEO?
Toxic backlinks – What are they?
Toxic backlinks are typically irregular links that hurt website’s search rankings. Google regularly releases updates that concentrate on fishing out websites that have erred and then go ahead to penalize such websites. If your website is found to have bad backlinks profile, your site ranking will certainly drop.
In what ways are Toxic Backlinks Generated?
If you discover that your website has been affected by toxic backlinks, it is possible that the SEO Company you employed to work for you is accountable for the error. Several companies out there practice black hat SEO by putting together spammy links and offering such links to their client’s website project. Though this is done in order to boost sudden ranking, it is wrong, and can be really hurting in the long run. Some SEO Companies are just there to make money out of their clients, and do not even update themselves with the latest SEO practices. As a result they ignorantly do not adhere to SEO webmasters guidelines.
Toxic backlinks are unnatural links and have the power to negatively impact a website’s SERP. If your website is found wanting in this context, and is noticed by Google to have huge volume of such links, it can be excluded from its database. When you do not remove toxic or bad backlinks, this can result to penalty that will frustrate your business online.
How to identify that you have Toxic Backlinks
There are many ways to discover if your site is hurt by toxic backlink:
Google Webmaster can send you a notification indicating or warning you of toxic backlink on your website.
In case your website organic traffic level has suddenly gone down; then know that it is likely you have been penalized by Google and the best reason for it – is as a result of toxic-backlinks.
When this is discovered, the next thing to do would be to find out the website’s backlinks using Google Webmaster Tools. Other online tools that you can use to find complete list of toxic backlink include SEOmoz, Majestic SEO or Ahref.
Your discovery of toxic backlinks will include:
- Links coming from spammy sites,
- Links coming from sites that are only developed for link building,
- Links coming from websites that are not indexed by Google
- Links coming from websites that have malware or some kind of virus
- Links coming from link networks.
Simple Ways to Remove Toxic/Bad Backlinks
As soon as you have been able to distinguish between the good and bad backlinks, take quick steps to clean them up by doing the following:
Contacting the Site Owner:
Some links might be impossible for you to delete on your own. In this regard, reach out to the webmasters of such sites and ask for help to clean them out.
Disavow Links:
With toxic backlinks logged, you can request that Google shouldn’t take the links into consideration. This tool should be utilized only after you have tried your best to get the bad links cleaned. While you do this, also ensure you remove every bad link manually.
Finally, once you have cleaned up these backlinks, apply for a request with Google for reconsideration. Google may take 2 to 3 weeks to reconsider and set things going well again!
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