Does Your Website Need A Good Detox?
Just like your body, your website also needs a good detox every now and then to get rid of the toxins that can bring it down.
Don’t get it? Don’t worry, you will understand soon.
You invest in search engine optimization (or “SEO”) so that your website can rank higher in the search results and get found in the online world.
To make sure your SEO online marketing strategy yields good results, you get other high authority websites to link back to your website. This is called backlinking.
Backlinking provides your website with links distributed across the web and helps you acquire referral web traffic while also boosting your SEO.
You see, a backlink helps Google figure out how reliable your website is. If your website has backlinks from many well-reputed websites, that means a lot of high authority websites are linking back to you. And Google will see it as these websites vouching for your credibility.
Once Google begins to see your website as a trusted entity, it ranks it higher in the search results.
This is why backlinking is an essential part of your SEO strategy.
But just like all other things, there are two types of backlinks: good ones and bad ones.
Your website acquires the bad links, also called toxic links, when a lot of low-authority websites link to it. And just like a bad company corrupts good character, association with these websites through toxic links destroys your website’s reputation, regardless of how valuable it is.
When your website has too many toxic links, these links spill their “toxicity” on your website, making it lose its authority in the search engine’s eyes.
And since Google prioritizes its users’ experience and wants to provide them with the most credible information, it makes sure the searchers don’t come across a website with lots of toxic links by lowering its rank.
Google not only takes your website’s rank away because of its association with bad websites but it can also penalize it for “black hat SEO” practices.
Black hat SEO practices are unethical SEO online marketing techniques aimed at tricking Google into ranking a low-quality website.
If your website is laden with toxic links, Google thinks they were acquired through unfair means, i.e. it believes you have either bought these links or have exchanged them (added a link on your site to another site in exchange for a link from their site to your site).
Based on this assumption, it penalizes your website.
If the penalty gets severe, Google can completely remove the website off of its search index and you can end up at a point where none of your SEO efforts, new backlinks, or even fresh website content, would be able to help you get your rank back.
In other words, the presence of toxic links can not only bring your entire online journey to a screeching halt but shatter your existing progress as well.
Therefore, toxic backlinks are counterproductive to your SEO efforts.
While your SEO investments are geared towards helping your website rank, toxic backlinks can destroy the rank you have worked hard to build and get your website penalized and wiped off of Google’s search index, flushing all your SEO efforts down the drain.
Even if you have built your backlink profile following legitimate SEO practices, acquiring toxic backlinks is often inevitable.
People may scrape your web content and link to your website. Or a low authority website might link to you in reference. The scenarios are endless that can lead to obtaining backlinks organically.
When penalizing websites and tanking their ranks, Google does not pay heed to how the toxic links were acquired. It may only notice a lot of bad websites linking to your website and punish you; no questions asked.
Therefore, removing toxic links from your website or link detoxification is critical for your SEO success.
But how would you know when your website needs a link detox?
There are three ways to identify that:
- If your website ranking has dropped and you cannot seem to figure out why.
- If you have been hit with an algorithmic or a manual penalty by Google.
- Through a regular link detoxification campaign.
Wouldn’t it be terrible if you went to sleep one night, happy that your website ranked on the third page of the search results, and then woke up the next morning and to find that you have lost that rank and that your website has been penalized?
Of course, it would be devastating.
So, you have to adopt a regular link detoxification routine, which cleanses your website of all the toxic links before Google can penalize it, push it down in the ranks, or take it off its search index.
To remove toxic links from your website, you need tools dedicated to pulling out your backlink profile. Once you have the list of all your backlinks, you have to manually remove each of them either by contacting the webmaster of the linking website or by reaching out to Google.
Once removed, the toxic backlinks can build right back up. So, link detoxification is not a one-time process. It has to be a part of your SEO campaign.
All in all, link detoxification is time-consuming, tedious, and exhausting. And such repetitive and tiresome tasks are bound to take a back seat to maintaining a web presence and running your business.
But can you afford for your link detoxification to be put off until toxic links drag your SEO down? No.
Therefore, you have to adopt a proactive approach, monitor your backlink profile regularly, root out toxic backlinks, and stay ahead of Google and its penalties.
That’s a lot to do for a busy business owner like you. And if you cannot find the time to put aside all your responsibilities and focus on fishing out toxic links from your website, let experts take care of it for you.
Companies providing SEO internet marketing services offer link detoxification. They sift through your website’s backlink profile to spot the toxic, low-authority links and remove them to ensure that your backlink profile is strong and contributes to your SEO efforts, rather than detracting from them.
Remember, ill-reputed and bad websites linking back to your web presence can prove you “guilty by association” and leave you with an unfindable website as punishment. As a result, you can lose something you have worked so hard to build, i.e., your search engine rank.
Landau Consulting, a New Jersey SEO company, can help you with link detoxification. Their SEO experts know exactly what to look for in a backlink profile to identify toxic links and have them removed. So, you can trust them to adopt a proactive approach for you and keep your website safe from penalties with a healthy backlink profile.
You can reach out to Landau Consulting by visiting LandauConsulting.com or contact them directly at LandauConsulting.com/contact/.
Instead of being reactive and facing penalties, start being proactive and avoid them! Contact Landau Consulting and have your website detoxified today!