Toxic Backlinks: Spotting and Fixing for Better SEO

Spammy backlinks have been around as long as the internet.

So, how do you avoid spam backlinks and keep a clean link profile?

This guide will show you how to deal with spam backlinks.

Anyone who has done SEO link building recently knows that the biggest worry is getting penalized for spammy links. Google’s updates, especially Google SpamBrain, have made it clear that quality matters more than quantity. Google can now easily tell if a link is “natural” (adding value to the website) or “unnatural” (just trying to boost rankings).

What are spam backlinks?

Spam backlinks have been around since the beginning of the internet, and most people can recognize them just by hearing the term. But not everyone understands exactly what a spam backlink is. Simply put, spam backlinks are like fleas on your website—they’re a nuisance that take without giving anything in return.

If you’ve been hit by a spam link attack, you’re not alone.

Spam backlinks often show up in places like forum replies, blog comments, and similar spots. These spammy links are basically “junk” and usually point to the spammer’s own site or one of their affiliates, like breadcrumbs leading back to them. The goal is often financial, but sometimes spam backlinks are created without the site owner’s or admin’s knowledge.

These spam backlinks can really mess things up—clogging up your site’s resources, hurting your site’s credibility (since no one enjoys reading machine-generated nonsense), and creating a lot of extra maintenance work.

The worst part is that Google might de-index your site, which means it could disappear from search results. All your hard work could be wiped out in an instant.

Not all links are the same, though. Thanks to SpamBrain, some backlinks boost your rankings, some hurt them, and others are ignored by Google. Toxic backlinks—like those from paid link schemes, link wheels, private blog networks, or sites promoting payday loans, gaming, or adult content—are particularly harmful to your site’s SEO.

Difference Between High and Low Quality Backlinks

Unfortunately, not all backlinks are created equal. High-quality backlinks can boost your domain authority, reputation, and Google visibility. On the other hand, poor-quality backlinks can harm your SEO, lower your authority, and lead to penalties that cut your traffic.

To succeed with your SEO efforts, you need to spot the difference between high-quality and low-quality backlinks. Here’s a tip: use our free backlink checker to see the ratio of good to bad links pointing to your site.

Low Quality Backlinks

Poor quality backlinks have the potential to harm your Google reputation and decrease your search engine visibility.

Typical Source

The easiest way to spot a high-quality backlink is by looking at where it comes from. Generally, the better the source, the higher the quality of the link. Posting a link on a shady, low-ranking, or poorly designed site can hurt your SEO. Similarly, if you place a link on a site made just to manipulate rankings, you’re likely to face penalties.

But it’s not just about the source. You also need to consider how relevant the site is to your industry. If your backlink doesn’t fit with your field or the site’s content, it may be seen as low-quality.

Intent matters too. Google can tell if you’re trying to manipulate rankings with your links. If your main goal is just to boost traffic artificially, Google will likely view those links as low-quality.

The structure of your link also counts. A link posted alone in a blog comment without any context might be seen as spam. But if your link is part of valuable content and isn’t marked with spammy terms like “click here,” it’s less likely to raise red flags.

Link type is important as well. Google might view it as suspicious if you use the same link across all your external sources. Instead, aim for links that are relevant to different conversations and platforms.

Finally, consider the frequency of your backlinks. Posting links to the same site multiple times a day or seeing a sudden spike in backlinks without context can look like spam, lowering the quality of your links.

In short, low-quality backlinks are just there to drive traffic and don’t add real value.

High Quality Backlinks

When you build up a sufficient number of high-quality backlinks, your website will gain more domain authority and search exposure.

Typical Source

For high-quality backlinks, the rule is simple: the better the source, the better the link. Trustworthy websites like those ending in .gov or .edu are top-notch. Major publications and well-known info sources are also great places to get valuable backlinks.

You can also find quality free backlinks by using sites that are relevant to your field. Industry-specific blogs and forums are perfect for this. The more specialized the site, the better.

Also Read: Why Buying Links is a Bad Idea

Intention

The main point of high-quality backlinks isn’t about manipulating rankings. Instead, the best links are those that actually add value. For example, links that establish authority, explain a topic, reference a fact, or connect to a major site are all about adding substance and useful information to what’s already out there.

