Story Based Question
Imagine you’ve been running a blog about sustainable living for a few years. Your content has started ranking well, and your traffic is growing. But one day, you notice your traffic is suddenly down, and you can’t figure out why. After investigating, you realize that you may have accumulated a lot of poor-quality backlinks over time.
You wonder: “How can I use Google Search Console to monitor the health of my backlinks and prevent any SEO issues?”
Exact Answer
To use Google Search Console to monitor backlink health, navigate to the Links section, where you can view external links pointing to your site. Regularly check the total number of backlinks, the domains linking to you, and the anchor texts used. Investigate any suspicious or low-quality backlinks and disavow them if necessary.
Explanation
Google Search Console is a valuable tool for monitoring backlinks and ensuring your backlink profile remains healthy. Here’s how you can use it to track your backlinks effectively:
- Access the Links Section
Once you log into Google Search Console, go to the Links section, found on the left-hand menu. Under this tab, you’ll see details about your external links and internal links. - Check External Links
In the External Links section, you’ll see:- Top linked pages: Which pages on your site have the most backlinks.
- Top linking sites: Which websites are linking to your pages.
- Top linking text: The anchor texts used in these links.
- Monitor New and Lost Backlinks
Google Search Console doesn’t send alerts for new backlinks, but by regularly reviewing the Top Linking Sites and Top Linked Pages sections, you can spot any sudden spikes in backlinks from unknown or low-quality sites. If you notice an influx of irrelevant backlinks, that’s a red flag. - Analyze Anchor Text
Pay attention to the Top Linking Text section to see the anchor text being used. If you see suspicious or over-optimized anchor texts, like exact-match keywords (e.g., “buy cheap eco-friendly products”), it may indicate manipulative link-building practices. - Look for Toxic Domains
If you spot backlinks from websites with low authority or unrelated niches (like gambling or payday loan sites linking to your sustainable living blog), this could signal a Negative SEO attack. You’ll need to take action, either by reaching out to the webmasters for removal or using Google’s disavow tool to ignore the links. - Disavow Harmful Backlinks
If you identify backlinks from spammy or harmful sites, you can use the Disavow Links tool in Google Search Console to request that Google ignores those links in its ranking algorithm. This helps protect your website from potential penalties.
Example
Let’s go back to the sustainable living blog example:
You log into Google Search Console to check your backlink profile. You go to the Links section and find that one of your most linked pages is your “Guide to Eco-Friendly Shopping.” However, when you check the Top Linking Sites section, you notice a suspicious new backlink from cheapshoesale.com—a site unrelated to sustainability.
You click on Top Linking Text and see that the anchor text for the backlink is “eco-friendly shoes for sale,” which seems spammy and not directly related to your content.
This raises a red flag, so you decide to investigate further. You check the domain’s authority using a tool like Ahrefs and find that cheapshoesale.com has low authority and is known for spammy links.
You decide to disavow this link using the Disavow Links tool in Google Search Console. After doing this, your rankings stabilize over time as Google stops considering the harmful link in its algorithm.