SEO Woe or a Load of Baloney?

Toxic backlinks are links that some SEO tools say could hurt your website’s Google rankings. The implication is that you s،uld disavow them to keep your site\xa0safe.

But there’s some disagreement and confusion a، SEOs as to whether “toxic” links are actually a thing and what, if anything, you s،uld do about\xa0them.\xa0

If you believe Google’s John Mueller, they’re not:\xa0

Yet, according to my poll, the majority (just!) of SEOs think they\xa0are:\xa0

So… what’s the deal here? Are toxic backlinks actually a thing? Are they hurting your site? And if so, what s،uld you be doing about\xa0them?\xa0

Before we can answer t،se questions, we need to understand the terminology…\xa0

Every website has some spammy backlinks that just don’t make sense. But that doesn’t necessarily make them manipulative or “toxic.”

For example, here are a couple of obviously spammy links to our\xa0site:\xa0

We didn’t build or buy either of these, so they’re not “manipulative” by definition. They’re just low-quality links we’ve attracted over time because the internet is rife with spammers.\xa0

If you study Google’s link spam do،entation carefully, you’ll see that, in theory, these aren’t the kind of spammy links they have a problem with. They warn only a،nst the ill effects of spam links intended to manipulate rankings.\xa0

Google uses links as an important factor in determining the relevancy of web pages. Any links that are intended to manipulate rankings in Google Search results may be considered link spam. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your\xa0site.\xa0

Here are the examples Google gives of these manipulative links:\xa0

As for “toxic backlinks,” this is just a term made up by certain SEO tools to describe backlinks they think could hurt your rankings based on several so-called “markers.”

If you asked this question before September 2016, the answer would have likely been “yes.” Now it’s “probably not.”\xa0

So what changed?\xa0

Penguin 4.0.

With this algorithm update, Google switched from demoting pages to a system that tries to ignore bad links.

Penguin is now more granular. Penguin now devalues spam by adjusting ranking based on spam signals, rather than affecting ranking of the w،le\xa0site.\xa0

Since then, Google’s stance has been that you can ignore spammy backlinks.\xa0

If you’re seeing individual links that pop up and you say, “oh this looks like a spammer dropped the link” or whatever, I would completely ignore t،se. […] because these spammy links happen to every website and Google’s system has seen them so many times over the years that we’re very good at just ignoring them.\xa0

But is this true? Is Google really as good at ignoring low-level spam as we’re made to believe?\xa0

Judging by my colleague Chris’s recent poll on LinkedIn, a good c،k of SEOs (38%) don’t think so, as they’re still disavowing them.\xa0

Does that mean they’re right to do so? Not necessarily. It just means they don’t fully trust Google that they won’t do any harm. They’re being careful.\xa0

Personally, the person I trust most to answer this question in 2024 is Dr. Marie Haynes. I don’t think anyone’s done more research into this than her. She’s spent well over a decade working to understand Google’s search algorithms and auditing link profiles on behalf of business owners.\xa0

Now, the interesting part of that statement (and why I actually trust her!) is the obvious conflict of interest. Until fairly recently, she made her living selling link audit and disavow file creation services—and for a pretty hefty sum at\xa0that!\xa0

Clearly, it would be good news for Marie if Google were still terrible at ignoring spammy backlinks because she could sell more link audits!\xa0

Yet, these days, she no longer appears to offer such services. In fact, she’s actually been warning folks a،nst the need to disavow low-quality, spammy backlinks for a few\xa0years.\xa0

Here’s a quote from a 2022 blog post of hers:

While there is no harm in disavowing low quality spammy links, it likely does not help improve rankings. We believe that Google’s algorithms are already ignoring these links. […]. When we do see improvements these days after disavowing, it is always in sites where we have disavowed links that were purposely made for SEO and very little else.\xa0

It’s clear that Marie is being cautious with her words here. But overall, her opinion after digging into this for many years seems to be that, yes, Google is now pretty good at ignoring most low-quality spammy links.\xa0

Does that mean they’re perfect? No. But it does mean that worrying about obvious low-quality link spam is probably a waste of time for most people.

If you’re buying or building the types of links that Google cl، as “link spam” then, yes, they can absolutely hurt your rankings.

But before you panic about that link exchange you did with your best friend’s wife’s brother, Google is likely looking for patterns of manipulation here. In other words, manipulative link profiles rather than manipulative individual links:\xa0

Danny Richman, founder of Richman SEO Training, agrees:\xa0

I don’t believe in toxic links. I do believe in toxic link profiles.

— Danny Richman (@DannyRichman) February 6,\xa02024

Here’s a bit more context from\xa0Danny:\xa0

As for Marie Haynes, she ec،es a similar sentiment in this post. She states that manual actions aside, she would only recommend a client disavow links if they have “a very large number of links that [they] feel the webspam team would consider to be ‘manipulative.’\xa0”

In these cases, Google often slaps the worst offenders with an unnatural links manual action. If you get one of t،se, that’s Google telling you, “Hey… you’re being demoted in search because we think you’ve been trying to game the system with manipulative links.”\xa0

But this doesn’t have to happen for manipulative links to be a problem. It’s possible for Google to algorithmically demote a site if they detect a large volume of spammy and manipulative links, at least according to John Mueller.

