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That’s a scary claim coming from a Google representative.
Does it mean that all of your link-building efforts have been a waste of time?
Well, maybe it does.
It depends on the type of links that you’re building.
There are many factors that make the difference between a good backlink and bad backlink. I’ll explain what those factors are and how to get the good ones.
But first, let’s make sure you understand what a backlink is.
What is a backlink?
A backlink is a link that goes from an external URL to your website. If another website links to a page on your website, you receive a backlink.
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And traditionally, these little beauties are excellent for your SEO.
In fact, for a long time, the top-ranking websites simply had to generate a massive amount of backlinks from other websites, regardless of the quality of those backlinks.
Eventually, though, businesses started link building through spammy websites with black hat SEO strategies.
This naturally led Google to update its algorithm to treat each backlink with the attention it deserves, whether that be positive, negative, or neutral.