Question SEO: Can Bad or Paid Links Hurt Your Site?

[Beverly]

Here's an interesting article that details what can happen when you have the wrong kind of backlinks.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-check-which-links-can-harm-your-sites-rankings

For one thing, blog networks that artificially inflate the number of backlinks to a site were penalized, as well as some sites that had massive numbers of backlinks as a result of blog rolls. Just wondering if sites using reciprocal links were equally penalized due to their mass backlinks.

 

[Dean!]

Agreed, a mass amount of scrapebox or other low quality links WILL lead to a website being penalized in the search engines. I would focus on building quality backlinks rather than those "100,000" scrapebox blasts mixed in with 20,000 other spam comments that could be about anything.

 

[Beverly]

Agreed, a mass amount of scrapebox or other low quality links WILL lead to a website being penalized in the search engines. I would focus on building quality backlinks rather than those "100,000" scrapebox blasts mixed in with 20,000 other spam comments that could be about anything.

Many people think of the Penguin update as a 'penalty' but even Google has admitted that it's not a penalty. Penguin simply discounts the value of certain back links that are deemed spammy. And, it neutralizes the effect of mass link spamming.

You can easily see how many sites that got top ranking in Google search results as a result of mass spamming could easily lose their top spot and slide from page one to 30 in no time.

 

[isuit21]

Penguin is only a filter and the worst thing that may happen to your website is the ignoring of the backlinks. Basically penguin will filter all of the low quality backlinks and leave your site with the high quality ones.

 

[Shole]

I call them spam backlinks because they basiclly are as good as spam so yhea some backlinks may damage your site others may help.

 

[edwardkingston]

The conclusion is that Penguin update kills spammers.

 

[ViperDove]

Many people think of the Penguin update as a 'penalty' but even Google has admitted that it's not a penalty. Penguin simply discounts the value of certain back links that are deemed spammy. And, it neutralizes the effect of mass link spamming.

You can easily see how many sites that got top ranking in Google search results as a result of mass spamming could easily lose their top spot and slide from page one to 30 in no time.

I agree with Beverly. In reality, backlinks do not harm your site because you don't have power over who links to your site. What happen is that if Google ignore the spammy backlinks a site has, the site's ranking will plunge down. What can harm your site is the sites you link out to.

 

[BigBigFan]

Unfortunately I have suspicions that backlinks do harm your site, if you have too many of them. If Google detects links it finds questionable it generally applies any penalty to the site doing the linking but if you have enough of these something else starts to happen, Google starts to lose trust in your site.

 

[difrancprod]

I agree that it can definitely harm your site. Like when you put links to sites that promotes gambling and porn, I'm pretty sure it would have a bad effect on your business page. I recommend being careful when it comes to this task.

 

[tommymaczoidberg]

I have seen some evidence that Google does penalize for backlinks that it sees as spammy. it is not a huge leap to think that Google might be aware of certain back link generator websites and it is thus able to find backlinks that were created by those sites and penalize for them.

 

[BigBigFan]

Someone can test this quite easily.

Set up a network of sites and point them to your site. If you then lose rankings you'll know it can hurt and you can then point it all at your competitor instead, lol. I'm just kidding with that but in theory...

 

[deansaliba]

I will be the first person to raise my hand and admit that although I have been blogging and building websites since 2001 I have still not managed to get my head around the idea of SEO.

I receive a lot of emails from people asking me to remove their links not just from blog posts but also from comments, some of them I ignore because they have employed someone to leave over 50+ comments on my blog over the years and it would take me too much time to shift through and delete them all.

I have contacted some of the biggest names in my niche and they have said that links left in comments (not in the actual comment box but when the name links to their site) do not hurt the blogs at all if you set the blog to no-follow.

Does anyone know if this is true?

 

[Jessi]

I receive a lot of emails from people asking me to remove their links not just from blog posts but also from comments, some of them I ignore because they have employed someone to leave over 50+ comments on my blog over the years and it would take me too much time to shift through and delete them all.

I have made money off people who have done this. They have offered to pay me 10-25 bucks to remove various links and I happily oblige then. I'm not going to do it for free when they tried to spam my comment section, though.

I have contacted some of the biggest names in my niche and they have said that links left in comments (not in the actual comment box but when the name links to their site) do not hurt the blogs at all if you set the blog to no-follow.

Does anyone know if this is true?

Yes, it's true. If they are no-follow, then Google isn't counting them...neither for or against that site....so they're fine to be left.

 

[deansaliba]

I have made money off people who have done this. They have offered to pay me 10-25 bucks to remove various links and I happily oblige then. I'm not going to do it for free when they tried to spam my comment section, though.

Yes, it's true. If they are no-follow, then Google isn't counting them...neither for or against that site....so they're fine to be left.

I just knew you would be able to come to my rescue with a solution!

I have also charged to remove links in the past, but this has been mainly for removing sponsored post links, I always confirm it is OK with the sponsored post network who gave me the job though.

Since the comment links don't have any effect (my blog has been no-follow for a couple of years) I will leave them ... unless someone offers to pay me to remove them.

 

[bauss]

Some low quality links on spam sites can harm your sites, but there is a tool that you can use to remove those links from harming your site in the eyes of Google. It's called the Google Disavow Tool.

 

[BigBigFan]

It's a good tool to use Bauss, if you're sure you've lost rankings because of incoming links from spammy sites. The problem is that it's hard to tell if this is the case. It's equally hard to learn which spammy sites might be linking to yours when search engines don't rank these sites and they drive no traffic.

I haven't used it yet but I will if I spot a spam network linking to me!

 

[semaphore.v]

Only quality backlinks is helpful for your website.

 

[ivan47]

At one forum offered 100 PR7 for a hundred dollars.
But the list is not given, I'm afraid to get banned for your money! I found catalogs, but the links do not work or require or back links.
List of white catalogs anyone have?