Quick Answer
How Do You Find and Remove Bad Backlinks?
Find bad backlinks by exporting your links from Google Search Console’s Links report, adding a second backlink tool, and scoring each linking domain for relevance, real content, indexation, anchor text, and spam patterns. Then ask site owners to remove the worst links. Use Google’s disavow tool only for what remains, and only when you have a manual action for unnatural links or a large volume of clearly manipulative links you or a past provider built.
- Step 1, find: Search Console Links report plus one third-party index, merged and deduplicated.
- Step 2, judge: look for patterns such as anchor spikes, sitewide links, and link networks, then score each domain.
- Step 3, remove: polite, documented outreach to site owners for the links that matter.
- Step 4, disavow: a carefully reviewed text file for what outreach cannot fix.
- Most random spam: Google usually ignores it, so you rarely need to act on every odd link.
Written and reviewed by the ALT Placements editorial team. We build and manage contextual placements for restricted-industry brands, and cleaning up the link profiles those brands inherit from earlier providers is a regular part of that work, so this guide reflects what we see in real audits. Updated to reflect current search behavior and platform rules.
If your rankings slipped after a past link building campaign, or a manual action notice landed in Search Console, you need to know how to find and remove bad backlinks without making things worse. The hard part is rarely the removal itself. It is telling a harmful link apart from a harmless one, since most strange-looking links do no damage at all and disavowing the wrong ones can cost you rankings.
This guide is built in the order you should work. First, a full step-by-step method for finding bad backlinks, including the Search Console workflow, the patterns that matter, and a simple scoring system. Then outreach to get links removed. Then the disavow tool, with Google’s own cautions about when to use it. Along the way we cover negative SEO, manual actions, and the restricted-industry patterns we see most often.
What Makes a Backlink “Bad”?
A backlink is any link from another website to yours. If the basics are new, our explainer on what backlinks are and how search engines weigh them is a good starting point. A bad backlink is one that exists to manipulate rankings rather than to help readers, or one that comes from a source so low in quality that it signals manipulation.
Google’s link spam policy describes the practices it treats as link spam: buying or selling links that pass ranking credit, excessive link exchanges, automated link creation, low-quality directory and bookmark links, and keyword-rich links hidden in widgets, footers, or templates. Those are the categories that matter. A link from a small or new site is not bad simply because the site is small.
| Type | What it looks like | Usual risk |
|---|---|---|
| Paid links without disclosure | Followed links bought on sites that sell to anyone | High when part of a pattern |
| Link networks and farms | Thin sites on expired domains that all link out commercially | High |
| Sitewide footer or widget links | Thousands of links from one domain with a keyword anchor | Medium to high |
| Low-quality directories | Directories that accept any site with no review | Medium |
| Excessive link exchanges | “Partner” pages that exist only for swapped links | Medium |
| Automated comment and forum spam | Profile and comment links created at scale | Low to medium, often ignored |
| Scraper and auto-generated pages | Copies of your content or keyword gibberish linking to you | Low, usually ignored |
Notice the pattern in the risk column. Links you or a provider built to manipulate rankings carry real risk. Random spam that appeared on its own usually does not, because Google’s systems are designed to ignore it.
Do Bad Backlinks Actually Hurt You?
Sometimes. The honest answer depends on where the links came from. Google says that in most cases it can assess which links to trust without help from site owners. That is why the low-grade spam every site collects, scraper pages, odd foreign directories, and random comment links, rarely causes problems.
The real danger comes from patterns that look deliberate: a cluster of paid links with exact-match anchors, a network of thin sites all pointing at your product pages, or years of directory submissions made by an old agency. Those can lead to two outcomes. The quieter one is that Google simply discounts the links, so any ranking benefit disappears. The louder one is a manual action for unnatural links, which shows up in the Search Console manual actions report and suppresses rankings until you clean up and request a review.
In the audits we run, the profiles that need real cleanup almost always trace back to paid campaigns, not to random spam. That is a useful reality check before you start disavowing.
How to Find Bad Backlinks, Step by Step
This is the process we use to find bad links pointing to a website. It works whether you suspect a single bad backlink or a whole network. Budget a few hours for a small site and longer for a large one, and resist the urge to judge links one by one before you have the full picture.
