Do Bad BackLinks Hurt Your Search Engine Ranking?
I am sure you have heard the “bad links to a blog hurts its search engine ranking position” phrase, once or twice. As you know link building is one of the most important part of a SEO (Search Engine Optimization). A good backlink building campaign helps your blog’s ranking position, as well as driving quality targeted traffic to it. Its obvious that a backlink from a high quality authority site, that is also related to the theme of your blog, have much more weight in determining your blog or site’s page rank. But, how about links coming from non relevant low ranking sites? Do “bad links” as they are called, help, or hurt your site’s ranking?…
There is a big debate (i would call it a big “misunderstanding”) amongst many webmasters and bloggers about the effects of baclinks from low quality sites. Many bloggers and webmasters believe that getting links to your site from link farms and low quality Web sites that are unrelated to your site’s theme, will hurt your search engine ranking. This is simply a myth. Although links from link farms and other low quality non relevant sites will not help your site when it comes to its search engine ranking, they wont hurt its position either. Of course if you are actively using link farms or FFA (Free For All) link pages, that is a different case and it will hurt your efforts.
I mean think about it, if bad links did hurt a Website or blog’s page rank, your competition could easily push you aside and get your page rank drop in no time. How crazy is that? You work hard for months and even years to achieve higher search engine ranking, and all of a sudden, your competition can lower your page rank in no time at all, by simply linking to your blog by commenting and leaving your link as the source in hundreds of low quality none relevant blogs, and adding your link to any lousy link farms they can find. I don’t think search engines would base their ranking system on something that can be manipulated that easy.
There you have it, Bad links do not hurt your page rank! It just doesn’t make sense to downgrade a blog or a website, based on so called “bad links” that anybody can build, even your own competitions. And That’s why i firmly believe that the idea of bad links hurting your blog’s search engine ranking, is nothing more than a myth. What about you?… do you think bad links to your site will hurt its ranking position?
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September 9th, 2011 at 11:25 pm
Well put, you made this very ready to understand.
The whole search engine optimization world is one big debate on what’s right and what is wrong and what will benefit your site and what won’t. Your clear explanation and logical reasoning is great
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April 23rd, 2011 at 9:06 pm
Thanks a lot for this! I know it’s been a long time since this post has been active but I noticed my site getting 50+ backlinks from a spammy site I’d never been to and was worried. Thanks for putting my mind at ease.
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November 10th, 2010 at 10:50 am
I never was sure that the incoming bad back-links coming to our site can’t harm our site PR or SERP, but now i am.
.-= Cristian´s last blog ..The Expendables 2010 =-.
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April 26th, 2010 at 7:10 am
To quote =>
“The bad thing about search engine ranking is that every bit of knowledge is built solely on speculation, rather than actual proven fact. That is the unfortunate part.”
Logic, not speculation, will suffice to convince the SEO student of the proper direction to go. The search engines will never penalize for the backlinks to a given website because anybody – including your competitors – can initiate a backlink.
There are many other aspects of SEO that will surrender their kernel of truth to the power of logical observation.
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satrap Reply:
April 26th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
I couldn’t agree more Frank. Another thing I always come across is that people tend to believe whatever they read and they think its the absolute truth, specially about SEO related topics. I think the best way to learn is just to experience it yourself and learn as you go. Dont just solely base your decision about SEO or what not on what you read or hear, do your own research. Thanks for dropping by Frank.
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January 2nd, 2010 at 1:50 am
Exactly Isaac, in two sentence you made the point that took me an entire article to make, lol. I guess that’s why your articles are as interesting as they are. Thanks for stopping by.
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January 1st, 2010 at 6:37 am
Agreed Satrap. As far as I know, Google judge us from where we link to, not from who link to us. Because we can always control where we link to, but we cannot control who link to us.
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December 30th, 2009 at 2:07 am
I agree that it would be ridiculous for bad backlinks to hurt your website’s ranking. On the other hand, I think (and some may say “know”) that they do not help as much as a high-ranking site linking, or a very relevant one with a one-way link.
The bad thing about search engine ranking is that every bit of knowledge is built solely on speculation, rather than actual proven fact. That is the unfortunate part.
.-= Michael Hoppal´s last blog ..Life Coaches: Useful? =-.
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satrap Reply:
December 31st, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Thanks Michael, yeah they may not have as much effect as high pr sites on ranking, but they won’t hurt either like some say, plus any backlink is good for traffic always.
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