Examples of Toxic Links defined by Google
Public Release of Google Toxic Link Examples
Previously only available to LRT clients we now publish examples of actual spam link examples reported by Google. All of these links can be considered toxic links as they were blocking lifting of a Google Penalty.
This article illustrates some of the most common spam link types given as example by the Google Spam team in reconsideration requests (conversations about manual actions). We also reference the Google guidelines where applicable and add our own interpretations and opinions.
We hope readers will find this useful for their training and penalty recovery work with Link Detox.
If you have more Google spam examples, please let us know.
Source of these Google Spam Link examples listed
When a website is hit by a Google with a manual action, the webmaster can file a reconsideration request.
If the reconsideration request is rejected, Google often gives 1 to 3 example spam links that are supposed to help the webmaster understand which links still violate their quality guidelines.
The provided list is by no means complete, but often highlights different link spam tactics.
The same is true for the examples listed in this article.
All the given examples were reported directly by Google inside a Google Search Console account that LinkResearchTools had access to.
Link Spam tactics explained
For each example we try to classify the link with a specific link spam tactic category.
Some of these categories relate directly to spam rules published for Link Detox, while others do not.
For every example, we highlight where it violates the Google guidelines.
The Toxic Link Examples
Press release Online Bingo – over-optimized & NoFollow
| Link spam tactic | Press Releases with over-optimized anchor text |
|---|---|
| Status at creation | Follow |
| Status, when Google called it SPAM | NoFollow |
| Interpretation | This another example of a press release link with over-optimized anchor text mentioned as spam example, regardless of the switch to NoFollow around July 2013 when Google “outlawed” press release spam. |
| Google guidelines |  https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en |
Paid link for gay dating site on old association site
| Link spam tactic | Paid links with optimized anchor text, on a repurposed expired domains | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Status at creation | Follow | ||
| Status, when Google called it SPAM | Follow | ||
| Interpretation | Paid links like these are all over the Web. The dating link is highly unrelated and thus probably motivated by a payment only. That website has probably long been abandoned and is probably not operated by the original owners. Sneaky SEOs snatched this “expired domain” like 1000s others and re-used them for selling links. | ||
| Google guidelines |  https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en |
Paid links on “nautical research site” on expired domain
| Link spam tactic | Paid links with optimized anchor text | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Status at creation | Follow | ||
| Status, when Google called it SPAM | Follow | ||
| Interpretation | Sidebar text ads like these have been around since about 2000. The links are marked as “tips”, but scream spam to the trained eye. Notice how some are bold and others not. The lack of proper layout is another indicator that makes them look like thousands other similar paid link sidebars. Also this website looks like an abandoned and expired domain that was re-purposed for selling links. | ||
| Google guidelines | https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en |