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Bad Neighborhoods are dubious websites (spam, malware, link farms, illegal content). Backlinks from there can damage rankings. Check link sources and remove/disavow harmful links.

A "bad neighborhood" in English refers to a poor neighborhood with rundown shanties, trash on the streets, and petty criminals on every corner. A virtual bad neighborhood on the internet looks quite similar: dubious sites offering downloads full of malware and trojans, link exchange systems and purchased backlinks, spam factories, and sites with illegal content offered for download, such as movies or pornographic images and other unlawful web offers. A website that uses Black Hat SEO is also a bad neighborhood. Just as no reputable retailer would settle in a street full of gambling dens, drug dealers, and brothels, a reputable website should also stay away from bad neighborhood sites and avoid links from there—otherwise, they risk being dragged into the mire. Links from such websites are indeed interpreted negatively by search engines like Google and can thus affect rankings. Therefore, it should be avoided in SEO.

Google and the Bad Neighborhood: How Search Engines React to a Bad Website

Google's algorithms are now very good at recognizing a bad neighborhood website and penalizing poor sites that disregard all the rules. This is initially positive for everyone engaging in serious SEO, as they no longer have to fear competition from link farms and similar rubbish. However, Google also penalizes other websites located in the same bad neighborhood, for instance, those appearing in the link directories or hosted on the same servers.

Webmasters should always ensure that their own site does not appear in a bad neighborhood, for example by being listed on link farms and link exchange systems. Every potential backlink from a website to your own site should therefore be checked before the link exchange is carried out.

How do I recognize a bad neighborhood website to avoid a bad link?

Many dubious sites can be recognized at first glance: sites with extremely sparse content, for example, that consist almost entirely of links, sites featuring semi-pornographic advertising banners, or portals that commit massive copyright violations with streaming offers (e.g., by showing current movies).

Even sites that aggressively advertise purchasable links are considered a bad neighborhood by search engines, because a link should only be set if the linked site is deemed valuable and recommendable – not because the link was bought.

Helpful for search engine optimization is also a look at the PageRank of the page to estimate the link value: If a domain has been downgraded from a formerly high PageRank to zero, this website has fallen out of favor with Google. However, not all zero PageRank pages on the web are a bad neighborhood: Often, they are very new fresh pages that have not yet been able to achieve a higher PageRank and where SEO still needs to develop. In this case, a link from such a website should not fundamentally be considered objectionable by search engines. This must be examined on a case-by-case basis.

What can I do myself against the bad neighborhood? How can a link be devalued?

If a previously published backlink from a site turns out to be a bad neighbor, the link should be removed directly from your own site, and the operator of the other website should be asked to remove the link as well. If they do not respond to the request, the backlink can be disavowed using the Google Webmaster Tools, which allows for a link check. If your own site has already been downgraded by Google, a "Reconsideration Request" should be submitted to the search engine.