Kasra Dash:
Nowadays that's not the case and the amount of people still rehash the same old stuff and SEO myths that Google are good at ignoring links. Honestly it's the bane of my life. I have purchased a lot of links over the years and I remember probably about two or three years ago you had recently purchased maybe twenty thousand pounds worth of links in one month. A lot of the time Google would do a very good job of links that were pretty much toxic with zero value. Checking your links in a blacklist checker would be very important because you're going to find out.

Kasra Dash:
So today we're going to be talking about blacklisted domains. I am joined with Karl Hudson and also James. How you doing? So very quickly, without going on a big rant, why are checking blacklisted domains important?

Karl Hudson:
I would say checking your links in a blacklist checker would be very important because you're going to find out very quickly whether or not the sites are toxic. They have no traffic. They might be a PBN, a guest post farm. You're going to find that out and potentially save money on investing in those links. So it’s a no-brainer really.

Kasra Dash:
What about for yourself James? You’ve purchased a lot of links over the years and I remember probably about two or three years ago you had recently purchased maybe twenty thousand pounds worth of links in one month for four or five websites. Fast forward six months later we actually sat and disavowed those links.

James Dooley:
For sure. There’s nothing worse than paying money and wasting money and more importantly wasting time on buying links that are causing more harm than good. The amount of times I’ve bought links and it has had a detrimental effect and I’ve lost rankings has been crazy. Having something like a toxic backlink checker is unbelievable. I wish it existed ten years ago. When you say twenty grand a month, there were some months I used to spend eighty thousand a month. Back then a lot of links used to work and Google did a very good job of ignoring toxic links. Nowadays that’s not the case and the amount of people who still rehash SEO myths that Google ignores links is the bane of my life.

Kasra Dash:
With the recent algorithm leaks it is clear that Google does zero-value links. People are still purchasing links on guest post farms and PBNs. That’s why we created the Domain Blacklist Checker. It will be on the Searcharoo website, on the Kasra Dash website, on Karl Hudson’s website and on FatRank. We think this is going to be very important if you are acquiring links.

We’ll do a quick demo on how it works. It’s easy to use. If you paste the links here and click check domains, by default it gives you two free checks. If you want the entire list you just provide your email and website. Once you do that it unblurs everything.

Kasra Dash:
Some sites such as Forbes, Magazine, Direct and CNN are not blacklisted. But you will also see sites like ActiveRain or TendersInfo. Some of these websites get traffic and some even have DR 80+, but they provide zero value. Some link building agencies still charge for links on these domains without checking the blacklist.

We’ve also demoed this with a few clients. Here are some emails we received:

“Hey guys, thank you for spam checking the list of links. I can’t believe eight out of nine backlinks I was going to acquire were marked as spam. You saved me £1,800. Can I place an order with you?”

Another email to Karl Hudson:
“Hey Karl, thanks for spam checking my existing backlinks. My previous link building agency said they were doing this for the past twelve months. I’ve spent over $60,000 with them. Can I start a campaign with you and should I worry about a disavow?”

Kasra Dash:
James, if somebody has toxic links flagged in this tool, should they get a disavow?

James Dooley:
Yes for sure. If they’ve been hit hard on rankings, they might need a specialist like Backlink Doctor to create a disavow file, especially if there’s an unnatural link penalty. You need the disavow and reconsideration request.
If you only have around a thousand referring domains and no penalty, you can grab the list of toxic URLs and disavow manually. Prevention is better than cure. I always prefer a proactive disavow rather than waiting for a penalty. Recovering a penalised site is possible but much harder.

Kasra Dash:
One thing to add is that this tool will only get better over time. Proactively checking it is a no-brainer. A link that is safe today might be blacklisted in two or three months. I highly recommend checking regularly.

Karl, have you got any ending points?

Karl Hudson:
The list is around 700 sites right now but will grow quickly. We have a large internal list, we just need to format it properly for the tool. The link will be in the description. Try the tool. It's free. Give us feedback. If you think anything is wrong, use the Get In Touch button and we will manually check links for you.

Kasra Dash:
Hope you’ve enjoyed the video. Please remember to leave a like.