X

Need Help?

Decoding Unnatural Links: Understanding the Risks and Consequences in SEO

product-image

Many different factors contribute to boosting a website's authority, search engine rankings, and visibility.

Google's search algorithm considers and evaluates hundreds of parameters before ranking a website. The importance of many of these parameters has fluctuated over time.

Some of these parameters have become obsolete, while many new parameters have come to the fore. However, one of these factors that remains a constant in deciding a website's authority and ranking is links – inbound and outbound links.

Natural, high-quality, and relevant Google links can boost your SEO effort and search engine rankings. But then there are also links that Google considers unnatural that can potentially harm your website and do more harm than good.

So, the question remains – What is unnatural link building and its impact on SEO?

In this article, we will decode unnatural links for you to help devise an SEO strategy that's effective, result-oriented, and free from the dangers of unnaturally appearing links.

What are Unnatural Links?

Links that artificially try to boost a website's PageRank and manipulate search engine results can be considered an element of a link scheme and violate Google's Webmaster Guidelines.

In other words, unnatural links are not organic and are either purchased or planted by design to deceive Google's search engine results and achieve higher search engine rankings.

Google began cracking down on unnatural link building in 2012 after the Penguin Update. Today, Google is way more advanced in sniffing out unnatural links than earlier.

With just about every online business investing time and resources in inbound link building to boost their SEO efforts, it's natural to wonder – what are the unnatural link warning signs to look out for?

In reality, there's no black and white in the area of link building. However, some link-building practices are always flagged off as red, and one must try to refrain from these unnatural link building practices (more on that later!).

These are two types of links –

  • Inbound Links – These are links on other websites directing users to your website.
  • Outbound Links – These are links on your website directing users to other websites.

If these links are placed unnaturally in lieu of an exchange of money or goods to boost the search engine rankings and manipulate search engine results, they are unnatural links.

What are the common characteristics of unnatural links?

Unnatural links can be deceiving to the eyes but have several characteristics that help them classify as unnatural.

If you're looking for an answer to what is an unnatural link building, you must look out for links that are –

  1. Not editorially placed by the website's admin or owner.
  2. Links that do not offer value to the readers.
  3. Links that are present for the sole purpose of passing 'Link Juice.'
  4. Links that are created using spammy techniques that violates Google's Webmaster Guidelines.
  5. Links that are purchased.
  6. Links that are not organic and do not appear naturally in the content.
  7. Links that have over-optimized keyword-rich anchor texts.

Google's algorithm has evolved and advanced over the years to detect unnatural links sooner or later.

If Google detects unnatural links linked to your website in any way, you'll receive an 'unnatural links warning' in your Google Search Console account.

If left unaddressed or swift action is not taken to remedy the situation with unnatural links, it can lead to devastating Google penalties, which can be a challenge.

What are the characteristics of natural links?

Natural links are organic links created by other websites directing users to your website without any form of incentives or exchange of money or goods from your website.

Natural links are created when bloggers, influencers, and website owners find the information available on your website relevant, useful, and valuable for their audience.

Some of the common characteristics of natural links include –

  • Contextually and topically relevant to where they're placed.
  • Natural links typically use diverse anchor text as opposed to over-optimized keyword-rich anchor text used in unnatural link building techniques.
  • Natural links come from a vast array of sources, showcasing genuine interest in the content from a broader audience.
  • Natural links occur by default in high-quality, engaging, and impressive content.

It is important to understand the characteristics of natural links to answer the question –  what is an unnatural link building?

What Is Inbound Links?

Inbound links are links on other websites directing users to your website.

Having a substantial amount of high-quality inbound links from authority and relevant websites can boost your website's search engine rankings, drive organic traffic, put you in front of a wider audience, build brand awareness, and boost search engine visibility.

Similarly, outbound links meaning imply links on your website that direct users to other websites.

These links are meant to help users find crucial information and resources that otherwise may not be available on your website or adds value to the users' experience.

