{"id":6742,"date":"2020-12-20T07:36:20","date_gmt":"2020-12-20T07:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diib.com\/learn\/?p=6742"},"modified":"2026-10-15T04:08:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T04:08:07","slug":"toxic-backlinks-how-they-damage-my-smb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diib.com\/learn\/toxic-backlinks-how-they-damage-my-smb\/","title":{"rendered":"Toxic Backlinks: How They Damage My SMB?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Online marketing is an excellent way to increase your revenue as an SMB (small to medium sized business). Many businesses now use this method to promote their products and services as the reach is far greater than simply running a brick-and-mortar business. Knowing where and to whom to advertise can be a struggle for any business.<\/p>\n

The process is much more complicated if your website has toxic backlinks pointing to it. Search engines like Google treat links from other websites as one signal of whether your pages are worth showing. So, why do backlinks matter to a small business? This article will teach what toxic links are, what they can do to your website, some basic facts about backlinking and how to check website health. Make sure you are aware of these things to minimize the harm toxic backlinks can cause.<\/p>\n

<\/span>What are toxic backlinks?<\/h2>\n

Toxic backlinks are spammy, paid or automated links from low-quality websites that point to your site.<\/p>\n

Toxic links usually come from link farms, spam directories, hacked pages or sites with no connection to your business. Google’s spam policies<\/a> define link spam as links created mainly to manipulate search rankings, including buying or selling links and using automated programs to build links. Google says sites that break those policies may rank lower or not appear in results at all, and a human reviewer can place a manual action (a penalty) on the site.<\/p>\n

The good news is that Google says in most cases it can assess which links to trust<\/a> without extra guidance, and most sites will never need to act on spammy links. The real risk comes from links that look like a link scheme, such as links you paid for or swapped in bulk.<\/p>\n

For any small business owner, knowing how to check website health is worth the time. A healthy site doesn’t need tricks to rank. Website health comes down to how well your site is built and optimized for search engines, and a pattern of manipulative links is one of the things that can pull it down.<\/p>\n

None of this means you should avoid backlinks. Links from relevant, trusted sites still help people and search engines find you. The goal is to earn good links and watch for bad patterns.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Why is website health important?<\/h2>\n

A healthy website is easier for search engines to crawl and trust, which gives your pages a fair chance to show up in search results.<\/p>\n

So, what are the reasons behind having a healthy site? You should consider these things:<\/p>\n

First, a healthy site gives your pages a fair chance to rank. Search engines such as Google and Bing want to send people to safe, useful pages, so a site full of spam signals has a harder time earning good positions.<\/p>\n

Second, spam can cost you traffic. Google’s spam policies say sites that violate them may rank lower or not appear in results at all.<\/p>\n

Taking care of website health doesn’t guarantee top rankings, but it removes problems that hold a site back. Avoid building spammy links, and keep an eye on the links that already point to your site.<\/p>\n

<\/span>How do toxic backlinks affect spam score and rankings?<\/h2>\n

A pattern of toxic backlinks can lead to a Google manual action that lowers your rankings, while spam scores are estimates from SEO tool companies, not Google penalties.<\/p>\n

Toxic links can affect your rankings, but usually not the way people fear. When Google finds a pattern of unnatural links pointing to a site, it can issue an unnatural links manual action<\/a> against some or all of the site. If that happens, Google notifies you in the Manual actions report in Google Search Console.<\/p>\n

Spam scores are different. A spam score, such as Moz’s Spam Score<\/a>, is an estimate made by an SEO tool company, not a Google metric. Moz’s Spam Score is the percentage of sites with similar features that Moz found penalized or banned by Google, and it is not calculated from the spam scores of the sites that link to you. A higher spam score is a warning sign worth looking into, not a penalty.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether a link will be seen as toxic, because the answer depends on the linking site and the content it offers.<\/p>\n

If anyone offers to sell you links, say no. Google’s spam policies list buying or selling links for ranking purposes as link spam.<\/p>\n

<\/span>How do I find out if my website has toxic backlinks?<\/h2>\n

Start with the Links report in Google Search Console, then use a backlink tool to review the sites that link to you.<\/p>\n

