Chapter 7: Google Penalties - What They Are and How They Work
Not all backlinks are created equal. While some can boost your website's search engine ranking and credibility, bad backlinks can have the opposite effect, potentially harming your SEO and even leading to penalties from search engines.
By understanding when and how to disavow effectively, you'll equip yourself with the knowledge to safeguard your website's SEO health and maintain a clean and positive backlink profile. Here's a breakdown of how to disavow bad backlinks to protect your website's rank and SEO, followed by some important considerations:
Why Disavow Bad Backlinks
Backlink quality impacts SEO. Backlinks act as "votes" for your website. High-quality backlinks from reputable sources can boost your ranking, while low-quality, spammy backlinks can harm your search engine visibility.
Manual actions. Google may penalize your website if you have too many unnatural or manipulative backlinks. Disavowing these harmful backlinks can help mitigate the impact of penalties and protect your website's rankings.
How to Disavow Bad Backlinks
Identify bad backlinks. Conduct a thorough backlink audit using tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, or SEMrush. Look for:
Links from spammy, low-quality, or irrelevant websites.
Suspicious anchor text (irrelevant keywords, over-optimized).
Sites with a history of penalties or unnatural linking patterns.
Attempt manual removal. Before disavowing, try contacting the website owners to request link removal. This is the preferred solution, but it can be time-consuming and/or unsuccessful with spammy sites.
Create a disavow file. Compile a plain text file (.txt) with a list of backlinks you want to disavow. You can disavow individual URLs or entire domains:
To disavow a URL: http://spammylink.com/bad-page.html
To disavow a domain: domain:example.com
Submit to Google Disavow Tool
Go to the Google Disavow Tool: https://search.google.com/search-console/disavow-links
Select your website property.
Click "Disavow Links" and upload your disavow file.
Important Considerations
Disavowal is a last resort: Focus on building high-quality links and removing bad ones manually whenever possible.
Be very careful: Disavowing good backlinks can harm your website's ranking. Double-check your list before submitting.
Monitor your backlink profile: Disavowal doesn't prevent future bad links. Regularly check your backlink profile and update your disavow file as needed.
It may take time: It may take Google some time to recrawl the web and process your disavow list.
When to Disavow
You received a manual action from Google due to unnatural links.
You identify a significant amount of manipulative or spammy links pointing to your site that you can't manually remove.
Please keep in mind that disavowing backlinks is an advanced SEO strategy. Seek guidance from a web development expert if you're unsure.