2 - Link Schemes

Links remain one of the most important SEO metrics that determine your PageRank and invariably your search ranking.

High-quality backlinks are an indication that authority sites have some confidence in your website. And Google uses the quality and quantity of these backlinks to arrive at your site's search ranking.

Site owners often indulge in the act of getting backlinks in exchange for money or other benefits. This act is labeled as "Link scheme" and it is disapproved by Google.

If after thorough investigation your site is found guilty, there's no escaping of the Google penalty. Being a part of any Private Blog Network (PBN) can do your site more harm than good. PBN is a network of blog owners who come together to build links for each of the members.

There are instances when a site owner becomes a victim of link schemes without knowing. It could be a competitor or someone else who decides to build toxic backlinks to the website.

Whatever may have given rise to this situation, there's a window that Google provides for resolving this issue. Bear in mind that most cases of link schemes attract the manual penalty from Google.

If you receive a notification on Google Search Console that the penalty is caused by a link scheme, you need to perform a link audit. Using a tool like Ahrefs, you'll be able to analyze the backlinks to your site and discover the toxic links.

After that, you can quietly reach out to the originating sites of these toxic links and ask for their removal.

If you are not able to get all the links removed, then you should make use of the Google disavow tool for the remaining links. This should help resolve any problems caused by link schemes.