Step 1: Check for a manual action first
Open Search Console and go to Security and Manual Actions, then Manual actions. If you see “Unnatural links to your site,” your goal is clear: clean up enough of the problem links to file a successful reconsideration request. If there is no manual action, your goal is different. You are protecting future rankings and deciding whether any cleanup is needed at all.
Step 2: Export your links from Search Console
Open the Links report in Search Console. Under External links you will find Top linked pages, Top linking sites, and Top linking text. Use the Export button and choose “Export external links,” then select both the latest links and the sample of links. Google notes the report is a sample rather than a complete list, but it comes straight from Google’s own data, which makes it the most important source for a cleanup.
Verify the right property before you export. A Domain property covers every protocol and subdomain, while a URL-prefix property can miss links to other versions of your site. Our full walkthrough on how to check backlinks in Search Console and other tools covers property setup and each report in detail.
Step 3: Add at least one third-party index
No single tool sees the whole web. Export your backlinks from one commercial backlink index as well, and from Bing Webmaster Tools if you have it set up. Each source finds links the others miss.
Step 4: Merge and group by domain
Combine the exports into one spreadsheet, remove duplicates, and group links by linking domain. Decisions happen at the domain level far more often than the URL level. A domain with 3,000 links to you is one decision, not 3,000.
Step 5: Look for patterns before individual links
Patterns reveal bad backlinks faster than reading every URL. Sort and filter your sheet to surface these:
- Anchor text spikes. In Top linking text, look for commercial phrases that appear far more often than your brand name. A natural profile is led by brand, URL, and generic anchors.
- Link count outliers. Sort domains by number of links. Very high counts from one site usually mean sitewide footer, sidebar, or widget links.
- Clusters of similar sites. Many domains with the same theme, the same layout, or the same unrelated topics, all linking to your money pages, suggest a network.
- Topic mismatch. Links from casino, loan, or adult sites to a wellness brand rarely happen naturally.
- Sudden velocity. A burst of new linking domains in a short window, especially ones you did not build, can signal a spam wave or a negative SEO attempt.
- Odd targets. Links pointing to pages that no longer exist, or to pages a past campaign promoted heavily, often trace back to old paid work.
Step 6: Spot-check the suspicious domains
Now open the flagged domains. Read a few pages. Is there real content written for people? Does the site link out to many unrelated commercial sites? Is the linking page indexed in Google? Does the site rank for anything? Ten minutes of reading tells you more than any third-party “toxic score,” which is a tool’s estimate rather than a Google metric.
Step 7: Score each suspicious domain
Give each flagged domain a simple score so your decisions are consistent and documented. This is the rubric we use in our own audits.
| Signal | Add one point if… |
|---|---|
| Origin | You or a past provider paid for or built the link |
| Content | The site has thin, spun, or auto-generated pages |
| Relevance | The site has no plausible connection to your topic |
| Anchor | The anchor is an exact-match commercial keyword |
| Placement | The link is sitewide, in a widget, or on a “partners” page |
| Outbound pattern | Most posts on the site link out to commercial sites |
| Network signs | The site looks like several others linking to you |
As a rule of thumb, a domain scoring zero or one is fine to leave alone. Two or three goes on a watch list. Four or more, especially when “origin” is one of the points, is a candidate for removal and, if outreach fails, the disavow file. The origin signal carries the most weight for a reason: links you built are the ones Google is most likely to hold against you.
Step 8: Sort into three buckets
Finish the audit with three lists. Remove holds high-scoring domains you want gone. Monitor holds borderline domains to revisit at your next audit. Keep holds everything else, which should be the large majority of most profiles. Save the sheet with your notes, because you will need it for outreach and for any reconsideration request.
Bad Backlink Patterns in Restricted Industries
Cannabis, CBD, vape, and tobacco brands tend to inherit specific problems, because so many providers in these spaces sell cheap network links. When we audit these profiles, the same patterns keep appearing.
- Network placements with a shared look. Groups of “wellness” or “lifestyle” blogs on expired domains, each with a few posts and a commercial link in every one. Our guide to the risks of a hemp PBN explains how these networks are built and spotted.
- Mixed-topic link outlets. Sites that publish CBD, casino, crypto, and loan posts side by side, each with a paid link.