How To Get Inbound Links?

Inbound linking is an integral part of a comprehensive SEO strategy, helping you rank higher and boast authority in your niche.

Getting inbound links from top authority sources relevant to your niche is crucial to achieving SEO success.

High-quality backlinks can drive organic traffic to your website while placing you higher in search results for your focus keywords.

Let us enumerate some of the most followed methods to get inbound links –

  • Have a blog where you regularly publish high-quality content.
  • Use guest blogging platforms and write high-quality guest blogs.
  • Link to other blogs, and soon they will link back to you.
  • Create impressive case studies.
  • Create free and useful tools.
  • Create informative, unique, and impressive infographics.
  • Create tutorial, educational, informative, and how-to videos.
  • Create exhaustive slide-share presentations or image threads that are easily shareable.
  • Write Press Releases about your brand, products, services, or any other news event related to your brand.
  • Share your content on social media.
  • Share your top-quality content with established bloggers, publications, and websites in your industry.
  • Partner with websites in your industry or related to your industry.
  • Don't hesitate to ask for reviews from fellow bloggers, industry experts, and review websites.
  • Build relationships with other webmasters.
  • Look for broken link opportunities and connect with webmasters to update these inbound links with your URL.
  • Install a social sharing widget on your website.
  • Conduct giveaways, contests, and free trials.

These are just some of the ways you can get inbound links. The internet is an ever-evolving space, and the more creative you get, the more opportunities you'll find to get inbound links naturally.

Gone are the days when spamming links online on forums or blogs can boost your website's search engine rankings.

Having Google unnatural links referring back to your website can put your website in trouble and may result in your SEO efforts going in vain due to Google Penalties.

That is why it's important to understand what is an unnatural link building before you devise an effective link building strategy.

What Are Natural and Unnatural Links?

Links that occur organically and is placed voluntarily because the content is topically relevant and useful to the readers is called natural link.

Unnatural links are links that are paid for in cash or goods and are meant specifically to manipulate search engine rankings.

Unnatural links mostly come with tracking parameters and are monetized through monetization scripts, affiliate programs, influencers, and CPC campaigns,

If unnatural links are not attributed with a "nofollow" tag, Google considers it a violation of their webmasters' guidelines. It can attract penalties and may even lead to drastic negative changes in search engine rankings.

What Is An Example of an Unnatural Link?

Unnatural links are often called spammy links because that's what they are – spammy!

They are created for the sole purpose of inflating your backlink profile and boosting search engine ranking artificially.

Google considers any such link-building methods meant to manipulate search engine rankings as unethical and unnatural and in violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines, as mentioned earlier.

Some of the examples of unnatural links are –

  • Paid Links - Also, don't promote "selling links on my website."
  • Links coming from Link Farms
  • Links are generated through automated link-building software.
  • Over-optimized and keyword-rich anchor text.
  • Spammy Links are found in comment sections of blogs and forum posts.
  • Unethical reciprocal links. Engaging in excessive link exchanges to manipulate Google rankings can backfire!

As Google continues to improve its algorithm in catching and devaluing unnatural and spammy links, it's best to stick to ethical link-building practices to progress slowly yet steadily on the SEO front.

Unnatural link building practices can tank your website's search engine ranking, making it impossible to revive in certain cases.

What Is Unnatural Links Building?

Unnatural link building is the practice of creating inorganic, spammy, and unnatural links to your website.

It is broadly considered a part of the Black Hat SEO technique that may seem effective for a short period but can have a negative impact on your website's overall link profile, health, and impression in Google's eyes.

Unnatural link building is commonly practiced to manipulate search engine rankings and achieve higher search engine rankings.

Engaging in unnatural link-building practices can attract Google Penalties and, in some cases, may even lead to your website getting blacklisted.

How To Find Unnatural Links To Your Site?