You can use the following tools to check website health and spot toxic backlinks:<\/p>\n

<\/span>1. Google Analytics (Referral Traffic Only)<\/h3>\n

Google Analytics is useful for checking website health in general, but it does not show a list of your backlinks. Its referral reports only show sites that actually sent visitors to you, so a spammy link nobody clicks will never appear there. Use Google Analytics to spot odd referral traffic, and use the Search Console Links report (covered below) for an actual list of links.<\/p>\n

\"Toxic<\/p>\n

(Image Credit: Monitor Backlinks<\/a>)<\/p>\n

<\/span>2. MozBar<\/h3>\n

MozBar is a browser extension from Moz that shows authority scores and link counts for any page you visit. MozBar is handy for a quick look at the sites linking to you, so you can spot ones that look low quality.<\/p>\n

<\/span>3. Moz Link Explorer (Formerly Open Site Explorer)<\/h3>\n

Moz retired Open Site Explorer and replaced it with Link Explorer. Link Explorer lists the sites that link to you, along with a Spam Score for linking domains, so you can decide which links deserve a closer look.<\/p>\n

<\/span>4. Screaming Frog<\/h3>\n

Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider is a crawler that reads web pages the way a search engine does. The SEO Spider doesn’t find your backlinks on its own, but you can load a list of linking pages from another tool and crawl them to check whether each link to your site still exists, along with its anchor text and link attribute (such as nofollow). Screaming Frog explains the method in its backlink audit guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The free version of the SEO Spider<\/a> crawls up to 500 URLs at a time. The custom extraction feature used in the backlink audit method is only available in the paid licensed version.<\/p>\n

\"Toxic<\/p>\n

(Image Credit: Screaming Frog<\/a>)<\/p>\n

<\/span>How do I get rid of toxic backlinks?<\/h2>\n

Ask the linking site’s owner to remove the link first, and use Google’s disavow tool only if the links have caused, or are likely to cause, a manual action.<\/p>\n

Getting rid of toxic links can seem overwhelming and time consuming. However, there are methods that you can use to get rid of destructive backlinks on your site:<\/p>\n

<\/span>1. Manual Removal<\/h3>\n

Manual removal starts with visiting each linking page and checking whether the link to your site is still there. You can view the page’s HTML source to confirm. You can’t delete a link on someone else’s site yourself, but if the link sits on a site you control, such as an old microsite or a profile you set up, you can remove it there.<\/p>\n

<\/span>2. Use Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools<\/h3>\n

Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools come from the search engines themselves. The Links report in Google Search Console<\/a> shows your top linking sites and a sample of external links, with tables limited to 1,000 rows. You can export the list and review it for spam, and the Manual actions report tells you whether Google has taken action against your site for unnatural links.<\/p>\n

<\/span>3. Remove The Backlink<\/h3>\n

If a spammy link is still live, contact the owner of the linking site. Ask them to remove the link, or, as Google’s manual actions guide suggests, to add a nofollow attribute to it.<\/p>\n

<\/span>4. Disavow Links Tool<\/h3>\n

Google’s disavow links tool<\/a> asks Google not to count links you couldn’t get removed by hand. Disavowing does not delete the link from the other site. Google says to disavow only if you have a considerable number of spammy links and they have caused, or likely will cause, a manual action, and that most sites will not need the tool. Google also says it can take a few weeks for your disavow list to take effect.<\/p>\n

<\/span>5. Rework Your Site<\/h3>\n

Reworking your site won’t remove bad links, but it can strengthen the rest of your site. Update or remove outdated content so the pages people land on are worth linking to.<\/p>\n

Go through the content on your site page by page and fix anything that is thin, outdated or inaccurate.<\/p>\n

<\/span>How do I get organic search traffic when spam links point to my site?<\/h2>\n

Focus on useful content and links you earn from relevant sites, and only clean up the spam links that look like a link scheme.<\/p>\n

Organic traffic means visitors who find you through unpaid search results. You can’t control every link that points to your site, so put your effort into what you can control: helpful pages, a healthy site and links you earn honestly.<\/p>\n

