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How to search and remove spam links

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by dcarrero
happygeek commented: oh the irony +0
rproffitt commented: This needs ironing. -3

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Practical, step-by-step checklist that complements the suggestions from and for locating and removing spammy backlinks. Begin with an export of the Links report in Google Search Console as the baseline — it’s the authoritative starting point for known incoming links (the report groups links by root domain and supports CSV export for further analysis). ()

Recommended workflow (order matters):

  1. Export Search Console’s Top Linking Sites and Latest Links, then augment that list with at least one external backlink crawl/export so nothing obvious is missed.
  2. Normalize to root domains, deduplicate, and prioritize domains with high link counts.
  3. Triage using simple heuristics: irrelevant language or niche, thin/spammy landing pages, comment/footer placement, lots of exact‑match anchor text, and domains with no real content. Mark each candidate with a removal priority and record evidence (screenshots, discovered dates).
  4. Attempt manual removal first — gather webmaster contacts, send concise removal requests, and record all outreach. If links cannot be removed and there is a manual action or clear large-scale spam, prepare a disavow file and upload it in Search Console. ()

Practical artifacts to keep and reuse (examples):

# 2025-11-30: outreach logged; domains to disavow after failed removals
domain:spam-example.com
http://bad.example.net/path/page.html
Subject: Request to remove link to example.com

Hello,
This site links to [URL on their site] that points to example.com/page. Please remove or add rel="nofollow". Logged: [date]. Thank you.

Google notes that disavow should be used sparingly (only after removal attempts or when a manual action exists), and the disavow file must follow the simple text format above. Keep full logs of outreach and the disavow history; if a manual action was issued, include those logs and the disavow file when submitting the reconsideration request. ()

Member Avatar for Roman_8

I guess it is called Link Detoxing: when you find and remove unnecessary links: Digital Marketing Institute has an awesome article:

You have to use MOZ for this, or Semrush. If you have any question, let me know.

Member Avatar for dcarrero

I'd prefer user Ahrefs to search toxic links.

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