Bad neighbourhood

Bad neighbourhood refers to dubious websites (spam, malware, link farms, illegal content). Backlinks from them can harm rankings. Check link sources and remove or disavow harmful links via Google Search Console if necessary.

In English, a “bad neighbourhood” is a run-down part of town with dilapidated houses, rubbish in the streets and petty criminals on every corner. A virtual bad neighbourhood on the internet looks similar: dubious sites with downloads full of malware, link exchange schemes and link farms, spam slingers and sites with illegal content such as pirated films. Websites that use black hat SEO belong to it too. And just as no reputable retailer would set up shop in a street full of gambling dens, a reputable website should keep away from such sites and do without links from them – otherwise it may be dragged down with them. Google evaluates links from such environments negatively or ignores them, and they can affect rankings. In SEO, they should therefore be avoided.

Google and bad neighbourhoods: how search engines react to bad websites

Google's algorithms are now very good at recognising and penalising bad-neighbourhood sites. That is good news for everyone doing serious SEO, as they hardly need to fear competition from link farms any more. However, websites connected to such networks can also be affected – for example because they appear in link directories or have deliberately obtained links from them. Sharing a server with such a site, on the other hand, is generally not a problem.

Make sure your own site doesn't appear in a bad neighbourhood, for example through listings in link farms or link exchange schemes. Every potential backlink should be checked in advance.

How do I recognise a bad-neighbourhood website to avoid a bad link?

Many dubious sites can be recognised at first glance: sites with extremely thin content that consist almost entirely of links, sites with disreputable or suggestive ad banners, or portals that massively infringe copyright with streaming offers (e.g. by showing current cinema releases).

Sites that openly advertise paid links are also considered a bad neighbourhood by search engines, because a link should only be set if the linked page is considered valuable and worth recommending – not because the link was bought.

For search engine optimisation, it also helps to look at a domain's metrics in SEO tools such as Ahrefs, Semrush or Sistrix. The publicly visible PageRank no longer exists since 2016. If a domain's visibility has suddenly collapsed, this may indicate a Google penalty. However, not every site with low values is a bad neighbourhood: often they are simply young websites that are still developing. A link from such a site is not harmful in principle. This needs to be checked case by case.

What can I do about bad neighbourhoods myself? How can I devalue a link?

If a backlink turns out to be a bad neighbour, first ask the owner of the linking site to remove it. If they don't respond, the link can be devalued using the disavow tool in Google Search Console. This is only necessary for real problems, however – such as a manual action or deliberately bought links; Google ignores most spam links on its own today. If your own site has already received a manual penalty, you should submit a reconsideration request in Search Console after cleaning up.