Everyone talks about good backlinks and how important they are for your website’s growth. That’s great, but what about the bad ones? Who’s talking about the links dragging your website down and stopping it from reaching its full potential?

This article is all about bad backlinks—the ones that harm your website’s performance and hold you back on search engine rankings. We’ll walk you through 9 types of harmful backlinks so you can spot them, clean up your backlink profile, and help your website climb higher on Google.

Let’s get started and learn how to take control of your backlinks!

What are Bad Backlinks?

Bad backlinks are harmful links that come from poor-quality or irrelevant websites. Instead of helping your site rank better, they can actually hurt it. These links are often created to trick search engines into improving rankings, which goes against Google’s rules.

Google views backlinks as a sign of trust. A link from a high-quality website tells Google that your content is valuable. But links from spammy or irrelevant sites, often created to manipulate rankings, are seen as link spam. Google’s system is designed to catch these and take action.

Why Do You Need to Avoid Bad Backlinks?

Bad backlinks can cause real damage to your website and SEO. Here’s why it’s important to avoid them:

• Google Penalties: Bad backlinks go against Google’s rules. If you have too many, Google might lower your rankings or even remove your site from search results.
• Hurts Your Reputation: Links from spammy or unrelated sites make your website look unreliable. These toxic SEO backlinks can ruin the trust your audience has in you.
• Wasted Effort: All your hard work in SEO can be undone by bad links. Instead of improving your site, these links drag it down, making your efforts useless.
• Time-Consuming Fix: Getting rid of bad backlinks is time-consuming and can be tricky. It’s better to avoid bad links from the start than to spend time removing bad backlinks later.

9 Types of Bad Backlinks You Need to Avoid

Here are nine types of backlinks you should avoid to keep your site safe and performing well.

1. Private Blog Network (PBN) Links

PBN links are backlinks that come from a network of websites created only to link to other sites. These websites don’t exist to provide useful content but to trick search engines into boosting rankings.

PBNs are against Google’s rules. If you have links from these networks, your site could face penalties or a drop in rankings. These links often come from spammy websites with no real traffic or value. Some services advertise “cheap PBN backlinks” or offer high DA links at low costs, but they’re risky and can hurt your SEO.

How to Spot PBN Links

It’s important to identify and avoid PBN links. Here’s what to check for:

• Low Traffic: PBN sites rarely have real visitors.
• Too Many Links: They often link to lots of unrelated sites.
• Poor Content: Content is usually badly written or copied.
• Same Website Design: Many PBN sites look almost identical.
• Quick Link Offers: Services offering links quickly or easily are often using PBNs.

What to Do if You Have PBN Links

If you suspect PBN links in your profile, take steps to fix this:

1. Check Your Backlinks: Use tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs to review your backlinks.
2. Contact Site Owners: Request them to remove the link.
3. Disavow the Link: If removal isn’t possible, use Google’s disavow tool to block the link’s impact.

PBN links might seem like an easy way to improve rankings, but they do more harm than good. Focus on building real, high-quality backlinks instead of shortcuts. Use a bad backlink checker regularly to ensure your site stays clean and penalty-free.

2. Spammy Blog or Forum Comments

Spammy blog or forum comments are links added to comment sections with no real purpose except to manipulate search rankings. These links are usually irrelevant and don’t contribute anything useful to the discussion. Why are they a problem?

• Off-Topic Links: Most of these comments have nothing to do with the content. They are random and out of place.
• Mass Posting: Some tools automate the process, posting the same comments on hundreds of sites. This makes them easy for search engines to spot.
• Low Quality: Comments like “Great post!” followed by a link are obvious spam and don’t help anyone.

Do They Help Your SEO?

Not really. Most of these links are nofollow, so they don’t pass any value to your site. Even if they’re dofollow, Google can spot these spammy patterns and ignore them. What’s the risk?

