When it comes to SEO, backlinks are crucial for ranking a website higher in search results. However, not all backlinks are created equal, and some may actually harm your website’s ranking. That’s why it’s important to regularly perform a backlink audit and identify any problematic links that may be hurting your website’s performance.
In this article, we’ll discuss how to do a backlink audit and which links to target with Google’s disavow tool.
Step 1: Collect All Backlink Data
The first step in a backlink audit is to collect all the data on your website’s backlinks. You can do this by using a backlink checker tool like Ahrefs, Majestic, or SEMrush. Once you have all the data, export it to a CSV file, and make sure to include the link URL, anchor text, and domain authority score for each backlink.
Step 2: Identify Low-Quality Links
The next step is to identify low-quality links that may be harming your website’s ranking. These include links from spammy or low-quality websites, links with keyword-rich anchor text, and links from websites that are not relevant to your industry or niche. To identify these links, sort the backlink data by domain authority score and look for any websites with a score of less than 20. These are likely to be low-quality websites that may be hurting your website’s ranking.
You can also use Google Search Console to identify any links that may be harming your website’s ranking. Go to the Links section under the Search Traffic tab and look for any links that Google has marked as “Unnatural” or “Not Selected.”
Step 3: Analyze Anchor Text Distribution
Anchor text is the text that appears in a hyperlink and is clickable. It’s important to have a varied and natural anchor text distribution to avoid being penalized by Google for over-optimization.
To analyze your anchor text distribution, sort the backlink data by anchor text and look for any keywords that appear too frequently. If you notice any keywords that appear more than 10% of the time, you may need to disavow some of those links.
Step 4: Review Website Relevancy
Google favors backlinks from websites that are relevant to your industry or niche. If you have backlinks from websites that are not relevant, they may be harming your website’s ranking. To review website relevancy, sort the backlink data by website URL and look for any websites that are not relevant to your industry or niche. You can then disavow these links using Google’s disavow tool.
Step 5: Disavow Problematic Links
Once you have identified the problematic links, it’s time to disavow them using Google’s disavow tool. This tool allows you to tell Google to ignore certain links when crawling your website.
To use the disavow tool, create a text file containing a list of the URLs you want to disavow and upload it to Google Search Console. It’s important to be careful when using this tool as it can have a significant impact on your website’s ranking. Only disavow links that are clearly problematic and harmful to your website’s performance.
Step 6: Monitor and Re-Audit Regularly
After disavowing problematic links, it’s important to monitor your website’s performance regularly and re-audit your backlinks periodically to ensure that your website is not being harmed by new backlinks.
Conclusion
Performing a backlink audit and targeting problematic links with Google’s disavow tool is an essential part of any SEO strategy. By regularly reviewing and disavowing low-quality and harmful back
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