Looking for unnatural links is one of the common purposes of doing an SEO audit. You must regularly do this for old websites you own or if you're in the process of buying a new domain name or an existing website.

Some of the strategies to use to detect unnatural links are –

Check the number of links coming from referring domains

If your website is receiving hundreds or thousands of links from a single referring domain, Google finds it suspicious. There are various SEO audit tools you can use, such as Legiit Dashboard, Ahrefs, and Google Search Console, to check the referring domains to your site and review them manually.

When answering what is an unnatural link building, this is one of the most common identifiers to look for. This is because one website links to another website naturally just a few times in most cases.

High Volume of Links from Low-DR Websites

The Domain Rating (DR) of a website represents its backlink strength. If the backlink audit of your website shows too many links coming from low-DR websites or websites with no DR, it looks suspicious to Google.

In most cases, such low-DR or no-DR websites are created as part of link farms for the sake of linking out in exchange for money.

However, this does not mean all no-DR or low-DR websites are spammy, or that links from them are considered unnatural. Getting a backlink from a fairly new website is completely natural and doesn't attract any negative attention from Google.

In any case, if your backlink audit reveals too many links coming from no-DR and low-DRO websites, it is important to dive deeper to uncover any risks of unnatural links.

Check Anchor Texts

If your website attracts tons of links having the same anchor texts or keyword-rich anchors, they're a classic example of unnatural links.

When the same anchor text is used by many different websites linking back to your website, it is considered unnatural link building practice.

Check Referring Websites' Overall Quality

When ascertaining a website's quality, don't focus merely on checking its Domain Rating (DR) - go through the site's usability, content quality, and overall user experience it offers. It will help you give an idea of whether the website was meant to actually help users or is purely built for linking purposes.

Impact of Unnatural Links on SEO

Unnatural links can make or break your SEO efforts. Google's algorithm can detect unnatural links and penalize any such link-building efforts to manipulate search engine results.

Negative Impact on Search Engine Rankings

Links are one of the most important Google ranking factors.

However, if your website has too many unnatural links pointing to it, Google will consider it as an attempt to boost your search engine rankings artificially.

It can result in your website's ranking tanking drastically and may even lead to your site getting removed from Google's index.

Reduced Traffic

If your website's ranking is negatively impacted due to unnatural links, it will inevitably result in decreased traffic. The lower your website's ranking on Google, the lower will be the traffic it attracts.

Damaged Reputation

If you're thinking, what is an unnatural link building, and what can it do? One of the biggest negative impacts of unnatural link building is it can damage your website's reputation.

This is because when too many spammy or unnatural websites are linked to yours, Google and the visitors may perceive your site in a similar category as well.

Once you've lost the trust and reputation of your audience and Google, it can be difficult, and sometimes even impossible, to repair the damage done.

Google Penalties

One of the most serious consequences of engaging in unnatural link building is receiving a Google penalty.

You will see an 'unnatural link warning' on your Google Search Console when the situation gets alarming. If it is ignored and no corrective measures are implemented right away, Google will impose manual review and action.

It can lead to lower search engine ranking, reduce online visibility, and sometimes even complete removal from Google search results.

How To Avoid Unnatural Links?

Prevention is much better than cure when it comes to link-building. Follow the best SEO practices for link building to avoid the inflow of unnatural links and receiving unnatural link warnings.

Some of the things you can do to avoid unnatural links are –

Create High-Quality Content

Create top-quality content that engages readers and offers them value.

Don't create content for the sake of creating content. Create content passionately to address readers' pain points and give them something of value.

When your website publishes high-quality content regularly, it's natural for it to attract natural links from other websites that are topically relevant. It not only pushes your website's reputation but helps create a healthy and diverse backlink profile.

Regular Backlink Audits

There are various tools you can use to conduct audits of your website's backlink profile. Some of the tools you can use include Google Search Console, Ahrefs, Semrush, etc.

Identify low-quality backlinks that are harming your SEO efforts.