- Exact-match anchor clusters. Dozens of links using the same product keyword, all built in a short period.
- Health claims in host content. Placement articles that make medical claims about your products, which creates a compliance problem on top of the SEO one.
The last point deserves attention even when SEO risk is low. A link surrounded by unsupported health claims is worth removing for regulatory reasons alone.
Negative SEO: Should You Worry?
Negative SEO means someone deliberately pointing spammy links at your site to harm it. It happens, but it is far less effective than many site owners fear, because Google’s systems are built to ignore exactly the kind of crude spam these attacks use.
Signs of an attack include a sudden flood of new linking domains you did not build, often with adult, gambling, or keyword-stuffed anchors. If you see this, document it, keep monitoring, and check for a manual action. In most cases no action is needed. If the volume is very large and you see a real ranking impact or a manual action, adding the attacking domains to your disavow file is a reasonable precaution.
How to Remove Bad Backlinks Through Outreach
Once you know which links to target, start with removal. Outreach is the only way to remove a bad backlink from the web. The disavow tool only asks Google to ignore it. For a manual action, Google also expects to see real cleanup effort, not just a disavow file.
- Find a contact. Use the site’s contact page, an email in the footer or about page, or registration details where they are public.
- Send a short, specific request. Name the page that holds the link, the URL it points to, and what you are asking for: removal, or a change to
rel="nofollow"orrel="sponsored". - Follow up once. If there is no reply after about a week, send one polite reminder. Do not threaten or pester.
- Log everything. Record each domain, contact, date sent, follow-up date, and result. This log supports any reconsideration request.
- Prioritize links you paid for. If you bought a placement, the seller or the site owner is often the fastest route to removal.
A simple message works best. For example: “Hello, a link on your page [page URL] points to our site at [target URL]. We are cleaning up our link profile and would be grateful if you could remove it or mark it nofollow. Thank you for your help.” Short, polite requests get better responses than long explanations.
Expect a mixed result. Many low-quality sites never answer, some ask for a fee to remove links, and some have been abandoned. We do not recommend paying removal fees. Note the request in your log and move the domain to your disavow list instead.
“The cleanest backlink profile is the one you never have to clean. Earn and place links on real, relevant sites from the start, and disavow work becomes the rare exception rather than a recurring chore.”
ALT Placements
How to Disavow Backlinks Safely
Google’s disavow links help page is clear that this is an advanced tool for a narrow situation. Google recommends it when you have a considerable number of spammy, artificial, or low-quality links pointing to your site, and those links have caused or are likely to cause a manual action. In most cases, Google says, it can work out which links to trust on its own.
In plain terms, disavow is a tool for manual-action-level problems. If you have no manual action and the bad links are random spam you did not build, you usually do not need it. If you or a past provider built manipulative links at scale, it can be a sensible step after outreach. Used carelessly, it can hurt you, since disavowing good links tells Google to ignore links that were helping.
Step 1: Build the disavow file
The file is a plain text document with one entry per line. Use domain: to disavow every link from a domain, or a full URL to disavow a single page. Lines that start with a hash symbol are comments, which Google ignores, so use them to record your reasons.
# Paid network links from old campaign, removal requested twice, no reply
domain:example-network-site.com
domain:another-network-site.net
# Single paid post, site owner asked for a fee to remove
https://example-blog.com/best-products-roundup/Google’s formatting rules matter. The file must be a .txt file encoded in UTF-8 or 7-bit ASCII. It can hold up to 100,000 lines, including blank lines and comments, and must stay under 2MB. In most cleanups, domain-level entries are the safer choice, since bad sites often link from several pages you have not found.
Step 2: Review every line
Before uploading, check each entry against your audit sheet. Make sure no strong, relevant, editorial links slipped in. Make sure you did not disavow your own domains, partner sites, or major platforms by mistake. Have a second person review the file if you can.
Step 3: Upload in Search Console
Open the disavow links tool, select the correct property, and upload your file. Each new upload replaces the previous file for that property, so always keep a master file and add to it over time. If you upload a short file with only new entries, the earlier ones stop applying.
