Picture checking your analytics one morning and finding that organic traffic has fallen sharply overnight. One common cause is a bad backlink profile. Links from other websites can help your rankings when they come from relevant, trusted sources, and they can work against you when they look bought or manufactured. This guide covers how to spot the problem, remove the links and recover.
01Can bad backlinks hurt your site?#
Yes. Google treats links as a signal of trust: a link from a respected publication tells it your page is worth referencing. Links that exist only to manipulate rankings send the opposite signal. Depending on the scale, the result ranges from those links being ignored, to lower rankings, to a manual action that removes pages from results.
Large brands are not immune. In March 2013 the BBC received an unnatural links notice from Google about links pointing to one of its articles. Google confirmed the action affected only that single article and not the BBC's wider rankings, but it shows that unnatural links get noticed whoever owns the site.
02What is an unnatural link penalty?#
An unnatural link penalty happens when Google finds links pointing to your site that look manipulative. It can be a manual action, applied by a Google reviewer and shown in Search Console, or an algorithmic effect, where Google's systems discount or demote the links automatically. Common causes include:
- Paid links: links bought for ranking purposes without a nofollow or sponsored attribute.
- Link exchanges: excessive "link to me and I'll link to you" arrangements.
- Private blog networks (PBNs): networks of sites built only to link to money pages.
- Keyword-stuffed anchor text: many links using the exact keyword you want to rank for.
- Low-quality directories and bookmark sites: links placed in bulk with no editorial review.
- Automated link building: software that creates links at scale.
03Should you remove bad backlinks?#
If you have a manual action, or you know links were bought or built through a scheme, yes. Removing them shows Google you're following its guidelines. If you simply see a few spammy links you didn't create, Google says it usually ignores those on its own, and most sites don't need to act on them. Focus your effort on links you or a previous agency were responsible for.
04How to remove bad backlinks#
051. Identify the bad links#
Start with the Links report in Google Search Console, then use a tool such as Ahrefs or Semrush for a fuller picture. In Semrush, open Backlink Audit, enter your domain and start the audit; it groups links by risk so you can review them. Look for links from unrelated sites, pages covered in ads, foreign-language spam and exact-match anchors in bulk. Review each flagged domain yourself before acting: tools label some good links as toxic.
062. Ask site owners to remove them#
Contact the owner or webmaster of each linking site and ask for the link to be removed. Keep the message short and specific, for example:
- Hello [name],
- I manage [your site]. Your page [URL] links to us at [linked URL]. The link isn't relevant to our site, so please could you remove it?
- Thanks, [your name]
Keep a record of who you contacted and when. If you have a manual action, that record supports your reconsideration request.
073. Disavow the links you can't remove#
Google's disavow links tool tells Google to ignore specific links or whole domains. List them in a text file and upload it in Search Console. Use it with care: disavowing good links can hurt your rankings, and Google recommends it only when you have a manual action or a significant number of unnatural links you can't get removed. The file must follow Google's format:
- File type: a plain .txt file.
- Encoding: UTF-8 or 7-bit ASCII.
- Size: up to 100,000 lines (including comments and blank lines) and 2MB.
- Format: one URL per line, or domain:example.com to disavow a whole domain.
- Comments: lines starting with # are ignored by Google but help you keep notes.
08How to recover from a Google penalty#
- 1
Check Search Console's Manual actions report to confirm whether a reviewer has applied a penalty.
- 2
Audit your backlinks and list the unnatural ones, as described above.
- 3
Remove what you can and disavow the rest.
- 4
If you had a manual action, submit a reconsideration request explaining what you found, what you removed and what you disavowed.
- 5
Build links the right way from here on: useful content, digital PR and relationships with relevant publications.
Reviews of reconsideration requests can take several weeks. Algorithmic recovery depends on Google recrawling the links, which also takes time.
09Keeping your link profile healthy#
Check your links every few months, avoid any service that sells links in bulk, and put your effort into earning links from sites your customers read. A clean profile is easier to keep than to repair.
FAQFrequently asked questions
Look for a manual action in Google Search Console first. Without one, a sudden drop in rankings that lines up with a Google spam update, combined with a link profile full of paid or low-quality links, points to an algorithmic effect.
No. Tools flag many harmless links. Review each domain yourself, and disavow only links that are clearly manipulative and that you can't get removed.
A reconsideration request is usually reviewed within a few weeks. Rankings return gradually after that, and only to the level your remaining legitimate links support.