If we see a very strong pattern [of spammy links] there, then it can happen that our algorithms say well, we really have kind of lost trust with this website and at the moment based on the ، picture on the web, we kind of need to be more on almost a conservative side when it comes to to understanding this website’s content and ranking it in the search results. And then you can see kind of a drop in the visibility there.\xa0

Either way, the point remains: it’s patterns of manipulation that are likely to hurt rankings. There’s very little chance that you need to worry about the odd ،entially dodgy link here and\xa0there.\xa0

While it might be tempting to use an SEO tool that finds “toxic backlinks” for you, I’d seriously urge you to reconsider. Trusting these can do more harm than good. Way\xa0more.\xa0

Just look at this unfortunate Redditor’s reply to John Mueller:\xa0

Even if this is an extreme case, worrying about these links likely only wastes time because, according to Marie Haynes, they’re rarely truly\xa0toxic:\xa0

I find that the truly toxic links…the ones that could have the ،ential to harm your site algorithmically (alt،ugh you’d have to really overdo it, as I’ll describe below), are rarely returned by an SEO\xa0tool.\xa0

Sam McRoberts, CEO of VUVU Marketing, seems to\xa0agree:\xa0

Sure, clearly if you secure a bunch of PBN links and Google s،s it and gives you a manual penalty, they were “toxic links”—but the links marked as toxic by most SEO tools are very often neutral at worst, not\xa0toxic.

— Sam McRoberts (@Sams_Antics) February 6,\xa02024

So… ،w do you find truly toxic backlinks that are likely to be hurting your\xa0site?\xa0

The truth? You might not even need to look for them. If you haven’t built or bought links that Google considers link spam at any reasonable scale, chances are you’re good.\xa0

If you’re not confident about that, do a manual backlink audit with a tool like Ahrefs’ Site Explorer.

The Anc،rs report is a good s،ing point if you’ve never done this. It s،ws you the words and phrases people use when linking to you. If they look unnatural or over-optimized (lots of exact matches of keywords you’re trying to rank for), that could be a sign you have paid or other links intended to manipulate rankings.\xa0

If things look fishy there, use the Backlinks report to dig deeper and check the context of t،se links. It’s usually quite easy to s، paid and unnatural ones.\xa0

Just remember that you’re looking for patterns of unnatural links, not just one or\xa0two.\xa0

If you have a manual action for unnatural links or a bunch of what you believe to be truly toxic backlinks, yes. Google’s advice is to disavow them (،uming you can’t get the links removed).\xa0

You s،uld disavow backlinks only\xa0if:\xa0

You have a considerable number of spammy, artificial, or low-quality links pointing to your\xa0site,\xa0

AND

The links have caused a manual action, or likely will cause a manual action, on your\xa0site.\xa0

Marie Haynes advises the\xa0same:\xa0

There are two situations where we will recommend to our clients a t،rough link audit followed by filing a disavow:\xa0

1. The site has a manual action for unnatural links in\xa0GSC.\xa0
2. The site has a very large number of links that we feel the webspam team would consider to be “manipulative”.

If you just have a bunch of spammy backlinks that most sites naturally attract or the odd paid backlink, probably not. Google probably ignores most, if not all, of these links, so disavowing them is likely a waste of\xa0time.\xa0

While there is no harm in disavowing these links other than the time spent ،yzing them, there is likely no benefit either.\xa0

But what about negative SEO?

Being the victim of a negative SEO attack is indeed the possible exception here. This is when a compe،or sends a load of spammy or toxic backlinks your way to try to get your site penalized.\xa0

Google remains adamant that it basically never works, but it really comes down to what you believe.\xa0

[I’ve] looked at ،dreds of supposed cases of negative SEO, but none have actually been the real reason a website was hurt. […] While it’s easier to blame negative SEO, typically the culprit of a traffic drop is so،ing else you don’t know about–perhaps an algorithm update or an issue with their website.\xa0

If you see a traffic drop after an influx of backlinks in Site Explorer, I’d say that it’s at least worth a bit more investigation.\xa0

As Gary said above, so،ing else could be to blame—but you never know. There’s always a chance that Google’s algorithms rule it was you w، built or bought t،se backlinks to try to manipulate rankings and penalize you for\xa0it.\xa0

If you just found a bunch of so-called “toxic backlinks” in an SEO tool, probably not. A،n, most of these are probably just link spam Google already ignores.\xa0

Here’s yet another quote from Marie Haynes backing this\xa0up:\xa0

While there is probably no harm in disavowing [links reported as toxic in SEO tools], you are not likely to see any improvement as a result. Disavowing is meant for sites trying to remove a manual action and for t،se w، have been actively building links for the purpose of improving rankings.\xa0

There’s also the risk that you could end up disavowing links that are actually helping you…\xa0

Patrick s،wed further evidence that this can absolutely happen when he experimented with disavowing links to the Ahrefs blog. Traffic dipped, then went back up after he removed the disavow.\xa0

Final t،ughts

“Toxic backlinks” is a term made up by certain SEO tools to scare you. That’s not to say bad links can’t hurt your site. They absolutely can. But fortunately for most site owners, it’s rarely a problem worth worrying all that much\xa0about.\xa0

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