Exploit Blackhat SEO Type 1703
Blackhat SEO type 1703 is a manipulative link-building tactic that violates Google’s guidelines by using paid links, link exchanges, PBNs, or spammy placements to artificially inflate rankings.
Key takeaways
- Blackhat link building violates Google’s guidelines and risks manual actions or ranking drops.
- Common methods include paid links, PBNs, link farms, and comment spam.
- Short-term gains are often followed by penalties that require cleanup.
- Safer alternatives: digital PR, editorial outreach, broken-link building.
- Use Search Console and Ahrefs to monitor your backlink profile for unnatural patterns.
Understanding this tactic helps you spot risky vendor behavior, audit backlink profiles, and choose safer alternatives.
Example
- A site owner pays $50 for a backlink from a low-quality blog network (PBN). The link uses exact-match anchor text like “best SEO tools”.
- Google detects the unnatural pattern and issues a manual action, dropping the site’s rankings by 80%.
- The owner must then remove the link or use the Disavow Tool to recover.
Quick Start
- Identify risky links in your backlink profile using Ahrefs or Search Console.
- Check for unnatural patterns: exact-match anchor text, irrelevant placements, or sudden spikes.
- Review Google’s link spam policies to confirm violations.
- If harmful links exist, contact site owners for removal first.
- As a last resort, use the Disavow Tool to disavow links you cannot remove.
- Monitor Search Console for manual actions or algorithmic drops.
How to Judge
- Relevance: Is the linking site topically related to yours?
- Quality: Does the site have real traffic, editorial standards, and a clean link profile?
- Placement: Is the link in a natural, editorial context or a paid/spammy section?
- Anchor text: Is it varied and natural, or over-optimized with exact-match keywords?
- Volume: Are you acquiring links at a steady, organic pace or in sudden bursts?
Common Mistakes
- Treating blackhat link building as a sustainable strategy instead of a temporary risk with potential penalties.
- Assuming all backlinks are helpful, regardless of relevance, placement quality, or how they were acquired.
- Using disavow instead of first trying to remove obvious harmful links where possible.
- Confusing aggressive but legitimate outreach with guideline-violating link schemes.
Next step
FAQ
What is blackhat SEO type 1703?
It’s a manipulative link-building tactic that violates Google’s guidelines, using paid links, link exchanges, PBNs, or spammy placements to boost rankings artificially.
Can blackhat link building cause penalties?
Yes. Google may issue manual actions or algorithmic demotions, hurting rankings and requiring cleanup via link removal or the Disavow Tool.
What are safer alternatives?
Digital PR, editorial outreach, broken-link building, and creating linkable assets are sustainable, guideline-compliant methods.
Related topics
Sources
- Google Search Central — Primary source for Google’s link spam policies, manual actions, and Search Console guidance.
- Google Search Central: Link spam policies — Best source for what Google considers link spam and how it is handled.
- Google Search Central: Disavow links — Explains when and how disavow is used in backlink cleanup.
- Ahrefs — Useful practitioner reference for identifying risky tactics and white-hat alternatives.
Reviewed by Lucía Marín, Founding editor.