Member Avatar for Gruber

Hey everyone,
sorry to bring this topic up again, but the current weekly newsletter from Developer Shed confused me here: In the article about what to avoid when building links, the authors list several good points, but some points conflict with what we discussed last week about links hurting your rankings or not.
Staying away from link farms and not looking for links from unrelated sites is good advice and can be interpreted along the line of 'It won't help you enough, so don't waste your time on it'.
But the authors say other things that seem to conflict with the strong statement 'Backlinks can never hurt you!!!' which I was told last week:
"You don’t really want to be part of a directory whose only criteria for admitting you is having a live link."
"If one approaches you and asks to link to you, just say no."
"If you own an ordinary e-commerce site, you really don’t want to have a link on a site that is oriented to sex or gambling."
So, are the authors of the Developer Shed newsletter giving out false advice? What they say here sounds to me like: "You don't want those links!" instead of "Don't invest time into getting those links".

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Short answer: the newsletter and last week’s statement can both be right — but they need context. ’s quotes describe low-value or clearly manipulative linking (directory-for-a-link, mass link exchanges, links from irrelevant adult/gambling sites). Those are the kinds of links that can contribute to an “unnatural” link profile and, in the worst case, trigger algorithmic or manual action. At the same time, a single random inbound link from a low-quality site usually won’t by itself knock a site out of the index.

Clarification of the mechanics: search engines judge the overall link profile, not only individual links. Patterns that look like deliberate manipulation — buying links, participating in link networks, excessive reciprocal sitewide links, or large numbers of thin-directory links — are what get flagged. Outbound links to low-quality sites only become a serious problem when they form part of a detectable scheme (for example, mutual link exchange at scale). Editorial, relevant links from reputable sites are safe and valuable.

Practical steps you can apply now: audit your links with Search Console or a third-party tool, check the Manual Actions report, and group suspicious links. Always try to get them removed by contacting webmasters first. If removal isn’t possible and you have a manual action or a large volume of clearly spammy inbound links, use the disavow process (document what you did first). For paid or sponsored links, mark them appropriately and avoid passing PageRank from bought links. Follow the simple rule suggested: pursue quality, relevant links and don’t waste time on noisy, unrelated sources.

Final note: don’t reflexively delete every unsolicited link or reject all outreach. Evaluate each opportunity for editorial value and relevance. The newsletter was advising caution about low-value and manipulative links — not that every single backlink automatically damages your site.

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Member Avatar for stymiee

Backlinks will never hurt. That is very much true. Otherwise it would be too easy to take out the competition. You get into trouble with links when you are part of a link farm. By participating (i.e. lining to them in exchange for getting links back) you are admitting to be a part of it and then the hammer drops.

Rule of thumb: seek quality links from related sites and don't worry about the other links. Also, don't link to sites that aren't related or don't offer any value to your users.

Member Avatar for seo_expert

"Back-links can never hurt" only when you are linking to related and Theme based sites.

Member Avatar for stymiee

"Back-links can never hurt" only when you are linking to related and Theme based sites.

In that case it is not the backlink that hurts but it is the outgoing link as that is what flags your site as being part of a link farm or other scheme. Otherwise any backlink from such sites can't affect you.

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