Google’s Gary Illyes recently provided valuable insights into how Google prevents low-quality spam links from impacting regular websites, addressing concerns about negative SEO.

Although Illyes shared this information during a May interview, it has only now gained wider attention.

Understanding Negative SEO

Negative SEO involves bombarding a competitor with low-quality links in hopes that Google will interpret this as spammy behavior, ultimately lowering the competitor’s rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs). This practice began in the online gambling sector, where top rankings are crucial and competition is fierce. I first heard about negative SEO around the mid-2000s, before 2010, from someone in the gambling industry who explained its tactics.

Many websites that rank for significant search queries naturally attract low-quality links. However, awareness of negative SEO increased following Google’s Penguin update, which targeted link spam and prompted site owners to scrutinize their inbound links more closely.

Is Negative SEO Harmful?

During an audience Q&A, the interviewer asked Gary Illyes:

“Does negative SEO, like spammy link building where competitors throw tens of thousands of links at each other, still cause harm, or has Google mitigated its impact?”

Gary Illyes responded by referencing the Penguin update and shared his experience reviewing cases of alleged negative SEO submitted by site owners and SEOs. Out of hundreds of examples, only one case seemed potentially linked to negative SEO, but even then, Google’s web spam team was not entirely certain.

Illyes explained, “Around the time of the Penguin release, we received numerous complaints about negative SEO, particularly link-based negative SEO. I naively asked for examples to understand its operation and effectiveness. Despite reviewing hundreds of submissions, none turned out to be genuine negative SEO cases. They were always something else entirely. Except for one case that I forwarded to the web spam team for further evaluation, which we’re still deliberating on.”

Illyes emphasized, “This shows that the concern about negative SEO often exceeds the actual threat. We regularly disavow a significant number of links…”

Why “Negative SEO Links” Have Minimal Impact

Gary Illyes further explained why negative SEO links have little to no effect. He confirmed that Google disregards links from irrelevant topics in its ranking algorithms. Around the 30-minute mark of the interview, he elaborated on Google’s evaluation process, noting that context alignment between the linking site and the target page is crucial. If there’s a mismatch, Google may not pass on the PageRank signal.

Illyes gave an example, “If you come across links from completely unrelated sites, whether it’s adult sites, pure spam sites, or others, it’s likely we’ve disregarded those links. For instance, if a Canadian casino selling Viagra without a prescription links to your flower page, why would we view that link as credible?”

He concluded, “So, I wouldn’t worry about it. Focus on other aspects instead.”

Topic Relevance in Google’s Ranking System

In the early days of SEO, thousands of links from unrelated topics could propel a site to the top of Google’s search results. Some link builders distributed “free” traffic counter widgets to universities, embedding client site links in the footer, which used to be effective. However, Google has since cracked down on such practices.

Gary’s statement about the necessity for links to be relevant aligns with what link builders have understood for over two decades. The notion that off-topic links are disregarded by Google dates back to the era of reciprocal linking practices.

While not all statements by Googlers on negative SEO are recalled here, this instance stands out as a detailed explanation of why negative SEO is ineffective.