Structure

High-quality links are usually more credible than just one link. They’re often part of well-written content that explains their purpose. For example, a high-quality link might be included in the middle of a great guest blog post or in a forum comment with a short note explaining why it’s there.

Link Type

The more diverse your links are, the better their quality. If you keep linking only to your homepage, it can hurt your reputation. On the other hand, high-quality links often point to specific internal pages, serving a clear purpose and adding value.

Frequency

High-quality links come at a steady pace. They aren’t dumped all at once; instead, they appear gradually over time, rather than in big bursts.

The main goal of good backlinks is to improve the user experience.

Focus on including only high-quality backlinks in your offsite SEO strategy, and steer clear of low-quality ones. If you’re worried about your current backlink profile or want to audit your links, tools like Open Site Explorer can help. Regularly cleaning up your profile and ensuring you have top-notch links is always a smart move.

How Spam Backlinks Can Harm SEO Rankings

It’s well-known that outdated spam backlinks hurt your rankings. In fact, there are many types of backlinks today that can drag your site’s position down. Old spammy backlinks just bring in visitors who quickly leave due to the sheer number of bad links pointing to your site. If you have these kinds of links, find and remove them right away. They’re definitely hurting your search engine rankings, driving away visitors, and harming your business. While you’re at it, do some additional backlink maintenance. Google is more focused than ever on providing users with the best experience, so you want your site to be included in their top rankings.

Google and Inbound Links from Bad Sites

Some people argue that links from shady websites won’t hurt your site’s ranking with Google. There have been plenty of articles debunking this idea. But recent updates from top SEO experts show that links from low-quality sites can indeed lower your ranking just as much as outdated spammy backlinks. If you want to keep your site ranking well on Google, you need to know what these bad links are, where to find them, and how to get rid of them.

What often happens is that someone using black hat SEO techniques links to your site, and Google might hit you with a penalty for it. This can be frustrating because even if a site is well-known, Google can still penalize it for having poor-quality links. While this situation is rare, it does happen. It’s best to remove these backlinks as soon as you find them to avoid any potential penalties and the uncertainty that comes with them.

Updated Bad Links

Building new backlinks the wrong way can be just as harmful as dealing with old spammy ones. With so much competition out there, links that are stuffed with keywords or point to unrelated sites are becoming more common. That’s why Google has had to tweak its algorithms to tackle these issues. Once you’ve cleaned up those old spammy links dragging your site down, you have to be careful about new backlinks, too.

These problematic links can sneak in and hurt your site’s ranking before you even notice. Sometimes, it’s not until a full site audit that you discover these issues. Google’s algorithm now relies heavily on the quality of inbound links, so understanding how Google views these links is crucial.

In simple terms, Google used to rank sites based on the number of links pointing to them. Ideally, more links meant a higher ranking. But with black hat SEO tactics messing things up, this system wasn’t fair.

Luckily, Google now values quality over quantity. This means that search engines don’t have to wade through unreliable or harmful links just because a site has more of them. Google stopped recognizing dodgy SEO practices that tried to link everything to everything.

This shift started in 2011 when Google began addressing the problems caused by bad links. Websites were getting hurt by spammy connections, and users were turning away from Google to avoid these issues. The focus changed from having a lot of links to having high-quality links for better rankings.

Unfortunately, some websites and businesses didn’t adapt quickly enough. Many companies were caught off guard when the changes happened. They either didn’t update their sites, weren’t aware of the bad links, or ignored the risks, leading to serious consequences.

The results were severe: many sites saw a sharp drop in rankings, and businesses that once led their industries were hit hard. SEO and website companies scrambled to find solutions. In short, unnatural backlinks, outdated spam links, and black hat SEO tactics can seriously damage your site’s rankings.

Why is it Important to Remove Toxic Backlinks?

Website owners want to have as few toxic backlinks as possible because these can hurt their site’s Page Rank. If Google’s SpamBrain finds a lot of harmful backlinks pointing to a site, it’s likely to lower that site’s Page Rank. In the worst case, if Google sees too many bad backlinks, it might even remove the site from its search results altogether.

