Link Detox Rules - why they are necessary?

What are Link Detox Rules?

There are 39 different Link Detox rules that are triggered in certain circumstances when a link is analyzed on a page. Rules are triggered if there is something about the page or link that might mean it is a risky link. For example a link might have suspicious anchor text placement or be on a very weak, and possibly penalized, page.

Why you need to be aware of Link Detox Rules

All of Link Detox^® rules have their own weight which contributes to the overall risk of a link. All of Link Detox^® rules have their own risk rating value. We configure all these weights and rating values based on experience and personal opinions of several internal and external SEO experts.

The amount and type of Link Detox rules triggered for each link contributes to a Link Detox Risk for each link and in turn for the whole domain. Armed with this information you can see how healthy your link profile is and take steps to fix any risky links.

Backlinks that are identified by Link Detox as being suspicious maybe risky and need to be reviewed manually. As you are able to see which rules are being triggered, you are able to make a more informed decision about the quality of a link. Here are some situations where knowing which rules have been triggered is very useful:

Domain is not indexed in Google - often a sign for a Penalty

The TOX1 rule means that the page that your link is on is not indexed in Google. This could mean that Google has de-indexed the site due to a penalty. Keep in mind that a non-indexed link could also mean that it’s a new domain nobody has linked to yet. It might also have problems in the robots.txt or META robots tag. Make sure you double-check these things before removing the link.

Link coming from a probably new or very weak domain

The SUSP1 rule means that it is a link coming from a very weak domain. This domain could also be a very new domain.

Link from possibly penalized page

We have the SUSP4 rule that is triggered when the homepage of the site the link comes from does not rank for the title of the page, which usually indicates that the page or domain has been penalized. However, special cases like pages with generic titles like “Partners” or “Home” have a hard time ranking #1 most of the time, so please make sure that you double-check special cases like these.

These are just a few situations where your own experience and knowledge is invaluable. If you know exactly which Link Detox Rules are being triggered and why, reviewing links is much easier.

Being able to see exactly why a link may be risky helps you decide if you should keep the link or not.

Technical Details

There are 39 Link Detox Rules. The most severe are TOX1, TOX2 and TOX3. The others are called SUSP1 thru SUSP36. A full explanation of these rules is here.

LRT Documentation