Removing Unnatural Backlinks

Maybe your competitor subscribed you to one of those link sharing farms? Maybe you unwittingly hired an unscrupulous website designer or SEO Black Hat marketer? Or maybe you just did not realize it was against the rules.

Google realizes these are all reasons to forgive you for unnatural links. Forgiveness is enlightening even in Google’s eyes. : )

However, you have to take action yourself and it will take some work. We dive into this in Chapter 11, “Google Hates Cheaters”. Just know that Google has some guidelines on removing unnatural backlinks.

For the latest information click here.

Google looks for patterns of unnatural artificial, deceptive, or manipulative links pointing to your site. Remember, buying links or participating in link sharing farms or link schemes in order to manipulate PageRank is a violation of Google’s Guidelines.

Follow the steps below to remove any unnatural backlinks form your website:

1. Study Google’s Webmaster Guidelines on linking.
2. Download a list of links to your site from Search Console. You can download your links arranged by hostname (Links to Your Site > Who links the most > Download more sample links) or in chronological order (Links to Your Site > Who links the most > Download latest links).
3. Check this list for any links that look strange or that violate Google’s guidelines on linking. If your list is large, begin by looking at the sites that link to you the most, or links that were created recently – over the last few months.
4. For any links that violate Google’s guidelines, contact the webmaster of that website and ask that they either remove the links or prevent them from passing PageRank, such as by adding a rel=”nofollow” attribute.
5. If you can’t get any repose or action form the webmaster, then use the Disavow links tool in the Search Console to disavow any links you were unable to get removed by contacting the webmaster.
6. Once you’ve removed or disavowed the artificial links, request reconsideration from Google of your site. Including documentation about the links you’ve had removed, and an explanation of any links that you were unable to remove. After you’ve submitted a reconsideration request, watch for a message in your Search Console account — Google will let you know when they’ve reviewed your site. If they determine that your site is no longer in violation of their guidelines, they will reevaluate your ranking.

Below are links to use Google’s Search Console to find all the backlinks to our websites.

For a more complete list and many more details click here to use the Google Search Console.

You’ll need to be signed in to use the two links below.

Here is the direct link on Google search Console to check your backlinks.

Here is a direct link to the Google Search Console Dashboard