Step 4: Wait and monitor
Google notes that it can take a few weeks to process a disavow file, because the affected pages have to be recrawled. Track rankings and organic traffic over the following months rather than days. Avoid making many other major changes at the same time, or you will not know what caused any movement.
Recovering From a Manual Action for Unnatural Links
If Search Console shows a manual action for unnatural links, the cleanup becomes a formal process. Complete the audit, remove as many problem links as you can, disavow what remains, and then submit a reconsideration request from the manual actions report.
A strong request is specific and honest. Explain what happened, such as a past paid link campaign, describe what you removed, attach or link your outreach log, and note what you disavowed. State what you have changed so it does not happen again. Google notes that link-related reconsideration reviews can take longer than other types, so expect a wait. If the request is rejected, the response usually indicates that more cleanup is needed. Go back to your monitor list, dig deeper, and try again.
How Often to Check for Bad Backlinks
Finding bad backlinks is not a one-time job. New links arrive constantly, and most of them are fine. A light, regular check catches the few that matter without turning cleanup into a full-time task.
| Situation | Suggested check | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Small site, little link building | Twice a year | Anchor text and new linking sites |
| Active link building or placements | Quarterly | Placement quality and indexation |
| Large or e-commerce site | Monthly light review | Velocity spikes and sitewide links |
| After a ranking drop | Immediately | Manual actions, recent link changes |
| After a manual action | Full audit right away | Every built or paid link |
Many third-party tools can alert you when new linking domains appear. Those alerts are useful for spotting velocity spikes, as long as you treat their spam scores as hints rather than verdicts.
Bad Backlinks vs. Good Backlinks
When you are deep in a spreadsheet, it helps to remember what a healthy link looks like. This comparison is the quick test we apply.
| Attribute | Bad backlink | Good backlink |
|---|---|---|
| Why it exists | Built or bought to pass ranking credit | Helps the reader of that page |
| Relevance | Unrelated to your topic | Fits the subject of the page |
| Content | Thin, spun, or auto-generated | Original and useful |
| Placement | Footer, sidebar, widget, or link list | In the body of an article |
| Anchor text | Exact-match keyword, repeated | Brand, URL, or natural phrase |
| Site health | No readers, pages missing from the index | Indexed pages and real visitors |
Common Mistakes When Removing Bad Backlinks
Disavowing good links. This is the most damaging error. Disavowing strong, relevant links throws away ranking signals that were helping you. Trusting toxic scores blindly. Third-party spam scores are estimates. Many flagged links are harmless, and some harmful paid links score as clean.
Skipping outreach. For a manual action, Google wants to see real removal effort. Overwriting your disavow file. Each upload replaces the last, so always work from a master file. Disavowing everything at once. Mass disavows without review often remove more value than risk. Expecting instant recovery. Processing and recrawling take weeks, and rankings recover over months.
Limitations of Backlink Cleanup
- No tool sees every link. Search Console shows a sample, and third-party indexes each miss links. Your audit will never be complete.
- Cleanup does not restore lost value. Removing links that were inflating rankings means those rankings may not return to their old level. Recovery depends on building genuine authority afterward.
- Disavow is not guaranteed. Google treats the file as a strong suggestion and needs to recrawl affected pages before it applies.
- Some ranking drops have other causes. Content quality, technical problems, and algorithm updates often look like link problems. Rule those out before blaming your backlinks.
How to Avoid Bad Backlinks in the Future
The cheapest cleanup is the one you never need. Most of the profiles we clean up got into trouble through one decision: buying volume from a provider that could not show its sites. Before you build or buy any link, ask whether you could show it to a skeptical reviewer and explain why it exists.
Focus on relevance first. Our guide to building niche-relevant backlinks explains why a few links from sites in your space outperform many from unrelated sites. Our guide on how to get high-quality backlinks covers the earned side, and if you are weighing paid options, read our honest take on whether you should buy backlinks before committing to anything.
What Makes ALT Placements Different
We spend a meaningful share of our time cleaning up links that other providers built, which shapes how we build our own. ALT Placements runs a private network of niche authority websites for cannabis, CBD, psychedelics, vape, tobacco, cigars, and alternative wellness brands. Every placement sits inside an original, human-written article on a maintained site with real readers.
