The Escape Guide

Google Penalties
for Inbound
Unnatural Links
Table of contents
What is a Google Link Penalty? 3

Types of Unnatural Inbound Link Penalty Cases

& Tips for Avoiding & Lifting Them 4

Sponsored & Paid Links In Articles & Blog Posts 5

Guest Posting & Press Releases 7
Private Blog Networks (PBN) & Link Networks 8
User-Generated Spam 9
Web Directories & Link Listings 10
Pure Spam 11
Direct Ads & Affiliate Links 12
Business Directories & Bookmarking Sites 13
Links in Widgets 14
Hidden Links 15
Sitewide Links 16
Minor Cases 17

How to Monitor Backlinks to Avoid a Google Penalty 18

Basic Steps for Recovery from a Google Penalty for

Unnatural Inbound Links 19

Collect The Information 19

Conduct An In-Depth Analysis Of Your Backlinks 19
Contact Those Responsible 20
Disavow Carefully! 20

Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links

What is a Google Link Penalty?
A penalty from the Google Spam
Team is a manual restrictive
measure for violating Google’s
webmaster guidelines; it results
in websites losing positions
in SERP results. As Google
states, they fight spam through
a combination of algorithms
and manual reviews to ensure
that sites don’t rise in search
results through deceptive
or manipulative behavior,
especially because those sites
could harm or mislead users.
Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links
Usually, getting a manual penalty
from Google comes as a result
of utilizing black-hat SEO tactics
and not making sure a website’s
backlink profile is natural and
adheres to Google’s guidelines.
Among the most common
triggers for a Google link penalty
are unnatural outbound and
inbound links. Unnatural links
are also known as “harmful”,
“spammy”, or, as we call them
at SEMrush, “toxic”. Both inbound
and outbound links can get your
website penalized. Inbound links
are the links at external domains
pointing to your website or its
specific pages. These links
constitute your backlink profile,
and you should always keep
an eye on it.
3 / 21
Types of Unnatural Inbound Link
Penalty Cases & Tips for Avoiding
& Lifting Them
Top 10 Cases of Penalization

Sponsored or paid link 53%

Guest posts
& press releases 45%

PBNs & link networks 27%

User-generated spam 16%

Web directories 16%

Pure spam 14%

Direct ads
& affiliate links
Business directories
& bookmarking sites
Links in widgets
Hidden links
Sitewide Links
10% The research is based
on a study of 830+
backlink profiles.
10%
Case frequency
represents the net share
7% of each penalty case
among all the profiles
covered: one backlink
4% profile could get a penalty
for multiple violations
of Google Webmaster
4% Guidelines.

Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links 4 / 21

Penalty Type 1 Case frequency

Sponsored & Paid Links

In Articles & Blog Posts 53%
In many cases, the web pages that triggered a penalty had sponsor
signals in the form of specific phrases paired with a keyword-rich
dofollow link in the anchor text.

Some Common Phrases

The article was sponsored by.
This text doesn’t have
Information was provided by. to be next to the link.

Advertorial content.
Advertorial post on behalf, etc.

Buying or Selling Links

If you are into the buying or selling links that are supposed to get link
juice flow, be ready to get penalized by Google. Such actions include:

Exchanging money for links (or posts that contain links).

Exchanging goods or services for links.
Sending someone a “free” item in exchange for an article
about it and posting a link to it.

continued on next page...

Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links 5 / 21

Tips to Avoid a Penalty
Don’t promote products or services directly without using the
nofollow or sponsored attributes (such as rel=”sponsored”).
Request a “rel=sponsored” attribute when placing a link to your
offering on another site.
Avoid excessive usage of keyword-rich anchors in the text
(if used, try to diversify them).

Tips to Get a Penalty Removed

Set/Request rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored” attributes.
Disavow if you have tried contacting a website’s administrator,
but it has been impossible to find them or to get them to add
the nofollow or sponsored attribute. Be careful using the
disavow option because it is not always needed. Please read
and follow Google’s disavow guidelines before using it.
As Google says, “If used incorrectly, this feature can potentially
harm your site’s performance in Google’s search results.”

Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links 6 / 21

Penalty Type 2 Case frequency

Guest Posting
& Press Releases 45%
Reasons For Penalization Some cases can lack
commercial intent
Extensive use of link-building keywords in the
tactics with keyword-rich text’s description
anchor texts. or signature.

Tips to Avoid a Penalty

Revisit your current link building strategy. Posting hundreds
of press releases with links leading to your website is not
a cutting-edge SEO strategy.
Avoid excessive use of money anchors in the text (if used,
try to diversify the keywords used, so you don’t have hundreds
of the same anchor text/backlink).
Make use of rel=”nofollow” in an author’s signature
or text description.
Avoid direct promotion of your product or service.

Tips to Get a Penalty Removed

Set rel=”nofollow”, rel=”sponsored” attributes.
Disavow or remove if nofollow or sponsored attribute didn’t work.

Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links 7 / 21

Penalty Type 3 Case frequency

Private Blog Networks

(PBN) & Link Networks 27%
Reason For Penalization
Creation of links (keyword-rich, mostly) with the intent
to influence ranking.

How To Detect a Spammy PBN

Posts created with free blog services and standard templates.
Number of keyword lists used for the anchors is very limited.
URLs containing keywords.
A typical PBN domain has few inbound links and shows poor
performance in search results.
A website/resource/domain has been launched just recently
or has changed ownership and has low-quality content.
The PBN has poor traffic performance.
You don’t get much traffic from the PBN.
The PBN has a low Authority Score.
The PBN’s domain lacks Privacy Policy and Contacts.

The best way to avoid a Google penalty, in this case, is to remove

or disavow the link.

Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links 8 / 21

Penalty Type 4 Case frequency

User-Generated Spam
16%
These kinds of toxic links include
Spammy links from forum posts.
Links in profiles and signatures.
Spammy followed links in comment sections.

Reasons For Penalization

Obvious spam, posted using spam-posting apps.
Disguised links, such as goods promotion and contact links.

Tip to Get a Penalty Removed

Disavowing is the best option to keep your backlink profile clean.

Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links 9 / 21

Penalty Type 5 Case frequency

Web Directories
& Link Listings 16%
Dozens of toxic backlinks distributed across web directories and
listings. Usually, 3-5 links are not enough for a penalty, but this does
not mean you don’t need to audit such links frequently.

Reasons For Penalization

Backlinks distributed across low-quality web directories
and listings.

Tips to Avoid a Penalty

Audit backlinks from web directories and link listings frequently.
Monitor how much traffic these directories and listings drive
to your website and their overall performance in SERPs.
If a link generates valuable referral traffic, ask the webmaster
of the site where the link is situated to set rel=”nofollow”
or rel=”sponsored” attributes.
Avoid using this link building strategy widely and only add links
to high-quality websites.

Tips to Get a Penalty Removed

Remove these links.
Disavow any links you can’t remove.

Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links 10 / 21

Penalty Type 6 Case frequency

Pure Spam
14%
Reasons For Penalization
Google has zero tolerance for pure spam: websites that use
a pure spam links strategy usually get permanently deindexed.

Pure Spam Cases

Keyword stuffing.
Sneaky redirects.
Links irrelevant to the content on / topic of the page, etc.

Tip to Avoid a penalty

Never consider a pure spam SEO strategy in the first place.

Tips to Get a Penalty Removed

Remove the link.
Disavow the link.

Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links 11 / 21

Penalty Type 7 Case frequency

Direct Ads &

Affiliate Links 10%
Reasons For Penalization
“Buy now”, “Sign up now” CTAs with links and discount offers
(including those in the form of a coupon banner) without
rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored”. If you are promoting other
brands’ products or services, Google asks that you use the
rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored” attribute (adding an affiliate’s
commission disclosure is highly advised).

Tips to Avoid a Penalty

Set rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored” attribute.

Tip to Get a Penalty Removed

Disavow or remove if nofollow or sponsored attribute didn’t work.

Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links 12 / 21

Penalty Type 8 Case frequency

Business Directories
& Bookmarking Sites 10%
Reasons For Penalization
Links in low-quality business directories and bookmarking sites.

