The Difference Between Good Backlinks and Bad Backlinks Part 2 - Episode 39

Author: Grumpy SEO Guy | Published: 2024-01-17 | Source: transcript (41:03, 2.0K views at ingest)

Summary

Companion to The Difference Between Good Backlinks and Bad Backlinks - Episode 37: episode 37 ranked link types; this episode is a due-diligence checklist for which site is safe to get a link from. Grumpy SEO Guy restates the override — a perfect contextual link on a spam site is still unwanted — and says the checklist matters most if you are buying PBN / “private blog portfolio” links, which he treats as a normal tactic (he also points back to episode 3 on buying expired domains).

IP diversity. When you have links from multiple sites, he wants uniqueness at the first or second octet — SEO slang “A-class” / “B-class,” which he admits is not the networking meaning. Sequential C-class IPs sold as “SEO hosting” are a “super obvious” footprint; Ahrefs even has a report showing referring domains on similar IPs. Coincidence at C-class (he gives America vs. Singapore, non-sequential thirds) is the exception. He tells listeners not to buy from any host that even offers SEO hosting, and to walk away from a PBN seller who is shifty about IPs, admits sequential C-class, or says “unique at the third octet.”

Geographic and language fit. A large share of backlinks from India, the Philippines, or China is a spam tell unless the site actually serves those markets (he flags the stereotyping and still asserts it). Same for language: an “American” English site with 80% Chinese-language anchors is suspicious unless the business is visibly bilingual or China-facing. A few foreign-language links are normal on successful sites; a dominant mismatch suggests bought spam or negative SEO.

Toxic verticals and on-page quality. Don’t take links from sites whose inbound or outbound profile includes adult, gambling, or unlicensed-pharmacy anchors. One stray “Viagra” among thousands can be ignored; a significant percentage cannot. Spun thesaurus content, keyword stuffing, unindexed pages, and a generally shady site are disqualifiers. His “would this ever happen organically?” test is the through-line.

He then attacks third-party authority metrics — Moz DA/PA, Ahrefs DR/UR, Majestic TF/CF, Semrush scores — as estimates of the old public PageRank Google stopped publishing because sellers gamed it. He is “pretty confident” Google still uses some private authority score. PR used to be spoofable (trash sites showing PR7); he is “quite certain” some current metrics can still be faked. His method: run the same domain through several tools and look for agreement, then ignore the number if the link profile is dirty. A clean 60-link / 50-domain profile on unique IPs beats a “DR70” listing. High metrics, all else equal, are better — but “DR70” does not mean more “link juice” than “DR50.”

Commercial bias is structural: this is a buyer’s guide for purchasing links without getting burned, from someone whose agency builds them.

Key Claims

Site quality overrides link type — restated from ep. 37; this episode is how to detect a spam site.
IP uniqueness at the 1st or 2nd octet for multiple referring domains; sequential C-class / “SEO hosting” is an obvious PBN footprint. Ahrefs has a similar-IP report.
Do not buy from hosts that offer SEO hosting, even if you are not using that product.
Geo/language mismatch is a spam tell: lots of India/Philippines/China referring domains, or a dominant foreign-language anchor share, unless the business actually serves that market.
Adult / gambling / unlicensed-pharmacy anchors inbound or outbound disqualify a prospect (one stray link among thousands is ignorable).
On-page disqualifiers: spun content, keyword stuffing, unindexed pages, shady outbound.
DA / DR / TF etc. are estimates, sometimes disagree, and some can be spoofed — stop buying “DR70” packages on the number.
Clean link profile > metric: unique IPs, unique domains, no toxic verticals, sensible languages. All else equal, higher numbers are better, not “best.”

Notable quotes

“Stop focusing on the numbers and start focusing on the website itself.”

Why citable: The episode’s thesis in one line — a direct attack on how link packages are sold (DA90 / DR70) and a useful check against metric-worship in Local Link Building & Authority too.

“If they say oh they’re on SEO hosting, nope, don’t do business with that person.”

Why citable: Concrete vendor-rejection rule, and evidence he still operates in a market where people buy PBN links rather than only earning chambers/sponsorships.

Connections

Entities mentioned: Google, Reddit (contact channel) · Grumpy SEO Guy (NEW), Ahrefs (NEW), Moz, Majestic, Semrush (minor/NEW) Concepts referenced: Local Link Building & Authority, Duplicate Content (for Service-Area Pages) (adjacent: he treats spun “unique” content as a spam tell, the other direction from Dooley’s duplicate-service-area claim)

Contradictions / Tensions

PBN as normal vs. PBN as toxic. Grumpy teaches how to buy PBN links without sequential-IP footprints. Dooley (who owns link agencies) says old PBNs and manipulated-DR links now harm sites; Caleb Ulku rejects PBNs/spam and sells local-authority + cheap editorial links instead. Three-way split on whether purchased networks are still a lever.
Agrees with Dooley/Caleb on metric worship: DR is “the most manipulated metric” (Dooley); Grumpy says the same about DA/DR/PR-style scores. Rare independent alignment — tag this as stronger than one-creator opinion.
Agrees with Caleb on editorial > footer, already in ep. 37; this episode adds site-selection hygiene Caleb rarely spells out (IP classes, language mismatch).
“Would this happen organically?” is his test — closer to Google’s public “unnatural links” language than to Caleb’s chamber-membership playbook.
Commercial bias: PBN/contextual-link seller writing a buyer’s guide. The anti-metric stance cuts somewhat against how his market sells, which lends it a bit of credibility — still creator-opinion.

Notes

NEW entity (do not create this ingest): grumpy-seo-guy (see also The Difference Between Good Backlinks and Bad Backlinks - Episode 37).

NEW entity: ahrefs — named as the tool with a similar-IP / backlink-profile report; also Moz, Majestic, Semrush as metric vendors. Do not create those pages this ingest.

No watermarking. No topical-authority thesis. Dated 2024-01-17 — two years older than the 2026 Caleb/Dooley corpus; flag recency if a later source updates PBN risk.