Types of Backlinks Violating Google’s Guidelines
1. Link exchanges
Back in 2007, this was a very common way to build backlinks. Webmasters started doing hundreds of link exchanges, and eventually, Google had to take action against this method.
2. Participating in blog networks
Starting 2012, Google has started to penalize numerous blog networks and websites that have such backlinks
3. Widget backlinks
Google recommends including rel= “nofollow” to widgets. Very important websites, such as Godaddy, have been penalized for utilizing widgets as a link building method.
4. Advertorials
If you are doing sponsored articles or if you accept such posts on your website, which include a dofollow backlink, Google will consider that you are violating their guidelines. Matt recommends to nofollow all the advertorial backlinks.
5. Paid links that pass PageRank
Whether we are talking about text links or image links, Google doesn’t want you to pass PageRank with the links you paid for. They consider this link as unnatural, and recommend you to add a rel nofollow to all of your sponsored backlinks.
6. Article directories
Websites such as EzineArticles and ArticleBase don’t provide real value to users, and, therefore, Google devalued them. Their only purpose is to generate endless articles on the same topic, with a dofollow link at the bottom of the content.
7. Hacking and hiding links in CSS and Javascript
The worst thing you can do is to hack other websites to leave your backlink. Search engine robots have evolved, and they are now able to understand what backlinks they are crawling.
8. Site-wide and footer backlinks
Backlinks from blog sidebars and footers will be placed on every page of your website. Therefore, it can be the case that some of the links will not be relevant, and may look like a spammy way to build backlinks.
9. Backlinks from foreign language websites
If you have a website written in English and you have hundreds of backlinks coming from Russian or Indian websites, this will raise a flag to Google that something suspicious is going on with your website.
10. Low quality guest posting
There has been a long debate about guest blogging, and Matt Cutts has done numerous videos about this. Like any link building method, eventually it gets abused, and Google has to take action against it.
11. Low quality web directories
Directories are another old technique that used to work a while ago, but not today
12 Backlinks from websites with duplicate and spinned content
Google encourage publishers to write unique and useful content, that provides real value to users. On the other side, they devalues websites with low quality and duplicate content. Therefore, backlinks coming from websites with spinned or copied articles, will burry your rankings.