Backlinks are essential elements of a successful SEO strategy, yet can present numerous challenges.
Sometimes it may be necessary to sever links. While this process can be risky and time consuming, sometimes this decision needs to be made immediately.
Ignoring Backlinks
Backlinks are one of the primary factors determining search engine ranking. Search engines use them as “votes” that help them assess your website’s authority, relevance and trustworthiness. They demonstrate credibility and are therefore necessary.
The key is identifying links that are problematic and then disavowing them using Google’s Disavow Link tool, which allows you to instruct them not to consider certain links for ranking purposes.
Start by using your backlink analysis tools to identify any problematic links on your site, such as blog networks that don’t fit your brand and low-quality sites.
Checking referring domains of each link, to ensure they’re not spammy or irrelevant, is also possible, while Backlink Analytics tools from Semrush or Ahrefs provide insight into their authority.
Once you’ve identified harmful backlinks, disavow them by using Google Search Console’s Disavow Backlink feature. This will stop them from impacting your rankings or authority negatively.
An additional way to deal with backlink issues is contacting the website owner and asking them to remove it – although this option may not work effectively due to it unlikely they’ll change their site URL or link structure in order to delete problematic backlinks from it.
Lastly, if your website contains numerous unrelated links from websites not related to your niche or brand, disavowing them might be in order. Such links do nothing beneficial for SEO and may harm its image and trustworthiness.
Google places more value on links from websites with high Domain Authority and PageRank when assessing backlinks for your website. Google will prioritize these types of links when considering backlinks as important components of SEO for a site’s ranking.
A great way to ensure you only attract quality backlinks is to produce original onsite content and form relationships within your industry. This can result in natural backlinks from websites who value what you write and want to share it with their readers; especially true if you’re an authority figure within your niche or field.
Disavowing Links
Disavowing links may be beneficial for various reasons. A common one is when Google notifies you that your site has been hit with a manual penalty.
Google may impose penalties if your backlink profile contains unnatural or dubious links which violate its guidelines, so it’s wise to review your backlink profile regularly in order to identify which links could potentially cause issues.
Disavow links if your traffic or rankings have recently decreased significantly, possibly as a result of an unexpectedly large increase in links or spammy backlinks that are harming the performance of your website and driving away visitors – this should be prioritized over any other issue as soon as possible.
Monitor Backlinks provides an effective solution. Using this tool, you can generate a list of links and domains you would like to remove from your website, then upload this list using Google Search Console’s Disavow Links feature.
After uploading the disavow file, Google will delete any links that contain spam from your website’s link profile – this helps with both search engine rankings and visibility for your website.
There are also SEO tools that provide backlink toxicity scores, such as RankActive, Semrush and Linkody. This allows for fast assessment of any links you’re considering adding to your disavow list.
These tools can be immensely helpful, but they do not cover all your backlinks in their database. Therefore, it is still wise to conduct a manual audit with additional tools in order to identify potentially toxic backlinks which should be added to your disavow list.
Though most websites won’t need to utilize Google’s disavow tool, it may come in handy in situations when manual actions have been taken against your site due to building unnatural backlinks or for building unrelated ones. Furthermore, this tool can help identify which links need to be deleted so as to avoid penalties in future.
Reconsideration Requests
Reconsideration requests are generally filed when a website has been penalized by Google and attempts to make amends by rectifying its backlink issues. Their aim is to persuade the search engine that everything possible has been done to resolve its backlink-related problems.
Reconsideration requests must be carefully written to demonstrate how you have rectified backlink issues, with details explaining your efforts to do so. Google will likely take more notice if more details are included – however, be prepared for an extended and drawn out process which requires extensive examination of your link profile.
If your reconsideration requests are failing, it might be beneficial to enlist professional assistance to examine your backlink profile more closely. A link auditor or agency is likely more acquainted with Google rules, which could provide greater insight into what issues may exist with regard to backlinks.
Link audits can reveal links that were previously unknown as problematic. When this occurs, it’s advisable to reach out to their owners and request permission to take down these links; otherwise it might be best to add them to your disavow file.
As part of your efforts to remove links, be sure to document them all using Google Docs spreadsheet. This will provide an accurate record of your removal efforts and can even help convince Google that the penalty should be lifted.
Google Webmaster Tools will occasionally notify websites of links which violate Google quality guidelines, whether through manual spam or algorithmic changes. If a message such as “Links to Your Site Violate Google’s Quality Guidelines” appears, this indicates a manual action has occurred and needs to be reconsidered immediately.
Before submitting your reconsideration request, it is crucial that your site is free of all negative backlinks, such as paid links that need to be disavowed or any paid ads on it. Furthermore, adding content back onto the site shows Google that everything possible has been done to address backlink issues.
Resolving Penalties
If your website has been hit with a link penalty, disavowing all bad links is key in helping recover its ranking position. But, to do it effectively and when is key.
There are two forms of penalties that could impact your website: manual and algorithmic. Manual penalties result in members of Google’s webspam team reviewing it and choosing to penalize it manually.
Algorithmic penalties, on the other hand, are initiated by Google’s algorithm when they detect suspicious activities on your site such as manipulative linking tactics or any harmful activities that compromise its reputation.
Regardless, swift action must be taken immediately to address and avoid further penalties from Google. You can do this by monitoring your backlink profile, adhering to their guidelines for link building and SEO, and using tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to identify potentially problematic links.
Disavowing low-quality or spammy links that you come across is essential in improving the ranking and avoiding further penalties in the future.
Once you’ve identified any low-quality or spammy links, use Google’s Disavow Tool to inform it not to include them when assessing your backlink profile. Please be patient as this process could take some time – make sure it gets completed in its entirety for best results.
The Disavow Tool can be an effective way of avoiding penalties, but should only be utilized under specific circumstances. Otherwise, it could worsen matters rather than helping.
Disavowing links is sometimes tempting, but only use it when they are causing issues for your site or toxic. This includes spammy redirects, porn sites and any links which cannot be easily removed themselves or are certain to be damaging.
Before using the Disavow Tool, it’s wise to consult a reliable source; however, this tool can be an extremely effective means of rectifying backlink issues. If you need help disavowing links, seek professional advice from an SEO specialist so as to ensure they do not negatively impact your rankings.