Over the recent years, we have fallen in and out of love with backlinks several times. One day we’re told they are the ultimate solution to our DA and rating problems. The next day links don’t matter and you should only focus on content.

But these are the opinions of different specialists. In reality, references from other sites to you show credibility if they aren’t a part of a spammy link scheme. Search engines are smart enough to tell good and bad mentions, but the latter may stain your reputation a lot.

Fortunately, we know 5 expert recommendations that will help you avoid toxic mentions to your business site.

1: Do a Regular Backlink Audit

Even with a quality content distribution, you need profile analyses regularly. Whenever it’s time to check on your SEO, include a link scan there too. This is an essential part of off-site optimization, so, ideally, the analysis should be in your schedule right from the beginning of your website’s life.

Also, don’t forget to see the DA, trust score, and other metrics of the websites you plan to get backlinks from to make sure they will benefit your reputation.

2: Realize How Bad Things May Get

There are several things that may happen if you get toxic links:

• Your rating will drop;
• You may get a penalty from Google;
• You may get a manual action.

All three are pretty pessimistic. While even a manual action can be negotiated and you can prove that your website is worthy of a high rank, it takes time, effort, and lots of analysis.

Hire a powerful team of link-builders and optimization experts to communicate with the search engine teams and do damage control if something has happened already.

3: Disavow Spammy Links

Google Disavow is a tool used to delete the connection between you and obviously spammy websites. If you don’t want a backlink to be on your profile, you add it carefully in a new line in a .txt file (creating a new one if you haven’t already or updating the existing one), and upload it to the Search Console.

Do this with caution and only if you’re 100% sure the link harms your rankings. If you’re not experienced, it’s easy to mistake a domain and remove a reference that brings a lot of people to your site every day.

Even if you’re about to delete a bad link, think about a possible benefit you may be getting from it. Maybe you used to buy mentions like this. It’s better not to do this and get more high-quality references that won’t jeopardize your reputation, of course, but be ready for consequences if the toxic link is useful for you.

4: Balance with High-Quality Links

Cooperate with authoritatative backlink services and earn good references from relevant, credible websites. The best thing you can do aside from finding a great service is to create decent content.

Make infographics for your stats, write long-reads full of valuable information on the topic, consider other creative methods to give information to your readers. Also, look for any unlinked mentions of your website, products, articles, etc., and ask to add links there.

5: Avoid Arguments with Competitors

Unfortunately, competitors can compromise your reputation by ‘promoting’ your links on spammy sources. So, try to avoid conflict and do your thing (even if you know you’re better!)

And if an argument is inevitable, make sure you have great specialists on the team. Check this post to see why many marketers are turning to SEO now, which means the talent pool is quite deep.

Never Neglect Analysis

You can do everything to avoid toxic backlinks, but if you don’t analyze your portfolio from time to time, all this won’t make sense. Somehow, your website may appear on a spammy database. And even if you know about the effects of bad links and earn good ones by putting a lot of effort into the process, those stains on your portfolio will last.

Google is getting smarter and often ignores such mentions, but it doesn’t happen all the time. It may seem you’re involved in a link scheme or are using those low-quality references for your advantage.

Don’t let that happen!