All publicity is often good, but this is not true with backlinks. While backlinks boost your SEO and online visibility, toxic links can tarnish your website’s reputation (domain authority and rating).
In this guide, we’ll show you how to find toxic backlinks, clean up your profile, and keep your SEO strategy Google-safe.
TL;DR - How to Check Toxic Backlinks
Here’s a quick summary of how to find toxic backlinks:
Collect your backlink data
Screen the links for toxic signals
Audit the suspected links
Attempt link removal
Monitor regularly
Continue reading for a detailed discussion of each method.
But if you find the process hectic or time-consuming, we recommend working with a link-building agency.
Partner with Profit Engine so we can help you audit your link-building profile to flag toxic backlinks. We can also help you secure genuine backlink placements in high-authority domains to boost your website’s SEO performance.
Toxic backlinks, or bad backlinks, are inbound links from spammy or low-quality websites. The links are considered toxic because they breach Google’s spam policies.
This simply means the web page in question was created only for backlinking opportunities for other domains, instead of providing helpful information to users.
Google evaluates your backlink profile to identify toxic inbound links, which can result in your website losing its domain rating or a manual action in the worst-case scenario.
Why Bad Backlinks Are a Concern for SEO
Next, let’s discuss the dangers of having toxic inbound links in your backlink profile:
Reduced Trustworthiness: Associating your website with spammy domains dilutes your site’s perceived authority and credibility.
Manual Penalties: Google could take manual action against your domain, resulting in some web pages or the whole website not being ranked on SERPs.
Missed Backlinking Opportunities: High-PR domains might disavow your backlinks or reject your backlink requests if they associate your website with black hat SEO tactics.
Key Indicators of Toxic Backlinks
Below are common signs that a backlink is toxic and may harm your website’s SEO performance:
Relevance: Backlinks from websites that do not relate to your niche are likely toxic and from spammy domains.
Generic Content: Most toxic backlinks contain spam text and are overcrowded with ads, offering little value to readers.
Numerous Backlinks from the Same Domain: Getting 100+ backlinks from the same website likely means the referring domain is a link farm or PBN (private blog network).
Backlinks from Closely Related Websites: Receiving backlinks within a given period (say a day or week) from websites with similar UI, content, and domain names often means the links are spammy.
Common Sources of Toxic Backlinks
The best way to avoid Google manual penalties is to understand where toxic backlinks come from and actively avoid them.
We have compiled a list of the most likely sources of bad backlinks:
Link Farms: Buying backlinks from private blog networks violates Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and could result in a manual action on your website.
Reciprocal Backlinking: Exchanging backlinks with an affiliated website often seems like a harmless way to grow your link-building profile. However, search engine algorithms often audit backlinks for editorial value and flag reciprocal links as toxic.
Overreliance on Automated Link-Building: Usually, we advocate for automated link building to handle repetitive tasks like sending backlink requests and follow-up emails. However, using the link building tools for backlink placements in community forums and blog comment sections often results in inbound links from spammy sites.
Low-Quality Directories: Business directories and repositories are often the easiest way to grow your backlink profile and generate organic traffic to your website. However, some directories are just like link farms and fake their authority and SEO value to lure website owners to link to them. This could expose your website to a Google manual penalty.
Website Widgets: Creating free widgets is an effective way to promote your brand and get websites to link back to your website. However, you cannot control where users install the widgets, which could result in backlinks from spammy websites and PBNs.
How to Find Toxic Backlinks
Identifying toxic backlinks is integral to safeguarding your website’s SEO performance. A few bad backlinks could undo months or years of dedicated link-building.
Below are effective ways to flag toxic backlinks pointing to your website:
1. Collect Your Backlink Data
Use the Google Search Console or other third-party backlink checkers to get a list of links pointing to your website.
For Google Search Console, go to Links and select Top linking sites. Next, click on More to see backlinks. Alternatively, you can export your external links to an offline file.
2. Screen the Links for Toxic Signals
The key indicators of toxic backlinks discussed in the previous section should help you identify links that could pass negative SEO value to your website.
For instance, flag any referring domains with 20+ outbound links to your website.
3. Audit the Suspected Links
Manually review the backlinks shortlisted in Step 2 to determine whether they are really toxic.
For example, links with generic/spam content are likely toxic. Also, account for the anchor text and content relevance of the linked web pages to your niche.
4. Attempt Link Removal
Send an outreach message requesting the referring domain owners to remove the backlinks or add a nofollow link attribute.
Unfortunately, this method is often unsuccessful if the backlink is from a link farm. In such cases, add the backlinks to a .txt file and upload them to Google’s disavow tool.
