I'm coming to the conclusion that it's very unlikely and may be even impossible to be penalised by Google for off-site SEO (and by "off site SEO I mean backlink building, forum posts etc etc). Why have I come to this conclusion ? Well, if Google decided that a website or anchor text leading to a particular website was being over optimised and then decided to delist or penalise that site then there would be thousands of webmasters and businesses who would start to create links for the competitor's websites knowing they could hurt them in the rankings. As this would be so easy to abuse am I right to conclude that getting backlinks from whatever form won't do you any harm ? OF course, it may not do benefit your site in any way but you shouldn't be penalised for it.
but what do you mean by "ruin your link" ? I believe that Google may simply not count some links if they are questionable but I can't see how they can penalise your site.
I completely agree. There is no way of ruining it with bad linking. There's no such thing as backlinks from bad neighbourhoods and similar myths. If there were such things, competition would really have an easy job of throwing your site off the radar. You can't affect backlinks so there's no way it can get you punished. The problem on the other hand are links that go from your site to bad neighbourhoods. You're responsible for them and it will get you in trouble.
I would not say impossible, because I've seen a first hand account of where someone's site was penalised due to dodgy backlinks. The site became the subject of a manual review so if the algos don't pick them up, a Google staff member can. The way I see it is that the more competitive your niche, the more feathers you ruffle if you hit the first page for a competitive term and the more likely you'll be hit with a penalty for doing something dodgy. Most sites never achieve this so can fly under the radar a lot longer and therefore get away with a lot more dubious link building techniques.
Me to simpseo - and strangely today as it happens - though is the second time this past month or so I have come across this as the only explanation that makes any logical sense. Will prove it to be the case over the next couple of weeks with what I am tinkering with presently to!!!
Many site penalized with off pages SEO bcz some bad directory submission and use bad content in submission also put bad link in non related website this all things made bad website impression
No evidence just logic. Otherwise you and I could identify our competitors online and then start building anchor text links to their website. We could also submit their websites to dodgy directories. If Google really did penalise this behaviour then our competitors would suffer from the efforts that you and I took. It can't be possible so it musn't be
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