It is a known fact that analyzing competitor backlinks is an important part of a SEO optimizer’s job. If you are making a grid of PBN (Private Blog Network), you probably didn’t particularly want other webmasters to know where you are placing your links. A large number of services analyze link mass, the most famous of which are Majestic, Ahrefs, Semrush. All of them have their own bots that can be blocked.
First, Let’s Understand Why Backlinks are Important For a Website
Backlinks, also known as inbound or incoming links, are links from one website to another. They are a signal to search engines that another website values your content because it trustworthy, and they are one of the most critical factors for achieving high rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs). The more high-quality backlinks you have, the more authoritative your site appears to search engines like Google.
Backlinks are essential and the quality of links significantly influences their impact. Not all backlinks are created equal. Links from reputable and authoritative sources hold more weight than numerous links from low-quality sites. Websites with robust backlink profiles, characterized by links from trusted domains, tend to rank higher in SERPs.
According to a study by Backlinko, the top-ranking page on Google has an average of 3.8 times more backlinks than the pages that rank in positions 2-10.
Building high-quality backlinks requires a strategic approach. Effective methods include guest blogging on reputable platforms, creating shareable content for social media that attracts natural links, and engaging in outreach to build relationships with other website owners.
Conversely, low-quality or spammy backlinks can negatively impact SEO. Search engines actively penalize websites engaging in manipulative link-building practices. Therefore, it is crucial to prioritize ethical backlink acquisition strategies.
In competing for high search engine rankings, unscrupulous competitors who own similar niche sites may employ blackhat practices to hurt your positions. How do they do it? The answer is – by collecting reports on your backlinks and creating a lot of spammy links from low-quality resources, using dirty methods with spoofing anchors on forbidden topics (Blackhat SEO).
For instance, Google’s Penguin update was specifically designed to target websites that engaged in manipulative link-building practices. If your site is found to have a large number of backlinks from spammy or irrelevant sites, it can be penalized, leading to a significant drop in rankings.
A small amount will not hurt your site if it has high quality links, but if the amount approaches 40-50%, it will affect your site very badly. Google will perceive your site as low-quality and spammy, which will lead to lower positions or even exclusion from the index.
How to Hide Backlinks to Your Website
One way is to write Disallow rules for these bots in the robots.txt file, but then this file will be visible to everyone, and it can be one of the “footprints”, by which you can identify the PBN grid. It is much better to close access to bots through .htaccess file, it is not visible to anyone but you. Besides, by blocking these crawlers you significantly reduce the load on the server.
Here’s an example of how to do it. Just add this code to the .htaccess file in the root folder of your site:
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*aboundexbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*ahrefsbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*backlinkcrawler.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*blekkobo.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*blexbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*dotbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*dsearch.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*exabot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*ezooms.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*gigabot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*ia_archiver.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*linkdexbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*lipperhey spider.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*majestic-12.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*majestic-seo.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*meanpathbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*megaindex.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*mj12bot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*ncbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*nutch.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*pagesinventory.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*rogerbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*scoutjet.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*searchmetricsbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*semrushbot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*seokicks-robot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*sistrix.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*sitebot.* botstop
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent .*spbot.* botstop
<Limit GET POST HEAD>
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from env=botstop
</Limit>
Conclusion: Backlinks as a Long-term SEO Strategy
Building a strong backlink profile is essential for improving your website’s SEO and overall visibility. However, it’s important to focus on quality over quantity. By securing high-quality backlinks from authoritative sources, you can enhance your website’s credibility and improve its ranking on search engine results pages.
As SEO continues to evolve, backlinks remain a fundamental component of any successful digital marketing strategy. Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, investing time and resources into acquiring quality backlinks can yield long-term benefits for your website’s search engine performance.
Write in the comments, have you faced competitor attacks on your sites?