Avoid Link Schemes

Do not by any means participate in link schemes such as buying links, engaging in excessive link exchanges, or using link-building software to create low-quality backlinks.

Such practices are in direct violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and are sure to attract penalties sooner rather than later.

Reach out for Natural Links

Refrain from engaging in unnatural link building methods and instead try to network and partner with relevant influencers, webmasters, and bloggers from your industry.

Getting links from well-known and established blogs is way more helpful than linking to low-quality, spammy websites. Focus on the quality of the backlinks, not the quantity!

What To Do When You Receive Unnatural Links Warning?

If you own a website and actively engage in SEO efforts, you may have come across or have heard about 'Unnatural Links Warning.'

Receiving unnatural links warning can be upsetting, but it's' important to have the right approach to reverse the situation and restore your website's link profile's health.

Understand The Warning

In the warning from Google, it will specify if the issues lie with the inbound or the outbound links. This will give you the direction for your investigation.

Don't panic and start disavowing links haphazardly.

Perform Backlink Audit

Identify dangerous and unnatural links through a comprehensive backlink audit using tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, etc.

Make a list of all the suspicious links. If the outbound links are causing the problem, conduct a comprehensive audit of your website. Focus on any specific pages or areas Google may have referenced in the warning.

Go through the links manually as well to find links that may come across as unnatural and remove them.

Remove Unnatural Links

Once you have identified unnatural inbound links, contact the respective website owners and webmasters and ask them to remove your links.

Make sure you document your communications throughout this process and present the same during the reconsideration request.

For outbound link warnings, identify and remove the unnatural links or attribute these links with a 'nofollow' or 'sponsored' HTML tag.

Use The Disavow Tool

In some cases, when the webmaster doesn't respond to your request for link removal or removing it isn't possible, use Google's Disavow tool to delink your website from these unnatural links.

Make sure to use this tool with caution, as you don't want to disavow links that benefit your website's SEO standing.

Submit a Reconsideration Request

Once you've analyzed and sanitized your link profile, it's time to submit a reconsideration request through the Google Search Console.

Make sure your request is as descriptive as possible, detailing all the actions you've taken, the efforts you've made, and your communication with the webmasters for link removal.

This can be a time-consuming process that will test your patience, but it is your perseverance and diligence that will eventually stand out and help you reclaim your search engine rankings.

Final Thoughts

As important as it is to build high-quality backlinks to your website, it's equally important to keep a lookout for unnatural links pointing to your website.

You can only answer what is an unnatural link building once you understand in-depth how badly it can turnaround the future of your website, potentially to never revive.

Achieving long-term SEO success is only possible when you focus on building a robust backlink profile organically.

Apart from focusing on creating high-quality content, fostering relationships with other bloggers/webmasters in your niche, and engaging in guest blogging to create a natural and diverse link profile, it's important to monitor your link profile's health.

Staying vigilant in monitoring your link profile's health will help you address any issues promptly, ensuring unnatural links don't hamper your website's credibility, search engine rankings, and trustworthiness.

Natural link building is a time-consuming and ongoing process. Always remember, the road to SEO success is paved through quality, innovation, and patience, and not through shortcuts.

About the Author

KeywordRankers

Reviews   (315)

I like to introduce myself as an SEO junkie and word's architect. I've been in the SEO and content writing business for over ten years now and have learned a lot on the way and still learning.

I love writing, and what started as a passion has become a full-time business. I am confident of what I bring to the table because if there's one thing I learned in this business, it is that you can only thrive if you get "repeat orders." So, how can I get repeat orders from you?

Simple - by providing quality work that not only impresses you but leaves you astounded!

I can go on, but it's much better to try one of my services and check it out yourself.

I leave no stones unturned to exceed the expectations of my clients - every single time.

Please do feel free to drop in a message for any queries or concerns.

Looking forward to your order soon!

Thank you!

Nick

+ See more
×
×