How Do I Know if I Have Toxic Backlinks?

There are a few ways to figure out if your website has toxic backlinks. Here are four common methods:

1. You Know Because You Created ThemIf you’ve been involved in shady practices like buying links or spamming content, you probably know about the toxic backlinks you’ve created.
2. You Get a Warning from GoogleSometimes, toxic backlinks aren’t your fault. They might have been created by a scammer or a sketchy SEO agency you used in the past. You might only find out about these harmful links when Google sends you a warning.
3. You See a Sudden Drop in TrafficIf you notice a sharp drop in your organic traffic, especially after Google’s Penguin 2.0 update on May 22, 2013, toxic backlinks could be the reason.
4. You Check Your Backlink ListIf you’re worried about recent Google updates, it’s a good idea to review a list of your backlinks. This can help you spot any questionable links.

These tools can also help you see how your website is performing after a recent Google algorithm update.

Where Can I Find a List of My Website’s Backlinks?

Google recommends starting with Google Webmaster Tools to get a list of backlinks to your site. Just log in to your Google Webmaster Tools account, go to the “Traffic” section, click on “Links to Your Site,” and then select “More.” This will show you a sample of backlinks pointing to your blog. For a complete list, though, you’ll need to use a backlink checker service like Ahrefs, SEOmoz, or Majestic SEO.

How Do I Determine Which Backlinks are Toxic?

Check each of your backlinks to see where they’re coming from. You should remove any spammy links from low-quality sites and keep the ones from reputable sources. You might want to get rid of links from these types of sites:

• Gambling, payday loan, porn, or spammy sites
• Sites that Google doesn’t index
• Sites flagged for viruses or malware
• New domains with little authority
• Sites with very little traffic
• Sites with an unusually high number of external links
• Irrelevant sites

Also, remove all sponsored links and site-wide links, like those in blogrolls or footers. However, not every link from these types of sites is harmful. It’s important to carefully review each backlink to make sure you remove the bad ones while keeping the good ones.

How to Remove Toxic Backlinks

To make sure you can accomplish this manually, there are a few things you need to perform.

Find Spam Backlinks

Before you do anything, you need to find out where the spam backlinks are coming from. Even if you haven’t noticed any changes from recent search engine updates, it’s still a good idea to run a backlink audit or scan to see who’s linking to your site.

Google’s updates, like Google SpamBrain, have targeted low-quality links, such as those from:

• Pages with lots of external links
• Link farms
• New domains
• Sites with low traffic
• Site-wide links
• Pages with PageRank (PR) of 0 or not available
• Comment spam, including Scrapebox spam

If any of your backlinks fit these descriptions, they’re likely spammy and should be removed. They’re not helping your site and might even hurt it.

A thorough backlink audit using one of the many available tools can help you find and get rid of these spammy links.

Doing Nothing

You could choose to do nothing about it, but if you have backlinks from spammy sites and you’ve even received a warning email from Google, it means they’ve found some spam. Ignoring this could hurt your site’s traffic and ranking. Spam backlinks can damage your site’s reputation, which might push you off the first or second page of search results.

The Downside to 404

Many people handle spam links by simply deleting

Many people handle spam links by just deleting the page they lead to, which creates a 404 error. Google doesn’t count 404 pages, so this can solve the problem of spam links.

However, using 404 pages isn’t the best approach for your website. Visitors don’t like landing on 404 pages, and they can negatively impact your site’s user experience and SEO. In some cases, broken links might even threaten your entire site’s performance, especially if they point to important pages you want to rank well.

Additionally, if the spam link is directing users to your main page or another key page, you definitely don’t want to use a 404 error. You need that page to stay active and optimized for search engines.

Link Removal Request

One of the most common ways to get rid of a spam link pointing to your website is to ask the webmaster to remove it. You’ll need to find their contact details and politely request that they delete the link. Often, you might have originally placed the link yourself, so now it’s time to ask for it to be taken down.

You can handle some of this yourself using link management tools or hire help from sites like Upwork and Fiverr.

