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Identify “bad” links and take steps to protect your rankings
The wrong type of links (often referred to as “bad” links, “toxic” links, spammy links, or unnatural links ) can harm your site’s organic performance.
Performing a backlink audit is the most effective way to detect these problems and areas to study so you can take action to protect your positioning.
If you have been unfortunate enough to have detected a negative impact as a result of bad links, it is imperative that you perform an analysis to solve the problem and recover your lost positions.
In a nutshell, think of backlink analysis as a routine check or car inspection, and when done regularly it allows you to fix potential problems before they cause failure.
Quality links come from trusted sources and are in no way intended to manipulate search engine rankings.
To understand what these look like, the best place to turn is Google's Webmaster Guidelines .
In fact, Google tells us directly that:
The best way to get other sites to create high-quality, relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community. Creating good content pays off: links are often editorial votes given by choice, and the more useful your content is, the higher the chances that someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it.
However, we can simplify this.
High quality links are those that have been placed editorially as a result of someone finding and considering your content as valuable and deciding to link to it.
When a link is placed editorially, it is because the writer or webmaster has decided to do so.
They didn't have to link to it, but they chose it because you've created valuable content that they want to amplify or use to help their readers. This is what we really need to understand and pay attention to.
The reason digital PR and content marketing have become such popular link building tactics is because they directly serve journalists, editors, and other publishers who choose to cover a story or piece of content and link to it.
These tactics help you build high-quality links and avoid the risks associated with toxic links.