Backlink Checker Example: Domain Rank and Toxic Links

The report generates a disavow file and tells you to submit it. For the overwhelming majority of sites, Google's own advice is not to.

Google has been consistent and public about this for years: it is very good at ignoring spammy links, and most sites should never use the disavow tool at all. Since Penguin 4.0, low-quality links are generally devalued — discounted to nothing — rather than counted against you. A link farm pointing at your homepage is not a weapon. It is noise, and Google's default behaviour is to disregard it.

There are two situations where disavow is the right tool, and this report cannot tell you whether you are in either:

1. You have a manual action for unnatural links in Search Console. You will know — Google tells you explicitly.
2. You (or an agency you hired) actually built the links. Bought them, ran a PBN, paid for a package. Then disavowal is a genuine cleanup of your own mess, and it is the honest thing to do.

If neither is true — and you simply found some ugly domains in a report — do nothing. That is not laziness; it is the recommended action.

Every metric on this page is a third-party estimate, and it is worth being precise about what that means.

A high spam score does not mean Google has penalised anything. It means a tool's model flagged a pattern. That is genuinely useful for spotting where you have been targeted or where an agency has been careless — and it is not evidence of harm.

The number to actually watch is 847 referring domains, not 12,480 backlinks. Forty-seven links from one spam domain count roughly as much as one link from one spam domain, and four links from TechCrunch count roughly as much as one link from TechCrunch. Total backlinks is a vanity figure that rewards sitewide footer links and blogroll spam. Domains are the unit that matters.

The toxic-links card is mostly noise. The anchor text distribution is where a real risk signal would appear, and this profile looks healthy — which is itself the lesson in how to read it.

The pattern that would be dangerous is the opposite: 60% of your links carrying the same exact-match commercial phrase — "best project management tool", over and over, from unrelated domains. No natural link profile looks like that, because real people writing about you do not coordinate their vocabulary. That distribution is a fingerprint of links that were purchased, and it is a pattern Google recognises easily.

Note what this means: the anchor text risk is about links you built, not links you received. Which is precisely why it is the section worth reading and the toxic-links card is not.

The 2,640 nofollow links are filed as though they are wasted. They are not, and the mental model behind that framing is out of date.

Since 2019, Google treats nofollow as a hint rather than a directive — it may choose to consider the link for ranking purposes. Two more specific attributes were introduced alongside it: rel="sponsored" for paid links and rel="ugc" for user-generated content.

And the Medium link is the point. Medium nofollows its outbound links, so by the old model that link is worth nothing. In practice it can send real traffic, put you in front of people who might link to you properly, and contribute to Google understanding that your brand is discussed in that context. A link that drives qualified visitors is valuable whether or not it passes PageRank — and chasing a dofollow/nofollow ratio is optimising for a metric rather than an outcome.

What is Domain Rank?

Domain Rank is a backlink authority metric from DataForSEO measuring the strength of a domain's backlink profile on a scale of 0–1000. It is calculated from the quantity and quality of domains linking to you. It is a third-party estimate built from a vendor's own crawl — Google does not publish an authority score and does not use this one. Treat it as a comparative indicator, not as a number Google sees.

What are toxic backlinks?

"Toxic backlinks" is a vendor term for links from low-quality or spammy domains, scored by a heuristic that pattern-matches on things like anchor text and outbound link volume. A high spam score is a tool's prediction, not a report of what Google thinks. Since Penguin 4.0, Google generally devalues low-quality links — discounting them to nothing — rather than counting them against you, so links you did not build are usually noise rather than harm.

How do I disavow toxic backlinks?

Create a disavow file (.txt) listing the domains you want Google to ignore, prefixed with "domain:". Submit it via Google Search Console at search.google.com/search-console/disavow-links. Before doing so, be certain you actually need to — see the question below.

Should I actually submit a disavow file?

Almost certainly not. Google's own advice is that most sites should never use the disavow tool, because it is very good at ignoring spammy links already. The tool has no upside when the links were being ignored anyway, and a real downside if you get it wrong: sweep up a domain that was passing value and you have thrown away authority you earned, with no warning and no way to see what you lost. There are two situations where it is right — you have a manual action for unnatural links, which Google tells you about explicitly, or you (or an agency you hired) actually built the links. If neither applies, do nothing.

Can a competitor hurt me by pointing spam links at my site?

This is what negative SEO is supposed to mean, and it is far less effective than the industry implies. Google devalues low-quality links rather than penalising the target, precisely because otherwise anyone could damage anyone. Finding ugly domains in a backlink report is not evidence that they are doing anything to you. If you have no manual action and no links you built yourself, the correct response is usually to leave them alone.

Should I worry about my dofollow to nofollow ratio?

No. Since 2019 Google treats nofollow as a hint rather than a directive, and it may consider such links for ranking purposes anyway. More importantly, a link that sends qualified visitors is valuable whether or not it passes PageRank — Medium nofollows its outbound links, but a Medium link can still put you in front of people who go on to link to you properly. Chasing a ratio is optimising a metric rather than an outcome.

Which number in this report matters most?

847 referring domains, not 12,480 backlinks. Forty-seven links from one spam domain count roughly as much as one link from that domain, and four links from TechCrunch count roughly as much as one. Total backlinks is a vanity figure inflated by sitewide footer links and blogroll spam. After that, read the anchor text distribution — a profile where most links carry the same exact-match commercial phrase is the fingerprint of purchased links, because real people writing about you do not coordinate their vocabulary. That risk is about links you built, not links you received.