4 Steps to Make Your Website Free from Spammy Backlinks
A person having 1% knowledge on Digital Marketing will be aware of the term SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Making the sites appear on top in Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines is a technique that is on fire in this 2k19. What many are unaware of is the negative SEO attacks that can be easily commenced by the competitors on the top-ranking websites. Even though they do not have any dangerous impact, they still can affect the site’s organic rank, which can be lasting for a longer period. The usual combination of Negative SEO can be narrowed down to the following maneuvers:
- Removing your website’s quality backlinks
- Incorporating spammy backlinks to your website
- Hacking the Website
From a recent 2018 Search Engine Roundtable poll, the indications shown were relating to a significant number of SEO personnel have opted for these tactics to resolve the difficult times.
Even though Google has become a lot smarter in the last two years when it comes to dealing with spammy backlinks, still, there’s no harm in keeping your link clean from offending links, because some might slip through webspam net of Google. The process is pretty simple yet time-consuming. Here are the pre-requisites you need to be aware of before engaging into removing the spam links.
- Gain knowledge on the hidden toxicity of the backlinks
- Usage of appropriate tools to classify the bad links pointing the website
- Reach out to webmaster for placing a request for the removal of such links
- Establish and submit a ‘disavow’ file to Google for ignoring these links.
1.Kinds of Link Spam that you must avoid
Any backlink that is irrelevant to the website comes under this category of bad backlinks, with an exception for editorial links provided by large publications.
Although there are certain types of backlinks that you wish to not connect to your website. They are:
- Links that are from fined domains
- Links that are from link farms and link directories
- Links that are from unhealthy neighborhoods such as online gambling, porn, pharma, etc.
- Links that are from foreign language sites
- Innumerous links that are from unwanted websites
- Huge number of anchor text links that are exact-match
2.Analyze the Origin of those Toxic Links
Apps such as Moz, SEMrush, Monitor Backlinks, and Ahrefs have their definitions for toxic links. You can use them appropriately for finding the origin of such links. Every app pattern changes with the usage of different metrics, but you can have an analysis of every app’s outcome and choose accordingly as per your need.
Whatever the tool you use for identifying the bad links, don’t forget to export the file. Any downloadable CSV file helps you in sorting out and ordering the data, which will be useful when it comes to determining which website to primarily contact for asking them for removal of the spam links pointing your site.
3.Appeal for Removal from Website
Well, this is one step where the probability of making the offending webmaster remove the spam backlink is closer to zero. However, you must at least try attempting this method, since that’s a step Google expects you to engage primarily.
In most of the cases, the contact information of the offender will be inaccessible. You will even find difficulty in sending them an email since their generic contact page itself will be unavailable. In such cases, you can track the offender using WHOIS Domain Lookup. However, mostly the name listed won’t even ring a bell for you, and it will be mostly similar to a devoid email address.
The most irritating part of this method is not getting any reply even after reaching out to the person after finding an email ID. However, you can directly reach out to the hosting company and request them for removal of the identified spam backlinks. In most of the cases, they’ll assist you.
4.Establish and Submit a Disavow File to Google
Considering our previous experiences with various offenders, the probability of you reaching out to Google’s Disavow Links tool is highly likely to happen. With the help of Google Search control, this tool enables you to import the text file that has the relevant spam backlinks that you want to be ignored by Google. You can also enter certain URLs in the file, or you can also go wider and request Google to ignore all such links that are from a specific domain or website.
While using the Disavow Links tool, you need to extra careful, and you must engage in this activity only after having a thorough analysis of the backlink’s profiles. If you disavow any of your high-quality backlinks, then it will harm your organic SEO rankings.
Once the backlinks are submitted, you just have to wait patiently, as it takes time to get the file processed. At that point of time, you can just wait to witness your rankings improvising slowly.
Low-Quality Backlinks – The Villain of SEO in 2019
Even though Google is engaging in every step possible within its limits to reduce negative backlinks to improve SEO accuracy for websites, it’s still important to take necessary actions to ensure an occasional backlink audit from our side and cleaning unnecessary links related to the website. The process may sound complicated, but if done regularly, it can produce greater SEO result for your website. If you are still confused with the process, you can always reach out for a reliable SEO company for maintaining your website’s SEO and to avoid unwanted headaches shortly.