Google recently has shed some light on the impact of toxic links. Several SEO tools are alarming users about these, but Google said they should not be a motive concern.
So, what’s the deal behind this? Well, for a link to be of importance to Google, the page that is making the link to your page, has to be indexed for the link to matter. So, toxic links won’t have an impact on your website, because if they come from spammy websites, they won’t be considered by Google.
We also need to consider the nature of Google’s algorithm. Since the update of Penguin to version 4, the way that links are counted has changed considerably, because not all links are counted, even if they are on indexed pages. Google’s algorithm does more than just check if there’s a link or not, they value the quality of this link when making decisions.
This is done with the intention to fight those who purchase links in an effort to rank their pages.
What does Google have to say about toxic links?
Why is all this fuss happening recently? Well, because a user recently raised this concern on Twitter.
What happens when you have a low-quality link? Does that link count if the page of the link is not indexed?
Here is when John Muller stepped to make things clearer. He stated, “If the page is not indexed, we cannot assume the links are actually doing something”. The user that made the question said that was what he thought, but he was intrigued since 3rd Party SEO tools were raising red flags over certain links in the reports.
Then Muller said a couple of things with the intention of fully clarifying the issue.
The first thing he said was, that since Penguin 4.0, even if the page is indexed, links might not be counted, the algorithm does a lot of things to verify the quality of the links.
The second thing he said is really important, there’s no API that allows you to verify if a page is indexed or not. This means that these tools everybody is using might be as precise as their users might think when it comes to this toxic link warning issue. Also, he stated that if anybody would be doing something like this, they would be violating Google’s terms of service. So take those reports with a grain of salt.
