This article will introduce: How to check the backlinks of your website in the Google search engine; why there are a large number of spam external links linking to your website, and what is their purpose? How does this affect you? How to deal with these junk external links?
Using the link: operator followed by a URL (such as link:91download.com) in Google used to be a way to find external links to that URL. These results represent hyperlinks to 91download.com from other web pages.
However, Google retired the link: operator many years ago, so this query now returns no useful information. If you want to see backlinks pointing to your website, you'll need to use other tools such as Google Search Console, Ahrefs, Moz's Link Explorer, or SEMrush. These tools can provide more detailed backlink data, including information such as the source of the link, anchor text, and link quality.
To check the number of backlinks in Google Search Console, you can follow these steps:
In the "External links" section you can see the number of all known external links pointing to your site. This section also shows which websites link to your site the most, and which text is used as a link most frequently.
Please note that Google Search Console only displays links known to Google and may not include all links on the Internet. Additionally, Google Search Console data may be delayed by a few days.
External links from spam pages may have the following effects on your website:
Search ranking impact : Search engines (especially Google) use complex algorithms to evaluate the quality of links. Low-quality or spammy links may be viewed as an attempt to manipulate rankings, negatively impacting your site's ranking.
Penalty risk : If search engines believe your site engages in unnatural link building behavior, your site may be subject to manual or algorithmic penalties, resulting in decreased search visibility.
Reputation damage : Spam links are often associated with spammy websites or low-quality content, which can damage your website’s reputation.
Security Issues : Some spammy links may come from malicious websites, which may pose a security risk to users visiting your site.
If you find a large number of spammy external links pointing to your website, you can take the following actions:
Use Google Search Console's Disavow Tool : If you think certain links pose a risk to your site, you can use the Disavow Tool provided by Google Search Console to tell Google to ignore these links.
Monitor link quality : Check your backlinks regularly and use third-party tools like Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush to monitor link quality.
Contact the site owner : Try contacting the site owner where the spammy links came from and requesting that they remove the links.
Improve website security : Ensure your website is secure from hackers and malware.
Create high-quality content : Attract organic, high-quality backlinks by creating high-quality, valuable content.
Keep in mind that search engines often recognize the difference between natural link patterns and manipulative behavior, and are constantly improving their algorithms to better deal with link spam.
Some websites may create a large number of spammy external links pointing to your website for the following reasons:
Negative SEO attacks : Competitors may deliberately create a large number of low-quality links pointing to your website in an attempt to lower your website's search engine rankings. This strategy is called negative SEO (Negative SEO).
Link Farms : Some low-quality websites, such as link farms, may automatically or manually generate a large number of irrelevant links. These sites usually link randomly to other sites on the Internet in order to increase their own link count.
Automation software : Generating a large number of links can be easily done using automated tools or scripts. These tools can be used to create spammy links and randomly point to multiple websites, including yours.
Misguided SEO Strategies : Some uninformed website owners may have been told that building a large number of backlinks can improve their website’s SEO ranking. They may not understand the potential negative effects of these practices, or they may unintentionally harm other sites.
Advertising and Spam : Some websites may leave links in comment sections or forum posts as an act of advertising or spam.
Content scraping and mirroring : Some websites may scrape your content and create mirror sites whose links may point back to the source of the original content, which is your website.
If you find that your site is affected by spammy backlinks, the best thing to do is to use Google Search Console's disavow tool to tell Google to ignore these links, and monitor your site's link profile to prevent future attacks. At the same time, maintain good communication with Google and report it to Google if your website is subject to negative SEO attacks.
To use Google Search Console’s Disavow Tool to ignore harmful backlinks to your site, you need to follow these steps:
Analyze backlinks : First, you need to determine which links are harmful. Use Google Search Console's Links report to view links pointing to your site.
Create a disavow file : Create a text file (.txt) containing the links you want Google to ignore. Each line contains one link to disavow, or if you want to disavow links for an entire domain, use domain: directive. For example:
http://spam.example.com/stuff/comments.html domain:example.com
Make sure the file is UTF-8 or 7-bit ASCII encoded and the file name ends with .txt .
(2)Select your website properties.
(3) Click the "Reject file upload" button.
(4) Upload the .txt file you created.
Before using the disavow tool, trying to remove harmful links through other methods, such as contacting the site owner of the spammy link to request removal, is often a better first step.
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