POLL: Can backlinks hurt your rankings?

Here we're talking about algorithmic issues, not manual actions.

Googlers have said Penguin 4.0 "managed to devalue spam instead of demoting [the site]." But they still recommend the disavow tool:
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-disavow-penguin-use-22798.html

The disavow tool itself says, "Google works very hard to make sure that actions on third-party sites do not negatively affect a website. In some circumstances, incoming links can affect Google’s opinion of a page or site." And obviously Google thinks you should know about links coming to your site, which is why the Search Console tells you (some of) them.

Put in your $0.02. You can pick as many options as you want. If you find yourself clicking everything then look at the last two options.

I have an experiment site that is currently ranked #3 for a very high competition keyword. It is ranked using 100% exact match footer links that I created and manage myself. It has ranked in the top 3 in Google for over a year and continues to do so. When Google devalues spammy footer links I will know because I'll see it fall in the rankings. Until then I have a canary in the coal mine that says spammy links still rank sites. But keep in mind that my spammy links are private... no one has disavowed them and and they don't appear on xrumer lists and they aren't shared with others. I mention this because known sources of spam can potentially hurt you.

validseo said:

I have an experiment site that is currently ranked #3 for a very high competition keyword. It is ranked using 100% exact match footer links that I created and manage myself. It has ranked in the top 3 in Google for over a year and continues to do so. When Google devalues spammy footer links I will know because I'll see it fall in the rankings. Until then I have a canary in the coal mine that says spammy links still rank sites. But keep in mind that my spammy links are private... no one has disavowed them and and they don't appear on xrumer lists and they aren't shared with others. I mention this because known sources of spam can potentially hurt you.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input. I suspect that Google has tried repeatedly to devalue footer links but, in their tests, have found that it makes results worse. Since before Google has existed, it has been common practice for all sorts of upstanding businesses -- web hosts, web designers, etc -- to mark their work with a footer at the bottom. Reducing the value of that (and especially penalizing for it!) would imperil a lot of legitimate, high-quality websites.

Bump for Google saying: Don't worry about negative SEO! AKA, spam the shit out of your sites!

Do you believe them?

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-negative-seo-busy-forward-23258.html

Negative SEO on old sites doesn't work that well, however on newer sites (less than a year old) its really easy to get fucked by negative SEO.

Banditoseo said:

Bump for Google saying: Don't worry about negative SEO! AKA, spam the shit out of your sites!

Do you believe them?

Click to expand...

No, any group who thinks negative is limited to spammy backlinks doesn't really know what negative SEO is.

validseo said:

No, any group who thinks negative is limited to spammy backlinks doesn't really know what negative SEO is.

Click to expand...

There's a whole world of shitty things to do to a competitor, but this in the context of the thread, which is about links hurting a site. What kind of links (other than spammy) would you build to a competitor to hurt their rankings?