Can you have a damaging back link?

1. 88

   CMHypnoposted 5 years ago

   The general message seems to be that organic back links are great and help your hubs to rank, but can any of these links actually be damaging?  When checking my links on the Google Webmaster Tool I saw that one of my hubs was being linked to by a .xxx site.  Now we have no control over which sites choose to link to us, but do you think that Google would penalise a hub that had adult sites linking to it?
   
   And if these type of links are damaging, is there anything a hubber can do about it?

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2. 88

   CMHypnoposted 5 years ago

   Hello, anyone out there?

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3. 87

   WryLiltposted 5 years ago

   I know links from traffic exchanges can be damaging to your Adsense account.
   
   As for the others, it's always been a topic of discussion. There was a big company a year or two back whose SEO company did a lot of small keyword backlinks for every retail topic imaginable and they were ranking number one for the randomest things. Google gave them a manual slap and sent them to page 50.
   
   Overall the argument I've seen is that if backlinks could hurt someone, then competitors would simply send 'bad backlinks' to get rid of everyone they were competing with.

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4. 88

   CMHypnoposted 5 years ago

   Thanks WryLilt   This .xxx site has linked to my hub, so I suppose there is nothing much I can do about, apart from deleting the hub.  Google know that there is nothing much you can do about it, but I wonder if they will still dislike it?

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5. 60

   Dame Scribeposted 5 years ago

   The 'G' team is on 'G'+ and they share a lot of information there is an article that they are paying attention to links. Even penalized themselves just not sure if, when penalizing anybody, it's the same length of time

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6. 88

   CMHypnoposted 5 years ago

   Thanks Dame Scribe - trouble is that short of emailing this .xxx site and asking them to unlink my hub there is really not a lot I can do.  I think that you need a PhD to be able to traverse the big G rules these days, and as you say they even mess themselves up!

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