• Harmful to Your Reputation: Links in irrelevant comments can make your site seem untrustworthy.
• No Ranking Benefit: These links won’t improve your search rankings.
• Can Trigger Penalties: Too many spammy links in your profile might cause Google to take action against your site.

3. Low-Quality Directory Links

Low-quality directory links come from directories that have little or no real traffic. These sites usually exist just to sell backlinks, adding no real value to your SEO and even risking penalties from Google.

Why Are They Bad?

• They don’t help improve your rankings.
• They can lead to penalties for being associated with spammy sites.
• They waste your time and money without any real benefit.

What Should You Do?

• Use directories that are relevant to your business.
• Add your site to niche directories related to your industry, such as legal directories for law firms.
• Focus on trusted local directories or platforms like Yelp and TripAdvisor that genuinely add value.

Avoid irrelevant directories that offer nothing to your website. Stick with reliable ones to build trust and help your business grow.

4. Paid Links from Unreliable Sources

Paid links might seem like an easy way to improve rankings, but buying them from the wrong places can backfire. These links are often found on irrelevant or poorly maintained websites created just to sell backlinks. Instead of helping your SEO, they can damage your site.

How to Avoid Paid Links from Bad Sources

• Do Your Homework: Check the website’s relevance, traffic, and authority before paying for a link. Ensure it matches your niche.
• Avoid “Cheap” Deals: Stay away from offers that promise hundreds of links for a low price. These are usually spammy and from bad directories or PBNs.
• Work with Professionals: If you opt for paid links, partner with trustworthy services that provide ethical, high-quality placements.

5. Links from Irrelevant Websites

Search engines trust links from websites that match your business or topic. For example, if a plumbing business gets a link from a recipe blog, it looks out of place and unnatural. These kinds of irrelevant backlinks can confuse search engines and hurt your SEO performance.

How to Avoid Irrelevant Links:

• Target Relevant Sites: Focus on websites that are related to your industry. For example, a fashion brand should aim for links from style blogs or clothing directories, not random or unrelated sites.
• Check Before Linking: Make sure the website’s content fits your business or audience. Irrelevant backlinks don’t help and may even harm your site.

By building links on relevant and trusted sites, you create a stronger, safer backlink profile and improve your website’s performance.

We earned a valuable link from HubSpot on the anchor text “higher on ranking,” which points to our page, How to Rank Higher on Google.

HubSpot is a top platform for marketing, SEO, and content tools. Their focus on helping businesses grow online matches our content perfectly, making this link both relevant and credible for our niche.

6. Links from Penalized Sites

Penalized websites are flagged by Google for breaking its guidelines, like using spammy tactics or hosting poor-quality content. Linking to such sites can make your site look bad, too. Links from penalized sites can: 

• Hurt Your Rankings
• Damage Your Reputation
• Risk of Penalties

How to Avoid Links from Penalized Sites:

• Check the Website’s History: Use tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to see if a site has been penalized. Signs like sudden traffic drops are red flags.
• Stick to Trusted Sites: Avoid websites with spammy content, too many ads, or irrelevant links.

Penalized links are a silent SEO killer. Keep your backlink profile clean by building links on high-quality, reputable sites.

7. Over-Optimized Anchor Text Links

Anchor text is the clickable part of a hyperlink. Over-optimized anchor text means stuffing it with exact-match keywords to try and boost search rankings.

Why Are Over-Optimized Anchor Text Links Bad?

• They Look Fake: Using the same keywords repeatedly in your links makes your backlink profile appear unnatural. For example, having “cheap shoes online” in every link raises suspicion.
• Google Penalizes It: Search engines like Google can detect over-optimization and might lower your rankings or penalize your site. This is a common issue that could lead to a bad backlinks penalty.
• Misses Variety: A natural mix of anchor texts, like branded or generic terms, is better for building trust with search engines. Avoid risky SEO links that overuse the same keywords.

