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Are my competitors using toxic backlinks against me? Or am I just bad at SEO.
A site I’ve been working on has all of sudden received 1400+ backlinks and in semrush it’s coming up as ‘high’ on the toxicity ranking. I’ve submitted to Google to disavow so now it’s a waiting game. I did pay someone to add backlinks a year ago but these have only shown up recently, so I’m hoping it wasn’t delayed in showing in semrush? I don’t know though. the industry we’re in there’s only 3 companies that are fighting for position and is a very paranoid and backstabbing industry. I’m always improving the site and adding content but the organic reach has seen a steep drop off since those links were added. Are google really that fussed about backlinks still? Or is it a deeper page issue experience etc.
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1 Reply
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No, Google now ignores spammy backlinks.
They even said the disavow is only required when you get manual action for unnatural links, which is quite rare these days.
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Don’t listen to SEMrush. They don’t know shit. Unless those links show up in Google Search Console, they don’t mean a thing. 99.99% of the time you see that in SEMrush you won’t see a thing in GSC and if they don’t show up there, they aren’t an issue and aren’t worth wasting your time on.
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Do not disavow. Worst links won’t harm you. Disavowing links may harm your rankings.
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your competition might add this site to toxic backlinks to gain ranking. You can check it in Ahref whether they’re actual link or spam.
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No such thing as a toxic backlink, that’s a semrush invention.
Read up on Penguin 4.0 and how it handles spam.
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Hi u/crispycreamz, we always recommend a manual review; this way, you can review the markers that led to us identifying them as “toxic,” but please note this is our internal metric and does not impact Google standings or your website. “Toxic” doesn’t mean that you have to disavow the link immediately—it means that the link requires further review and has certain attributes that, based on statistics, may lead to a penalty. According to Google, disavowing can often impact your rankings, and it’s seen as a very serious action. Please review them yourself before taking any action. Cheers 😉 – Sasha
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Google says a lot of things, so I take what they say with a grain of salt. I use the disavow file for only super sketchy spammy links. SEMRush doesn’t like Blog Spot backlinks but I’ve decided to keep those. Do a manual review and submit to the Disavow. I have seen websites recover after using the Disavow file.
And yes, there is a chance that your competitors are “link bombing” you. There is no way to tell and no way to stop them. It’s the wild west out there. Link building has been weaponized.
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