In addition to on-page optimisation, off-page optimisation also plays an important role in SEO. Backlinks are a central factor in off-page SEO. These have a non-negligible influence on the Google ranking.
What are backlinks?
A backlink is a link from an external page to your own website. Such backlinks are an indicator of the quality of a website for Google. If the backlinks come from pages that Google classifies as trustworthy, this has a positive effect on the Google ranking of your own website. The content of the external page and the context in which the backlink is placed also have an influence on the value of the backlink. However, there are also bad backlinks that have a negative impact on Google’s ranking and, in the worst case, can even lead to your website being removed from the Google index.
What are bad backlinks?
Google attaches great importance to natural link building. Bad backlinks are so-called unnatural backlinks. Several criteria play a role in the evaluation of backlinks. The most important factor is the value of the website providing the link.
How to recognise an unnatural backlink:
Subject area: The content of the external site has nothing to do with your own website.
Language: The external website is written in a different language to your own.
Number of links: The external site links to a large number of pages.
Advertising: There is a lot of advertising on the external site.
Up-to-dateness: The website has been dead for a long time and is no longer maintained.
How can bad backlinks be found?
Website operators can use the Google Search Console to find out which external pages link to their own website. The tool provides a list of all internal and external links under the Links tab. This allows the link-providing pages to be identified and the quality of the respective backlinks to be determined.
How are bad backlinks removed?
The Google Search Console offers the option of declaring links from questionable pages or domains invalid. To do this, the website operator must create and submit a list of the invalidated links or domains. Such a list can only be submitted by the owner of the corresponding property. It should be noted that the invalidated links will continue to be displayed in the link report. If a new list is uploaded, all existing lists for the property will be replaced.
Step 1: Creating the list
- One URL or domain per line. It is not possible to declare an entire subordinate path invalid
- A domain is labelled with ‘domain:’. Example: domain:examplepage.com
- The file must be a text file encoded as UTF-8 or 7-bit ASCII.
- The file must be saved as a TXT file and have the file extension ‘.txt’.
- The file must not be larger than 2 MB.
- Comments are marked with #
Step 2: Submitting the list
- Open tool: Declare links invalid
- Select the relevant property from the list. The list then only applies to this property. If a list has already been stored, it will be replaced. It is therefore advisable to continue the list in order to ban all backlinks that have already been removed.
- Select the file with the list on the local computer and upload it.
- If the file is faulty, the tool immediately provides a list with errors and existing lists are not replaced. If the upload is successful, it may take a few weeks for the new list to be added to the index by Google.
Conclusion
Backlinks play a not insignificant role in SEO and can certainly have an influence on Google rankings. It can therefore pay off to keep an eye on these and to declare links or domains invalid if necessary. As incorrect use of this function can also have a negative impact on Google rankings, you should be careful when using it. It is also important to note that this measure relates exclusively to Google and has no effect on the ranking of other search engines.
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