Backlinks are the backbone of SEO, right? Yes, they are.

An SEO campaign can hardly deliver tangible results without a well-planned link-building strategy. But, a link building strategy can easily backfire if it is done the wrong way.

Listed below are the 5 occasions when backlinks may turn harmful to your SEO campaign:

Case 1: When the Content Quality is No Longer There

When optimizing a site, creating, updating, and promoting content is an ongoing process. At times, however, website owners fail to produce or publish fresh, unique content on time. Obviously, the content quality will drop significantly when such mistakes are repeated.

We recommend that you should not place any value on backlinks from websites whose content is going down the tubes. If you already have such websites linking to your web pages, consider requesting webmasters to remove those backlinks or just use the Google Disavow Tool.

Case 2: Ownership of the Reciprocating Site Has Changed

Spammers are always curious to snatch popular domains and URLs that are about to expire but appear to have good marketing value.  Basically, they are after the previously built authority of these properties.

The new owner may just start selling do-follow links to interested parties, thereby diluting the value of existing backlinks on the site. Such links are very harmful for SEO.

 Case 3: The Content on a Page having a Backlink to Your Website Goes Missing

Some website owners may choose to alter content on their website; if its relevance to your website’s niche is reduced to zero, it is about time you consider this backlink as something you should be getting rid of.

Case 4: The Linked Site Is Loaded With Ads

Is the website having links to your site loaded with pop-up and banner ads everywhere? If so, your SEO campaign is at risk because search engine algorithms treat excessive advertisements as spam. Unfortunately, websites having backlinks from pages with excessive ads are subject to the same penalty as the website owner.

Case 5: It is No Longer Relevant

Keeping links in place for a long time is fine, but that’s not enough. Lasting success lies in keeping them relevant for as long as you possibly can.

If, for instance, your handyman service website had a good backlink from a home-improvement blog previously that has now started to curate poor quality content of all kinds or diluted its authority, the backlink is no longer ‘good’ for your website’s SEO.