What are toxic backlinks: How to identify & remove them?

What are toxic backlinks?

The quality and relevance of your site's backlinks show Google how trustworthy and authoritative your site is.

Toxic backlinks are low-quality links from questionable websites that contain spammy, poor content, and as such, they do not benefit the user in any way. These links are only used for SEO purposes. Because of this, they can harm your SEO instead of helping it. Google may see them as manipulative or unnatural.

In a nutshell, toxic backlinks violate Google’s guidelines and should be removed. If you have too many of them, it can cause your rankings to drop. You may face manual actions like penalties. This can damage your website's authority.

Sources of toxic backlinks

Numerous link building methods violate Google's guidelines; here are a few to be aware of:

• Buying and selling links for SEO - This can mean paying money or trading goods for links. It can also involve giving someone a product in return for a review that includes a link
• Excessive link exchanges - They happen when you ask for a link back in return for your link. Google sees this as link spam
• Low-quality directory links - Getting backlinks from directories is fine. It is a common way to build links. You need to make sure the directories are authoritative
• Good quality directories - They tend to have a review process for your listing. They may also charge a fee for a listing. Check if the directory contains quality, useful content
• Forum link building - Adding a link to forum discussions and blog posts for SEO is seen as link spam. This happens because the links tend to be placed unnaturally. This is true even if the forum or blog is related to your industry. It is highly likely that the link will be blocked and removed by spam filters
• Private blog networks (PBNs)

How to identify a toxic backlink 

Although what constitutes a ‘toxic backlink’ is subjective, there are a few common criteria to help you identify them: 

• Low website authority 
• Spammy content that is automated or victim of ‘keyword stuffing’ 
• Irrelevant to your industry 
• Content with excessive ads and pop-ups 
• Lack of contact details or legitimacy 
• Contains unnatural anchor text which focuses on keywords

You can find out more about how to identify a toxic link by reading Google's spam policy for web search here.

The key to identifying toxic backlinks is to understand your site's backlink profile and that of your competitors. Combine this with your industry knowledge and you'll have a good idea of which of your backlinks are 'toxic'.

You can identify toxic backlinks either manually or by using an SEO tool.

Manually identifying toxic backlinks

If you don't have access to an SEO tool, you can manually check for toxic links. This task takes a lot of time, but it is rewarding. You will find toxic links and learn more about your backlink profile. You'll need your Google Search Console account to do this.

1. Select the property (website) you want to find links for
2. In the menu on the left-hand side, navigate to the "links" section
3. Under the "top linking sites" section, click "more". You will then see a list of all the backlinks to your site
4. Click on each link to see which pages of your site is receiving the backlink
5. Visit each of the links to determine which ones the above criteria would classify as 'toxic.'
6. Create a list of the toxic links you want to remove

Use an SEO tool

The majority of SEO tools have the functionality to identify and suggest a list of potential toxic backlinks. A good example is the SEMRush Backlink Audit Tool. It will check your site's backlinks and give a toxicity score. The tool categorises links as toxic, potentially toxic and non-toxic so you can easily review them.

On the 'Audit' tab you can see all your site's links and filter by their toxicity score. In the 'toxicity' column you can see the markers identified for each link. After you review the links, you can decide their fate. Use the icons "Move to whitelist" or "Move to remove list" to move them.

How to remove toxic backlinks 

Once you find your site's toxic backlinks, you can remove them. 

Manual removal 

The first option is to try to remove the link(s) manually. You can do this by emailing the referring domain and asking them to remove the link.

If the contact details for the domain are not clear, you can use a tool like Hunter to find an email address. Once you have the contact details, you can send an email politely asking for the link to be removed. You can also send a follow-up email if you don’t receive a response.

If you have used the SEMRush Backlink Audit Tool to find toxic links, you can make this process faster. You can send emails directly from the tool.

On the 'Remove' tab you can link your mailbox and send emails to the domain, the tool will also list domain contact details. This won't be the case for all domains, some will require a manual email/contact details search. When you are ready to click 'send' an email template will appear with placeholders. Once the email has been sent, there is the option to re-send if you don't receive a response.

Google’s disavow tool 

It is important to note that Google advises against disavowing links unless you have received a manual action/penalty and/or you paid for links in the past. Use Google's Disavow Tool as a last resort; manually removing them remains the preferred option.

If manual removal is unsuccessful, you can remove them using Google’s Disavow Tool. If you use the SEMRush Backlink Audit Tool, you can make a 'disavow list' in the 'Remove' tab. It will create a list for you. You can then export this list as a .txt file.

You can upload this file to Google’s Disavow Tool. Please note that it can take up to a few weeks for Google to process your file.  

If you don't have access to an SEO tool, you can manually create a .txt file with one URL per line and upload it to the Disavow tool.

It is better to disavow links at the domain level instead of the URL level. This helps avoid future issues, like links on duplicate pages.

How to prevent toxic backlinks? 

Eradicating spammy links is not possible, as you have no control over which domains link to your site. Keeping a strong backlink profile is not only about removing bad links. You also need to earn backlinks from authoritative, trustworthy sites in your industry. Here are some ways to maintain a strong backlink profile:

• Carry out regular audits of your site’s backlink profile
• Contact the domain to ask for the removal of spammy backlinks. You can also use Google’s Disavow Tool to protect your site
• Focus on earning high-quality, relevant links through content, PR and relationship building (with industry influencers for example). Creating helpful and shareable content like articles and white papers is a great way to gain quality backlinks. You can harness your expertise and create unique insights to share with industry publications and journalists. Remember that when earning backlinks, Google emphasises the importance of relevance and quality over quantity

Benefits of maintaining a strong backlink profile  

Building and maintaining your backlink profile will reap benefits, not just for your SEO, but also at an organisational level.

SEO benefits 

• Improved search engine rankings - Backlinks are a significant ranking factor. Good backlinks from relevant industries boost your site's authority. This helps improve your visibility in search engine results
• Faster indexing - Search engines crawl and index your site more quickly when it has high-quality backlinks from authoritative sites
• Increased organic traffic - Higher rankings generally result in increased organic site traffic

EEAT (Experience, expertise, authority & trust) 

EEAT is a method that Google uses to check if its search ranking systems give helpful and relevant content to users. While it doesn’t directly influence ranking, it can be useful to assess the quality of your content.  

• Domain authority growth - A strong backlink profile helps improve your Domain authority (DA) or Domain rating (DR). This increase boosts your site's authority and visibility in search results. It also helps your site compete for tougher keywords
• Brand credibility - Being linked to reputable websites boosts your credibility in the eyes of users and search engines. Content marketing is a fantastic way to build EEAT by providing relevant and useful content other sites want to link back to
• Trust signals to Google - Google views backlinks as endorsements. Quality, relevant backlinks = your site is trustworthy and relevant. As such, Google is more likely to rank your site higher in the SERPs

Organisational benefits 

• Referral traffic - Strong, relevant backlinks can lead to real clicks, not just SEO value. This is especially true for industry blogs, forums, and directories
• Lead generation & sales - An increase in referral traffic can result in leads and ultimately sales