We read sites before we use them, monitor indexation after placements go live, keep anchors natural, pace campaigns gradually, and keep host content free of medical claims. We cannot promise any paid link is risk free, and we would be wary of anyone who does. What we can promise is that you will be able to see every site and every link, so you never have to wonder what you bought. You can review examples of our published placements before deciding anything.
About ALT Placements
ALT Placements is a private network of niche authority websites that helps businesses in cannabis, psychedelics, vape, tobacco, cigars, and alternative wellness build high-quality, contextual backlinks. All content is human-written, indexed, and placed naturally to drive real traffic and improve search rankings. The network is fully managed, private, and scalable, providing safe, long-term authority growth for brands in restricted industries.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find bad backlinks to my website?
Export your external links from the Search Console Links report and from at least one third-party backlink tool, merge them, and group them by domain. Look for patterns such as exact-match anchor spikes, sitewide links, and clusters of similar thin sites, then spot-check and score the suspicious domains.
How do I find bad links to my website for free?
Google Search Console is free and shows a sample of the sites linking to you, the pages they link to, and the anchor text they use. Bing Webmaster Tools adds a second free view. Together they cover most of what a small site needs for a basic audit.
How do I remove a bad backlink?
Contact the owner of the linking site and ask them to remove the link or mark it nofollow, naming the exact page and target URL. Follow up once, log the result, and add the domain to your disavow file only if outreach fails and the link is part of a real problem.
Should I disavow every spammy link I find?
No. Google says it can usually decide which links to trust without help. Disavow is meant for a considerable number of manipulative links that have caused or are likely to cause a manual action. Random spam you did not build is usually best left alone.
Is disavowing the same as deleting a backlink?
No. Disavowing asks Google to ignore a link when assessing your site. The link still exists on the other website. Only the site owner can delete it.
How long does it take to recover after removing bad backlinks?
Google can take a few weeks to process a disavow file, and link-related reconsideration reviews can take longer than other types. Ranking recovery usually unfolds over months and depends on building genuine authority to replace what was removed.
Can a competitor hurt me with bad backlinks?
It is possible but uncommon, because Google’s systems are designed to ignore crude spam. Monitor for sudden floods of unrelated links, check for manual actions, and consider disavowing the attacking domains only if the volume is large and you see a real impact.
My SEO tool says my site has a high toxic score. Should I start disavowing?
Not because of the score alone. Toxicity scores are estimates invented by third-party tools, not metrics Google uses. Google says most sites will not need the disavow tool because it can assess which links to trust on its own, and it reserves disavowing for sites with a considerable number of spammy or artificial links that have caused, or likely will cause, a manual action. Act if you have a manual action or knowingly built manipulative links, otherwise leave it.
If I upload a new disavow file, does it add to my old one or replace it?
It replaces it. Google’s help page says uploading a new list for a property replaces any existing list, so download your current file first and merge any entries you still want. Use one URL or domain per line, prefix whole domains with domain:, and add notes on lines starting with #. The tool works per URL-prefix property rather than domain properties, and changes can take a few weeks to be processed.
Can disavowing the wrong links actually hurt my rankings?
Yes. Disavowing tells Google not to count those links, so if you include good links you lose the credit they were passing. Google describes the tool as an advanced feature to be used with caution, and blindly disavowing based on a tool’s toxic list is a common way sites remove links that were helping them. Review each domain by hand, and when in doubt, leave it out of the file.
I got an unnatural links manual action. What should I do, and in what order?
Start in the Manual Actions report to see what is affected, then export your links from the Links report, using the top linking sites and latest links exports. Review them, contact site owners to remove the links or qualify them with nofollow or sponsored, and record those attempts. Disavow what you cannot get removed, then file a reconsideration request explaining what you found, what you fixed, and how you will prevent it in future.
Conclusion: Find Carefully, Remove Deliberately, Build Better
Knowing how to find and remove bad backlinks protects your rankings, but the real skill is restraint. Most odd links do no harm. The ones that matter are the ones that were built to manipulate rankings, and those deserve a careful audit, honest outreach, and a reviewed disavow file when outreach fails.
Once your profile is clean, the next step is building links you will never need to remove. If you work in a restricted industry and want contextual placements on real sites you can inspect, ALT Placements can help. When you are ready, compare our plans and pick the pace that fits your brand.