Tips to Avoid a Penalty

If you have listed your website on directories that fall under
this category, then remove these links (or disavow them if you
can’t remove them).

Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links 13 / 21

Penalty Type 9 Case frequency

Links in Widgets
7%
Reasons For Penalization
Widgets on third party sites with embedded code pointing
to your website without a rel=”nofollow” attribute. The only
exceptions to this rule are links that direct to a topic-related
page on your website (for example, rating widgets leading
to a specific company- or user-related section on your website).

Tips to Avoid a Penalty

Set rel=”nofollow”.
Remove or disavow.

Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links 14 / 21

Penalty Type 10 Case frequency

Hidden Links
4%
Reasons For Penalization
Use of hidden links strategy.
Most penalized cases have a link disguised as text.

Tips to Avoid a Penalty

Make links visible and set rel=”nofollow” attribute.
Request that the link is removed.
Disavow the link if your request has not been successful.

Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links 15 / 21

Penalty Type 11 Case frequency

Sitewide Links
4%
Reasons For Penalization
Links located in blogroll, footer or sidebar after the phrases like
“Powered by”, “Designed by”, especially if there are keywords.

Tips to Avoid a Penalty

Set rel=”nofollow” attribute.
In some cases replacing anchor text works.
Remove the link.
Disavow the link.

Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links 16 / 21

Cases with less than 1% representation Case frequency

Minor Cases
<1%
Old job posting. Usually, Google files warnings to webmasters
that own job sites, but you also bear responsibility for not
removing an outdated job ad, resulting in a penalty.
Product review links.
Links in podcasts. A link to the company (branded, naked
links), money anchor links, description with keyword stuffing.
Scholarship links. These links are aimed at getting traffic from
.edu resources. If your offer is not related to the topic, you will
be penalized.
Hotlinking. A direct link to another website’s content (images,
videos, documents, audio files, etc.), resulting in bandwidth
theft of the website where the content is hosted and copyright
infringement.
Adult content links.
Links in automatically generated content.
Reciprocal links.
Infographics. If there is excessive usage of infographics that
bring low value to users and were created for the purpose
of gaining links in mass, it could be considered manipulative
by Google.

Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links 17 / 21

How to Monitor Backlinks
to Avoid a Google Penalty

Using the SEMrush Backlink Audit tool, occasionally check bad links
by doing the following:

Conduct a detailed backlink audit of your profile on a regular

basis (at least once a month).
Monitor your backlink profile for an excessive amount
of suspicious inbound links types.
Always evaluate anchor texts and revisit them; avoid excessive
use of repeated anchors. If you are using money anchors, vary
them with SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool. Use similar or related
keywords.
If in doubt, use the rel=”nofollow” attribute.
Get rid of pure spam — remove or disavow such links.

Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links 18 / 21

Basic Steps for Recovery
from a Google Penalty for
Unnatural Inbound Links
Collect The Information
How exactly the penalty affected you: was it sitewide, or did
it hit only a property, specific page, or a section of the site?
Examples of unnatural URLs from Google.
Your website’s rankings, traffic, keywords, and pages with
obvious ranking drops.
Links’ velocity of your website. Pay attention to irregular
spikes in data.
Backlinks data from different sources, data from Google
Search Console is a must (you can easily upload the data
to Backlink Audit Tool).

Conduct An In-Depth Analysis Of Your Backlinks

Carefully analyze all your inbound backlinks and classify them
accordingly:

Good
Paid
Spammy continued on next page...

Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links 19 / 21

Contact Those Responsible

Ask them to remove a toxic link pointing to your website. If you think
a link is valuable, contact the webmaster and ask him to change
the link attribute to rel=”nofollow”. Use Remove section of Backlink
Audit: it automatically collects possible contacts related to the
particular website.

Disavow Carefully!

Prepare a .txt disavow file (you can do so using the SEMrush

Backlink Audit) and submit the file to Google.
Send a Reconsideration Request.
Submit your reconsideration request to Google with a detailed
description of what steps were taken and what was cleaned up.

Google Penalties for Inbound Unnatural Links 20 / 21

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