Google has made a couple algorithm updates this year penalizing spamming sites. Google traditionally views these types of sites as those dropping malware on users or being a bad actor in some other way.

However, with the vague details of the algorithm updates, I’ve started to review backlink profiles on SEMrush in an attempt to clean up spam links pointing to sites that we built or manage. Specifically, sites that have been under the PIC umbrella for a long time.

When using SEMrush’s backlink audit, it grades the backlinks based on how toxic certain characteristics of the link and site appear. For example, the backlink audit considers the number of URLs from a domain pointing to your site or the number of subdomains on a root domain. It then gives you the ability to generate a properly formatted file to upload to Google Search Console based on the domains or URLs you want to disavow.

The task of SEMrush’s backlink audit is worth reviewing for clients a few times per year. Each quarterly meeting may be a good barometer for when to run the backlink audit. According to their own guidelines, it takes six weeks for Google to handle the disavow requests. Regularly running SEMrush’s backlink audit helps helps keep things in check.

Search Engine Land – Google Search releases spam update on June 23
Semrush.com – Disavowing Your Backlinks