<\/span>How can I tell if a link is safe?<\/h2>\n

A safe link comes from a real, relevant website with original content and a clean set of links of its own.<\/p>\n

You can quickly look at the following signs to determine if a link is safe:<\/p>\n

<\/span>1. Check The URL Of The Link (URL Page)<\/h3>\n

Checking the URL is the easiest way to judge a link leading to your site. Make sure the link comes from a website related to your business or area. The URL usually tells you what the page is about and whether it fits.<\/p>\n

<\/span>2. Check Backlinks of The Link (URL Page)<\/h3>\n

Look at the linking site’s own backlinks, too. A site that is itself linked from lots of spam sites is more likely to be part of a link scheme.<\/p>\n

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(Image Credit: Social Media Today<\/a>)<\/p>\n

<\/span>3. Check The Anchor Text of The Link (URL Page)<\/h3>\n

Anchor text is the clickable text of a link. Natural anchor text usually reads like your business name, a plain description or your web address. A pile of links that all use the same keyword-stuffed phrase is a common sign of paid or automated links.<\/p>\n

<\/span>4. Check The Site Itself<\/h3>\n

Look at the linking site as a whole. Ask whether it looks like a real business or publication, or a spam site built only to host links. Also check whether its pages and links are copied from other sites, since copied content is a strong sign the link isn’t safe.<\/p>\n

<\/span>5. Check The Content<\/h3>\n

Read the content on the linking site. Content quality is one of the clearest signs of whether a page is worth a link. A site that only reuses old or copied content is not one you want links from.<\/p>\n

<\/span>6. Check The Links To This Page<\/h3>\n

You have to ensure that there aren’t any toxic links pointing to this page from other places. The links pointing to a page say a lot about its quality. If many spam links lead to the page, the page itself probably isn’t worth a backlink.<\/p>\n

<\/span>7. Check The Keywords Around The Link<\/h3>\n

Look at the words the linking page uses around your link. A link surrounded by unrelated or spammy keywords, such as gambling terms on a page about plumbing, is a sign of a link scheme. Those are the links worth asking the site owner to remove.<\/p>\n

<\/span>8. Check The Authority Of The Site<\/h3>\n

Google says PageRank is still part of its core ranking systems<\/a>, but Google no longer shows PageRank scores to the public, so you can’t look one up. Instead, use a third-party authority score such as Moz’s Domain Authority<\/a> as a rough guide. Domain Authority runs from 1 to 100 and predicts how likely a site is to rank compared with its competitors. Domain Authority is Moz’s estimate, not a Google metric, so treat a higher score as a hint that a site is established, not a promise that its link will help your rankings.<\/p>\n

<\/span>9. Check The Name of the Page<\/h3>\n

Check the title of the page linking to your site. The title should be relevant and match what the page actually covers. If a page with a misleading or spammy title links to you, ask the owner to remove the link.<\/p>\n

<\/span>10. Check The Page Authority Of This Page<\/h3>\n

Page Authority is Moz’s score for a single page, while Domain Authority covers a whole site. A low score isn’t automatically bad, since new and small sites start low, but a low score combined with thin content is a reason to look closer.<\/p>\n

\"Toxic<\/p>\n

(Image Credit: Ninja Reports<\/a>)<\/p>\n

<\/span>11. Check The Content Of This Page<\/h3>\n

You need to check the content of this page as well. The page’s content shows you how well it covers topics related to your business and how good its overall quality is.<\/p>\n

<\/span>What is a spam score, and does it affect SEO ranking?<\/h2>\n

A spam score is an SEO tool’s estimate of what share of sites with similar features were penalized or banned by Google, not a score from Google, so it’s a reason to review a site rather than a ranking penalty.<\/p>\n

Checking the spam scores of the sites that link to you is another way to spot toxic backlinks. Here are some things you need to know about spam score and website health.<\/p>\n

A spam score doesn’t count your spammy links. SEO tools build spam scores by comparing a site’s features with sites that were penalized or banned by Google, so a high score shows a correlation, not proof that a site is spammy. A high spam score is a reason to review a site, not proof of a Google penalty. For instance:<\/p>\n

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(Image Credit: Content Powered<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Some benefits of backlinking include the following:<\/p>\n