John Mueller caused a stir on Twitter by saying the concept of toxic links was made up. Google has long suggested that bad links don’t hurt your site, they simply don’t help. Many SEO experts say this doesn’t match their experience. Possibly toxic links have an indirect negative effect. Moz’s Spam Score quantifies the common characteristics among sites penalized by Google. It’s not a perfect measure, and not something you want to optimize. Nonetheless, it provides a clue as to which links might be less valuable than they appear.
Key Takeaways:
- Google suggests that toxic links won’t negatively impact a site, they just won’t help it.
- Moz’s Spam Score metric quantifies common characteristics among sites that have been penalized by Google.
- However, trying to optimize Spam Score may cause you to invest in things that have correlation but not causation.
“Nonetheless, Spam Score is a better clue than SEOs would have access to otherwise, as to which links might be less valuable than they initially appear. That is why we offer it, and will continue to do so.”
