Bad Backlinks: Can They Hurt Your Site?
by Satrap
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 parts of a good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) campaign. A good link building campaign increases your blog’s ranking position, allowing it to receive tons of search engine traffic.
It’s obvious that a backlink from a high quality authority site that is also related to the topic of your blog have much more weight when it comes to SEO. 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?…
If you would have asked this question before the big Penguin update, I would have (along with most other bloggers) said no, bad backlinks will not hurt your site in any way, because if that were true, your competitors could knock you out by simply buying a gig on Fiverr.
Post Penguin – Welcome to negative SEO!
That was then, pre Penguin and pre negative SEO. Unfortunately, Google has made it possible for people to do just that – use negative SEO to hurt their competitor’s ranking. So, now, bad backlinks will hurt your site when it comes to its ranking
Now, having said that, it is important to remember that you can’t just bring any site down with a few thousands low quality links. The more quality links your site has, the harder it would be for someone to bring your site down with negative SEO.
So, the best thing you can do to minimize the effect of a negative SEO campaign on your site, and rank higher for your keywords, is to build as many quality backlinks as you can. Make your site’s link profile a strong, divers link profile. That is the only way you can protect yourself against low quality links built by others.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 =-.
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.
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
I agree I can see Google ignoring low quality links. I can’t see Google penalizing you for those links. Google would have to be totally incompetent to create a ranking system that would allow a competitor to “Link Bomb” his competition.
Well, after the recent Penguin update, that is exactly what happened. Google opened the door to the so called “negative SEO”, then they were forced to introduce the Disavow Tool. Thnaks for the comment LT.