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One client’s site is 99% of their backlink profile (747k sitewide links). How badly is this nuking their SEO?
Posted by on January 27, 2026 at 12:31 pmHey everyone, I’m looking for some expert perspective on a weird backlink situation.
I’m working with a web dev agency domain that has about 750k total backlinks. Here’s the catch: 747k of those links come from a single domain (a decent DR 65 site my client built years ago).
- It’s an art/auction site (paintings, artists, art event pages)
- A sitewide footer link on every single page (including thousands of low-value product pages)
- It’s an image anchor "X development company" (where X is a specific niche tech they no longer even support)
- All links point to a legacy service page that’s now 308-redirected to the main Services hub
There’s a massive gap in Topical Authority here. We have a web dev agency being powered almost entirely by an art portal. Plus, the anchor text is hyper-optimized for a service they don't offer anymore.
I’m worried about a few things:
- Is Google’s "understanding" of the site stuck on this old niche (X) because of the sheer volume of anchor text?
- Could this massive imbalance be acting as an anchor, making it harder to rank for the new services they actually offer?
- Since it’s a 308 redirect from a dead page, is the "juice" from that DR 65 domain even doing anything useful at this point?
Has anyone dealt with a sitewide backlink bomb like this? Should I nuke the links entirely, or just try to move them to a single brand link on their homepage?
Any insights or war stories would be much appreciated!
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1 Reply
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Probably not nuking them. Backlinks aren’t positive/negative, they’re either positive or 0
>Here’s the catch: 747k of those links come from a single domain (a decent DR 65 site my client built years ago).
In body links carry favor, not footer links
>Is Google’s “understanding” of the site stuck on this old niche (X) because of the sheer volume of anchor text?
Google has a very thin veneer of “understanding”
All of the topics’ authority is calculated individually; having lots of anchor text on one doesnt detract from the others
>Could this massive imbalance be acting as an anchor, making it harder to rank for the new services they actually offer?
I’m guessing they just have low authority for those topics. Having topical authority in one area doesnt necessarily make it hard to add another
>single brand link on their homepage?
hard to see this being beneficial to specific topics.
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tl;dr – if they have a page that ranks for BMW car lights and it links on “BMW tires” to your tire site, that will flow authority for “BMW tires” to your site.
Thats how you link. Branded links just mean you shape authority to the branded term. If they already rank for their branded term, that won’t help.
Link [phrase you want to rank for] to [page you want to rank] – its really that simple.
So if you want to go back and repeal the fool links and replace them intentionally from pages that rank – that would be better.
What is the upper limit? Nobody knows. But people will advise you to mix it up a bit
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Google’s behavior: Ignore, discount, move on. No penalty, just neutral.
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Easy answer: Google sees a sitewide link from a single domain along the lines of a single link. Even more if the anchor text is consistently the same.
Absolutely nothing to worry about.
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It’s very common thing. Just the DR will be very inflated like this and probably it;s much lower than that in Google eyes. But if you look publishing companies owning sites (e.g. investopedia) you’l see it.
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