5. Monitor Regularly
Make finding toxic backlinks a regular part of your link-building strategy. Usually, there’s no timeline for how often to track your backlinks.
However, we recommend evaluating your backlink profile monthly or quarterly so you can find and remove toxic links quickly before they hurt your website’s SEO performance.
Think this process is too tedious and time-consuming?
Let Profit Engine handle your link-building strategy, especially cleaning your backlink profile. We use a 16-point link-building checklist to vet backlinks and ensure they add value to your SEO performance. Also, our team leverages AI and tailors the link-building checklist to your backlink profile for more insightful reports.
Schedule a call today to learn how to manage toxic backlinks so they don’t hurt your website’s authority and rating!
Toxic Backlink Checker Tools to Use
SEO tools are the easiest way to track toxic backlinks instead of auditing your link-building profile manually.
SEMrush: Use SEMrush to find which domains link to your website, including the backlinks’ impact on your site’s SEO performance. You could also set notifications for when domains link to your website for the first time (unique domains). This lets you audit the website and decide whether to keep the backlink or initiate removal.
Ahrefs:Ahrefs uses a holistic approach to detect toxic backlinks. Instead of providing a list of backlinks to disavow, it highlights unusual activities or features that likely point to manipulative link-building. For example, you can generate the anchor report to find backlinks with unnatural or over-optimized keywords and then assess the links manually to determine if they are toxic.
Majestic SEO:Majestic provides detailed backlink analysis reports to help you find suspicious domains for further vetting. For instance, you can assess the Citation Flow (quantity of inbound links to the referring domain) and Trust Flow (quality of links from the referring domain) of a particular website. A higher Trust Flow and lower Citation Flow usually indicate good-quality links.
Ways to Prevent Bad Backlinks
Below are some proven methods to avoid toxic backlinks:
Create High-Quality Content: To attract organic backlinks from reputable websites, publish content that readers find useful.
Avoid Sketchy Backlinking Schemes: Do not buy backlinks from link farms and PBNs, as the sites often contain spam content, which violates Google policies.
Audit Your Backlink Profile Regularly: Regularly evaluate your referring domains to ascertain they are still in good standing and relevant to your niche.
Remove Toxic Backlinks: If you suspect toxic backlinks, contact the domain owners and request that they remove them. If they do not respond, disavow the links to avoid manual action.
Avoid Unnatural Backlink Placements: Do not add backlinks in community forums and blog comment sections. These links are often marked as spam and might affect your website’s domain rating.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Let’s wrap up by answering a few questions on how to find toxic backlinks:
How Do I Know If I’ve Been Hit By a Manual Action Due to Backlinks?
The best way to know if you’ve been hit by a manual action due to backlinks is by checking your Google Search Console. Here’s how to do it:
Click on the Help icon on the top-right of the page next to the user settings and select Visit help forum. This should take you to a new tab.
Select Help Center on the top left of your screen.
Scroll through the Browse help topics and click on Use the reports and features to open the menu.
Select All reports and tools and choose the Manual Actions report.
Finally, click the Open the Manual Actions Report button to see if you have any penalties against your website. If you have no manual actions, the report should read ‘No issues detected.’ Otherwise, you’ll see the detected issue listed as ‘Unnatural links to your site.
Remove or disavow the links and click the Request Review button so Google can lift the manual action.
Should I Disavow Toxic Backlinks or Not?
Yes. You should disavow toxic backlinks. However, Google notes that disavowing toxic backlinks is not a do-or-die situation unless:
You have multiple toxic backlinks.
You have a manual penalty, or the backlinks will likely cause a manual action.
How to Disavow Toxic Backlinks?
Here’s a simple guide to disavow toxic backlinks:
Create a list of the backlinks you want to disavow and save them in a .txt file.
Log in to your Google Search Console and open the disavow link tool.
Open the property list and select the domain containing the toxic backlinks.
Upload your list to the Google Search Console.
NB: It takes up to a few weeks for Google to disavow the links.
How Often Should I Audit My Backlink Profile?
There’s no limit to how often you should audit your backlink profile.
However, we recommend evaluating your backlink profile monthly or quarterly to detect and disavow toxic backlinks before they harm your site’s SEO performance.
Conclusion
This guide should help you find and manage toxic backlinks so they don’t pass negative link juice to your website. Also, we recommend implementing some best practices, like creating high-quality content and not buying backlinks from link farms, to safeguard your website against toxic links.
But what happens if your website is struggling to rank because it has a significant number of toxic links? You should get expert help.
At Profit Engine, we have 10+ years of experience helping brands and website owners clean up their backlink profiles to remove toxic links. We’ll also help you drown out the toxic links by securing genuine backlink placements in high-DR websites relevant to your niche.
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