6 Reasons to Check Backlinks and Why links are Important

If you are getting serious with your or your clients’ SEO there are 6 important reasons to check backlinks.

This post shows how to have your link building under control.

If you are tracking the backlinks manually or not monitoring them at all this post is a must-read eye-opener.

Here’s why.

One of the ways to get better rankings and more traffic is by building backlinks to your website. Contrary to what Google wants us to believe, backlinks haven’t lost any of their power and are still a strong indicator of a site’s quality.

Links from reputable and high-authority websites will improve the ranking of your site. However, as you look for ways to gain more traffic through backlinks, you need to be aware of certain things.

Times have changed and the wrong backlinks can also cause a disaster. This is one of the main reasons to check backlinks and also keep track of new ones.

Let’s dive in and discuss the different use-cases of backlinks.

1. Spending money on low-quality links

Just because a company offers SEO services doesn’t mean that they are well versed in SEO. It could be well possible that you are paying for building spam to your own site.

Nobody wants that.

If you’d like to avoid that, the best thing you can do is invest in a useful backlink tracking tool and get daily reports on the links being built to your website. With all the metrics available, it’d be a lot easier to monitor your link-building efforts.

One of the best tools on the market in terms of price and features is Linkody. But don’t take our word for it, Neil Patel also says that.

If you still can’t identify whether the links are good or bad, just visit the domain. Foreign language, terms like weight loss, Garcinia, Cambogia, porn — all of these are red flags. This is one of the mains reasons to check backlinks.

(See also: How to Identify and Remove Bad Backlinks (Using Linkody))

2. Bad links can affect your reputation

Just like everything else in business, backlinks do not have only benefits. There are entire case studies where backlinks can hurt a site’s reputation. You do not have to incur a lot of costs to protect your reputation if you keep track of links.

You need to check and identify the links that are a threat to your reputation so that you can get alerts when your website gets links from other sites. Linkody can be customized to send you reports once you get a backlink (or every day/week/month).

Some of the backlinks you must get rid of to maintain your reputation include those from gambling or adult websites, websites unrelated to your niche, and those using abusive language.

3. Avoid link-based penalties

Backlinks can help you achieve better ranking, but at the same time, they can lead to vulnerability and penalties.

You should note that there are some backlinks that will not help improve your ranking in Google. For instance, Google’s Penguin algorithm checks for websites with spammy link structure leading to penalization.

If you want to prevent the penalties, it is important to check your Spammy links on a regular basis.

Reasons to check backlinks are not that many if you have a tool to monitor your SEO profile. So identify the bad ones and get rid of them. In addition, you should also understand the guidelines provided by Google to ensure they are met.

4. Your website could get de-indexed

You definitely wouldn’t want to wake up to this message.

Your company may be participating in link schemes, buying links, or building links that are low-quality. All of these sketchy techniques can land you a penalty or get your site de-indexed.

In March 2012 Google de-indexed lots of sites. Even some with Page Rank 7 and Domain Authority 70 were thrown out. If you want to avoid a similar fate, you better be checking where your backlinks are coming from.

5. Protect your website from negative SEO

In the modern world, everything is vulnerable, including your website.

In most cases, your competitors will look at sloppy ways to beat you in terms of ranking in the major search engines. They can do this by spamming your site. By checking your backlinks, you will respond before Google takes action.

Disavow all links that were created with the intention of your website getting penalized. With Linkody, you will be receving alerts whenever your website gets new links, so that you can check and determine if they are of any value.

6. Get notified of reviews and complaints

By checking your new backlinks, you will be able to determine when there is a complaint or a review about your website.

Regardless of whether the review is negative or positive, it is important to know that it exists in order to understand the value these links are bringing.

Got the reasons to check backlinks?

All 6 reasons to check backlinks are crucial if you want to succeed in internet marketing.

However, you must make it a norm to check backlinks to ensure that they do not hurt your online reputation, marketing efforts & link building.

The main goal is to understand the kind of links that are helpful for your site and get rid of all those that aren’t.

When you master this, it’s time to check competitor’s backlinks and learn how to take them.