Backlinks matter if you want to get your company’s website noticed. However, some backlinks can become toxic. They can end up doing you more harm than good.
Many companies put up the money to hire link-building services, and that can certainly be to your benefit. You should also know about what makes a backlink harmful to you, though. Any link-building entity you hire should know better than to involve you with one of these links, but if you can identify them on your own, that’s one more layer of protection for your company’s website.
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What is a Backlink?
For those who don’t know this term, a backlink is a hyperlink. If you click on it, it will guide you from the web page you’re on to another website.
Link-building involves setting up backlinks on websites that will direct someone browsing the web to your website. Once there, you’re hoping they’ll buy one of your products or use one of your services. It’s common practice to pay someone knowledgeable to set up backlinks for your company on other websites.
How to Tell Whether a Backlink is Toxic
Google ranks your site higher if it has relevant backlinks. That’s one of the main ways to get your site to climb the search engine ranking positions if someone types in keywords having to do with your industry.
You have analytic tools at your disposal that you can use to learn about backlinks that lead to your site. You can use those tools to see whether a backlink is harmful.
If a backlink leads to your website and comes from a site that has not been indexed by Google, that’s a huge red flag. You also know a backlink is toxic if it comes from a site that has nothing to do with your niche or industry.
It’s also a problem if a backlink leads to your company’s website from a site that was obviously created just for the purpose of linking out. These sites will have very little meaningful content other than a mess of links.
What to Use Instead of Toxic Backlinks
The opposite of toxic backlinks are relevant ones. If you see backlinks leading to your site that could harm your position with the Google rankings, you can contact the website admins and demand that they remove the link. You can also fill out and submit a link disavow file to Google. They should act on that fairly quickly.
At that point, you’re free to either hire someone to set up some relevant backlinks or create some on your own if you have the contacts and expertise. Most larger companies have IT specialists who can handle this. Consider hiring a permanent IT staff who can handle your website’s SEO. Getting rid of toxic backlinks and setting up useful ones is always to your benefit.
Stay vigilant to keep spammy backlinks from attaching to your company’s website. They’ll drag you down the rankings, and you never want to allow that to happen.
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