If you want your website to perform better than your competitor, it is crucial to have backlinks. You won’t rank high for keywords and search terms without backlinks no matter how hard you try. However, backlinks are not created equal. Some links bring more harm than good to your site.
Do you want to get rid of these bad links? Read more to learn about how to differentiate a quality link from a toxic link so that you can continue on the journey towards a high-performing website.
Identifying Quality And Toxic Backlinks
As a website owner, it is your responsibility to check and audit what types of websites link to yours. Understanding backlinks will help you find the toxic backlinks pointing back to you and take the necessary steps to remove them. This way, you avoid damaging your SEO strategies and ensure that only high-quality backlinks link back to you.
Backlink Analysis In A Nutshell
Backlink analysis lets you know which backlinks bring you quality traffic and which ones aren’t worth it. By learning how to do backlink analysis, you can identify what brings issues, maintain your site’s health, and see what contributes to your overall ranking. It will also help you understand your stance against your competitors and see what you could implement in your own process.
Understanding What A Quality Backlink Is
The belief that any link can be beneficial for your website is misleading. Google won’t reward your website unless it has seen the backlink directed to your website has quality, meaning it shows that you are a great resource.
Ultimately, if you want to receive relevant links directed to your site, you must create unique and valuable content. Yes, great content will pay off. As people can see how you put effort into the information you’re offering, it becomes more likely for them to link back to your work and share your contribution to other readers.
Simply put, a quality backlink is an editorially placed link brought from someone finding your content valuable and choosing to link it in their own content. Whether a writer or webmaster does it, it is a decision they didn’t have to make, but they chose to do it to help their own readers.
What Quality Backlinks Look Like
Quality links are natural links that offer relevant information that other writers or site owners want to amplify. They usually look like these:
- A link of a quote from a statement by your company CEO
- A link to your website in a reputable reviewer website
- A link to your website in a third-party reviewing website like TripAdvisor or Yelp
- A link to your blog post in a news article
Understanding What A Toxic Backlink Is
On the flip side, it is a must to know what a toxic link is like. You should ensure your website stays away from toxic backlinks because they tell Google and other search engines that your website is not credible.
Toxic backlinks may have started from the belief that the backlink quantity is more important than quality. Some people have succumbed to schemes that bring tons of links from websites that don’t really offer value to users. Eventually, Google’s algorithm discovered how fraudulent these moves could be. Now, unnatural links pointing back to your website will be deemed a penalty from Google.
What Toxic Backlinks Look Like
To understand what types of backlinks are bad for your website, here are what most toxic backlinks look like:
- A link in poorly-written blogs and articles
- A link in forum comment sections
- A link featured on a cross-linking website
- A link generated through an automated software
- A link placed in the same content piece published to multiple websites
- A link in a low-quality bookmark or directory website
- A link you received from sending someone something in exchange for the feature
It is important to note, however, that not all links similar to what is above are deemed toxic backlinks. Usually, Google sees them as toxic if the links are placed in unnatural keywords. In terms of comments, if the same statement with a link is spammy, being placed hundreds of times across blogs and forums, the link will also be defined as toxic.
Frequently Asked Questions
Learn more about quality links and bad links as we answer the most popular questions asked about them.
How to remove toxic backlinks?
If you want to remove toxic backlinks, you can manually reach out to the webmaster of each website and ask them to stop linking to you. You can also use the SEMrush Backlink Audit Tool and Google Disavow Tool to help you.
How to disavow toxic backlinks?
If you want to disavow toxic backlinks, organize them in one file and upload them to the Google Disavow Tool.
How to get quality backlinks?
The best ways to generate high–quality backlinks are by offering exceptional content like infographics, studies, and eBooks, guest posting on credible websites, connecting with industry journalists as a news source and putting out press releases only when they are essential.
The Takeaway
Help your business perform better by ensuring you have high-quality websites linking back to your excellent website content. Not only does it help your website get noticed, but it also helps other people learn about you and the value your brand can provide. Stay on top of your backlink performance by regularly doing backlink audits and analyses on your site.
If you don’t have the time to do backlink research and improvement, don’t worry. Let our experts at Automatic Growth help you. Check out our backlink packages today and get tried-and-tested link-building methods suited for your goals.
