Cyrus posted a Twitter poll asking even without a manual Google penalty, bad/toxic/manipulative backlinks can (a) are 100% ignored, (b) can damage your rankings and (c) can't hurt, might help!. The results said most people think it can damage your Google rankings.
The results breakdown was:
- 20% - Are 100% ignored
- 63% - Can damage your rankings
- 17% - Can't hurt, might help
This does seem obvious but with Penguin devaluing vs demoting - you don't have to worry about that link algorithm necessarily having a negative impact but there are other algorithms out there.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Note: This story was pre-written and scheduled to be posted now, I am currently offline for a holiday.
