Will removing old (3 years+), low quality inbound links potentially improve my rankings?

[simoncmason]

I have a client site with thousands of old very low quality links purchased from directories etc over several years - I am certain these are doing nothing for the current rankings and I advised them to stop buying these links 18 months ago when I first started working with them, but do you think pro-actively getting old poor quality backlinks removed will potentially improve the site's rankings?

[moldybacon]

Don't do it. Very bad idea.

Consern your efforts with buildingt stronger links.

[Dan-Petrovic]

If you have better links to subsidise with the same money - go ahead. Otherwise leave them as they are. Link is a link, however if it looks reallys pammy than it's worth going through trouble of removal. If this was my site I would try to avoid a massive link drop and remove gradually.

[NickPateman81]

Hi Simon,

Assuming your client's website has been around for a couple of years or more, these links will have no negative impact. Low quality links won't ever get an aged site penalised - going around and removing them would be hugely time consuming and you're better off focusing on building better quality links instead.

Good luck!

[simoncmason]

Fair enough - the last thing I need is another job on the list

[StalkerB]

No.

The sites in question would have to be in very bad standing to penalise sites they linked too and as these are just directories (or similar) they would have to actually be a recognised link farm to do this.

At worst they're going to be passing no value but can still count as a unique domain link for things like domain authority etc.

I would leave them unless you know they're actually harming you (and if they require monthly payment or similar then you could always just let them die off).

EDIT: On the other hand if you were going to be engaging in 'aggressive' link building and having these would push you over the edge (not that anyone knows where that is) in terms of having a really spammy backlink profile, then maybe.

If you're doing quality link building and getting more natural links, then I'd still leave them

[wissamdandan]

True, some links that you can't control/communicate to get removed (scrapers) but at least you try

[simoncmason]

Interesting points. We are currently working on building quality links both with better content on the blog and site, also by pro-actively engaging with bloggers in the client's niche.

Some of the links do look very spammy as the client previously engaged what I'd politely call a questionable SEO firm who just bought a lot of links - this is going back a few years when it probably didn't cause the same penalty it would today, but I suspect some of these links are still hurting them a bit.

I'd love to know if anyone has actually set about removing low quality links as a tactic and seen an improvement in ranking as a result.

[HiveDigitalInc]

If the links have keyword rich anchor text, I would ditch them. In general you should only acquire directory links with brand as the anchor text in your link.

[TellThemEverything]

This is what I'm thinking too, FWIW.  Of course, it's hard to remove links from real spammy pages since they are mostly auto-generated

[TellThemEverything]

Have you done this yourself and are talking from direct experience or is this just a "feeling"?  Not bashing you, just curious because some answers like this are too easy to write what everyone assumes rather than real experiences. I'm very interested in this question too - I have a similar situation.

[saibose]

You should think more on lines of content creation and better interlinking between your pages and all. Social media is a big power today.

[wissamdandan]

I am against this to be honest.

• True these links coming from low quality sites (and they are low quality) but the links have "Age"
• I only go back and remove links, if they look too spammy, or page looks like a link farm.

I would certainely see drop in rankings if these old Links has been removed and not being replaced with good one's

[simoncmason]

Hi Saibose,

Thanks for the quick reply, I'll add it to the job list as a fairly low priority.

Simon

[saibose]

You would be better off removing these low quality backlinks, but that would not reflect in rankings right away. Maybe over a period of time with targeted content and engaging people with social media and obtaining good contextual links would help in repairing your link profile.