When you’re drafting your removal request, be courteous and avoid making demands. Simply ask them to remove the link and explain why. If the link was added in a comment you didn’t write, be sure to mention that. You might also want to mention the recent penalties that Google has given to sites with spammy comments.

If the site you’re linked to is full of spam, you can let them know that you’ll have to disavow their links if they don’t remove yours. They won’t want to risk their page rank being harmed by those links.

Use the Google Disavow Tool

If you’ve tried everything to remove spammy backlinks and they’re still affecting your site, it might be time to use Google’s disavow tool. This tool helps you get rid of those stubborn links that you can’t remove on your own.

Google suggests that you exhaust all other options before using the disavow tool. That means you should try to contact webmasters or remove as many links as you can yourself first. Only turn to the disavow tool if you’re still having trouble. By using this tool, you can tell Google to ignore the harmful links pointing to your site, which can help prevent them from hurting your rankings.

Keep in mind that Google may review your disavow requests. If you submit a lot of requests without showing that you tried to remove the links yourself, Google might give you a manual penalty. So, it’s best to use this tool as a last resort.

Create a New Website

There is an additional method that includes beginning from scratch in order to remove the spam backlinks. You could wish to start over with a new domain if you haven’t made a lot of effort into your website and it is still rather young. All of the spam backlinks will be eliminated as a result, giving you one less item to worry about.

How to Use Moz Spam Analysis to Test Links

Figuring out whether your backlinks are “natural” or “unnatural” has often felt like a guessing game, even with a lot of evidence to guide you. Ideally, if you get a link from a trustworthy source and it genuinely adds value to the conversation, it should be considered high-quality. But it’s natural to worry about whether Google will see your link-building efforts as manipulative.

Fortunately, Moz has introduced a new tool to help clear up these doubts. The “Spam Score,” part of Moz’s Open Site Explorer tool, aims to objectively measure how natural or artificial your backlinks appear.

Dr. Matt Peters, a data scientist at Moz, identified 17 “spam flags” after extensive research. The more of these flags a link has, the more likely it is to be penalized and carry less authority.

The Spam Score evaluates how many of these spam flags are present on a subdomain. Although it doesn’t currently work at the page or domain level, it can still give you valuable insights into whether your backlinks are on reputable sites. You can find this feature under the Spam Analysis tab in Open Site Explorer. Right now, it’s only available to subscribers, but you can either wait for Moz to make it free for everyone or sign up for a free trial.

Even without Moz’s tool, you can use these 17 spam factors to help decide whether to place links on a particular site.

Best Spam Backlink Checkers

You need an excellent link checker if you want to optimize your link profile. A comparison of three of the best is given below.

Google Search Console

Check the backlinks leading to your website from your Google Search Console account to see if any are spam or could cause damage to your website.

This will help you determine whether or not there are a lot of spam backlinks in your linkgraph:

You can use the Google disavow tool from this page to remove any spam backlinks that might be preventing your website from being seen.

SEO Spyglass

SEO Spyglass stands out from other backlink checkers because it’s part of a larger software package, but it’s still a powerful tool on its own. If you’re looking for a straightforward, user-friendly backlink checker, this could be just what you need.

The Spyglass tool gathers your backlinks from across the web and puts them into its own database, helping you identify and remove spammy links. You’ll get real-time data on your backlinks and can even visit these links directly from the software.

You can buy Spyglass with a one-time payment, or you might get a better deal if you purchase it as part of the full suite of tools. Plus, it’s one of the few high-quality backlink checkers that offer a free trial for the general public.

Ahrefs.com

The Ahrefs backlink checker is a top-notch tool with incredible features. It gives you detailed information on your backlinks, like how many there are, where they come from, which pages they link to, and what anchor text is used. You can view this data in different formats based on what you find most important. The tool’s unique ranking system, combined with major search engine rankings, makes it really useful.

Ahrefs lets you customize your data presentation extensively. You can filter links by type, such as do-follow or no-follow, site-wide or not, redirects, image links, and even links from .gov or .edu sites. Plus, the reports highlight errors, warnings, and alerts, making it easy to spot and remove outdated or problematic links.