To avoid over-optimized anchor text, focus on keeping it natural and varied. Use anchor texts that flow naturally within the content, like “find shoes here,” instead of forcing exact-match keywords.

It’s also important to mix your anchor texts, including your brand name, generic phrases like “click here,” and descriptive ones like “best shoes for running.” Always link to content that is helpful and relevant to your site.

8. Links from Link Farms

Link farms are websites made just to sell backlinks. They don’t offer valuable content or serve any real purpose.

Watch for these warning signs:

• No “About Us” page or contact details.
• Articles cover unrelated topics.
• Overuse of guest posts and random authors.
• Lots of keyword-stuffed anchor texts.
• The site looks untrustworthy or irrelevant.

If someone offers a large number of backlinks at a cheap price, it’s likely from a link farm. These links can harm your SEO instead of helping it. Always choose quality over quantity. To build safe and effective backlinks, work with experts like Outreach Monks, who prioritize quality and relevance for your site.

9. Redirected Links

Redirected links happen when one URL points to another using redirects, like 301 or 302 redirects. These are common for valid reasons, such as moving to a new domain. However, some people use them to manipulate search engine rankings.

How Are Redirected Links Misused?

• Passing Authority from Old Domains: People buy expired domains with strong backlink profiles and redirect them to their site. This tricks search engines into thinking the new site is more authoritative than it actually is.
• Hiding Bad Links: Redirects can mask spammy or irrelevant backlinks, making it harder for Google to detect the real source.
• Boosting Unrelated Backlinks: Some use redirects to channel link authority from unrelated or low-quality sites to boost rankings unnaturally.

How to Avoid Issues:

• Research a domain’s history before using redirected links.
• Monitor backlinks with tools like Semrush and disavow harmful redirects.
• Stick to genuine link-building practices instead of risky shortcuts.

Redirects can be useful when done for the right reasons, like merging domains. But using them to manipulate rankings is risky and often backfires.

How to Find and Remove Bad Backlinks

Bad backlinks can harm your website’s ranking and reputation. It’s crucial to identify and remove these links to keep your site healthy and performing well. Here’s how you can do it:

Step 1: Find Bad Backlinks

Follow the below steps to find bad backlinks:

1. Use a Backlink Tool

Backlink tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, or Moz are easy ways to identify harmful links. Start by entering your website domain and running a backlink audit. These tools will flag links with high “toxicity scores” or other red flags like unnatural anchor text or low authority.

• Look for links with spammy anchor texts like “cheap deals” or “fast money.”
• Check the authority score of the linking site—low scores often indicate bad-quality links.
• Review if the linking site is relevant to your industry.

2. Manual Check

If you don’t use a tool, Google Search Console is another option.

1. Go to the “Links” section and export the list of linking sites.
2. Manually check each site for:
   • Irrelevant content.
   • Spammy or keyword-stuffed anchor text.
   • Very low-quality or inactive sites.

Step 2: Remove Bad Backlinks

Follow the below steps to remove bad backlinks:

1. Request Removal

The first step is to ask the website owner to remove the link:

1. Find their contact details on the site’s “Contact” or “About” page.
2. Send a polite email explaining the issue, including:
   • The link URL.
   • A request to remove or mark the link as rel=”nofollow”.

2. Disavow Links

If contacting the site owner doesn’t work, you can disavow the link through Google’s disavow tool:

1. Create a .txt file listing the harmful links or domains.
2. Upload the file to Google’s Disavow Tool.
3. Submit a reconsideration request if your site has been penalized.

Good Backlinks vs. Bad Backlinks

Here’s a simple comparison to help you understand the difference between good backlinks and bad backlinks.

Conclusion

Bad backlinks can silently harm your website’s rankings and reputation. But the good news is, with the right knowledge and tools, you can identify and fix these issues. Focus on building quality links that add real value to your site and audience. Consistency and ethical practices always win in the long run. Make every link count, and watch your website thrive!

FAQs on Bad Backlinks