How to Battle Low Quality Backlinks for Better SEO

If your ranking drops, use your Google Webmaster console to look for a large amount of links which you didn't have before. This could be a negative SEO attack by a competitor if the links are from poor quality websites not in your niche.

What Should I Do?

You can ignore the links. Google’s algorithm can recognize paid and unnatural links, including ones from a dirty campaign by competitors.  A few SEO experts recommend ignoring the links based on a statement made by Matt Cutts, a former Google employee, but if your ranking already dropped off, Google may think you bought the links.

You can also contact the webmasters of each website that don't want linking to you. If there are hundreds of webmaster to contact, it could take you a very long time to do this.

The most efficient action is to disavow the links in the Google Webmaster console and keep offending domains from linking to you ever again. This is an automated procedure, but it still may take up to two months to regain your ranking.

Other Reasons You Could Have Low Quality Backlinks

If you spun articles for article directories in the past or submitted your link to low quality directories, disavow those links. These were popular ways to build backlinks years ago and you may have forgotten about the links. If you ever used an SEO firm which used questionable link building methods, they could have used these same tactics. Lazy SEO firms also use blog comments and forum postings to build backlinks; disavow these links.

If you use an SEO firm, ask them how they go about building backlinks. They may not want to reveal their methods, which isn't necessarily bad, but let them know you routinely check all backlinks and their anchor text. For more information click here https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/c1ldm9/advicewithdisavowing_links/.