In this episode, Marie discusses the idea of “toxic links” and whether they have the ability to hurt your site’s organic traffic. Discussed in this episode: What are toxic links? Semrush’s toxic links report: “Your risk of penalty is increasing” Google’s documentation on link schemes Unnatural links created by using automated tools to do spam comments, create forum profiles, etc. Link auditing in the early days of the Penguin algorithm Why I created a disavow blacklist Why we closed down MHC’s disavow blacklist tool Who needs to disavow in 2022? Also discussed as SEO news this week: Algorithmic turbulence Feb 24, but not likely a Google update “Things to Know” powered by MUM, seen live in the search results Links referenced in this episode: https://www.mariehaynes.com/disavow-blacklist-tool/ https://searchengineland.com/googles-project-owl-attack-fake-news-273700 https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guidelines/link-schemes https://www.mariehaynes.com/disavow-advice-2021/ Past episodes https://Mariehaynes.com/seo-newsletter/seo-podcast Contact MHC https://Mariehaynes.com/contact Book on Unnatural Links and Manual Action Removal https://Mariehaynes.com/product/unnatural-links-book Quality Raters Book https://Mariehaynes.com/product/quality-raters-guidelines Submit a question for the next Q&A https://Mariehaynes.com/qa-with-mhc Subscribe to the newsletter: https://Mariehaynes.com/newsletter