Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Regarding backlinks, I'm wondering which is more advantageous for domain authority and Google reputation:

• Option 1: More backlinks including a lot of spammy links
• Option 2: Fewer backlinks but only reliable, non-spam links

I've researched this topic around the web a bit and understand that the answer is somewhere in the middle, but given my site's specific backlink volume, the answer might lean one way or the other.

For context, my site has a spam score of 2%, and when I did a quick backlink audit, roughly 20% are ones I want to disavow. However, I don't want to eliminate so many backlinks that my DA goes down. As always, we are working to build quality backlinks, but I'm interested in whether eliminating 20% of backlinks will hurt my DA.

Thank you!

Hello Advanced Air Ambulance SEO!

Thanks for the quick and thorough response.  Please confirm if I understand you correctly:

• I can leave spammy backlinks alone (not spend time disavowing them) _unless _I see a manual action in Search Console, which would indicate that Google sees an issue and is penalizing my site until I disavow the links. Without this manual action, there's no indication that the spam links are hurting my rankings or DA.
• Leaving spammy backlinks that don't incur a manual action may actually increase DA since leaving them maintains a higher volume of backlinks (albeit some spammy), and backlink quantity is a contributor to DA.

Thank you!

Hello again,

Thanks for the clarification and the link. I've read through that and a few other sources across the web, but none of them seemed to answer my question the way you did, so thanks! Our backlink profile is pretty balanced with spammy and definitely not spammy,  so I'm not super concerned about it, but I appreciate the reminder.