Low Quality Backlinks

[HTMLBasicTutor]

If you are checking your backlinks and see some low quality incoming links there isn't much you can do about it (just don't link back to them )

On Friday, October 16, 2009 Google posted an explanation to put your mind at ease:

...Generally, you as a webmaster don't have much control over things like who links to your site. You do, however, have control over many other factors that influence indexing and ranking....

...keep in mind that low-quality links rarely stand the test of time, and may disappear from our link graph relatively quickly. They may even already be being discounted by our algorithms....

Continued: Dealing with low-quality backlinks - Official Google Webmaster Central Blog

[angilina]

I always used to tell people that backlinks cannot hurt us: only outbound links can and that is because we can control outbound links and we have no control on inbound links.

Few weeks back, I say a video interview of a Google Employee where she said that: inbound links cannot hurt a site. I will try to find that video and will post its link here.

Edit: Here is the video:

seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-interview-with-googles-maile-ohye

[pvignola]

Great link at the bottom of your first post. I am kind of new to SEO and that article contains some good information. Thanks for posting

[Natural Elements]

I agree with google on that: "If your site receives links that look similarly dodgy, don't be alarmed"

But when rankings drop, you can be alarmed and if you do nothing, it takes a few days to Google to send you back where your rankings were.

There are always some moron to link you on harmful sites.

[null101]

I always thought certain inbound links CAN hurt your site.. I believe I've heard it be called the "bad neighbor effect", when Google penalizes you for having too many unethical websites pointing to your website...

But what happens if you have 4000 cloaked backlinks from some blackhat service all pointing to your domain? It'll get you penalized. In theory, if you were to take a service like this and point it to a certain website, it's likely you could get it penalized or delisted.

Unless I'm wrong.

[JennyRipley]

Originally Posted by Natural Elements

I agree with google on that: "If your site receives links that look similarly dodgy, don't be alarmed"

But when rankings drop, you can be alarmed and if you do nothing, it takes a few days to Google to send you back where your rankings were.

There are always some moron to link you on harmful sites.

I agree with you.As for me I don't care about my quality backlinks,when my site ranking dropped I will concern the reasons caused dropping.

[AirForce1]

Nice sharing. So, I would like to say we should be cautious in exchanging links.

Have a nice day,

[hyipcoder]

Low quality links are from pages with a lot of outbound links, low or 0 PR, and poor content..

[Natural Elements]

Originally Posted by hyipcoder

Low quality links are from pages with a lot of outbound links, low or 0 PR, and poor content..

Low or 0 PR, I disagree with that, PR is not all criterias to rank. If a page has PR0 and rank top 10 in SERP that's excellent to me.

Outbound links, Google says no more than 100 links but you can have much more if they are related links or quality links.

[HTMLBasicTutor]

Originally Posted by hyipcoder

Low quality links are from pages with a ...low or 0 PR..

Low or 0 PR does not necessarily consistute a low quality link.

a) They could be just starting out and missed the latest PR update.

b) The content can still be fantastic and because of point a) you are eliminating them as a valuable incoming link now and in the future.

c) The site could be an up and coming site relative to your niche, so don't count them out just because of a).

d) They just might be working on their on page and off page SEO and because of a) you are not seeing their hard work to improve their PR yet.

PR isn't every thing. There's more to SEO than what shows in the Google toolbar for PR.

Some sites have a high PR because they are popular through investments in "other" promotion methods. That doesn't mean their content is any better, just that they had more money to spend on offline promotion and have a fancy site.

[w3bmaster]

Yep backlinks can't hurt you at the most case they count = 0
But linking to bad sites ca hurt you ..

[OfferUK]

Poor quality backlinks clearly can hurt you, as confirmed by Google themselves. The question is whether there's anything that you can do about it.

[Moneymen]

I agree with "Natural Elements" example i am working hard on my site and improving it constantly but nobody want to do any link exchange since am new on the whole things and have low PR its just not right
how will i get some higher PR if everyone is running away from my site because of low PR

and one question
if for example i have site that have PR 2 and am getting constantly only backlinks from site that have same PR will my site stay on PR 2 or eventually will go to PR 3 ?

[anthony_james]

You can not control your incoming links like if any low quality site linking you back then you ca not stop him even you come to know about so no need to worry about but make sure that you do not linkback any low quality or bad sites cause that may harm you.

[nichita2008]

It's better to find just quality links to your site. Low quality links does not hurts you but have almost no value for you and you loose time to make these links...

[kurole]

With so much talk, I am still confused whether low quality links are bad or no effect at all

[js112]

Originally Posted by kurole

With so much talk, I am still confused whether low quality links are bad or no effect at all

anyway, you should build good quality links it is good for your webiste

[boblord666]

Backlinks to your site?

The ones you can control - make sure they are good quality ones.

[johnsunvalley]

"inbound links cannot hurt a site", i agree with this opinion. google play a good game.

[drupal123]

Inbound link to get more traffic