Every major Google core update produces the same pattern. Sites with backlink profiles built on PBNs, link networks, and low-quality editorial placements see ranking drops. Sites with genuine editorial links from real publishers on relevant topics hold their positions or improve. The update did not change what Google values. It improved Google’s ability to measure it.
Building a backlink profile that survives updates is not about predicting what Google will do next. It is about building the kind of profile that Google has always said it values and is progressively getting better at identifying and rewarding.
What Makes a Backlink Profile Resilient?
Publisher diversity
A resilient backlink profile links from a diverse range of publishers across different domains, publication types, and topics within your niche. Over-reliance on a single publisher type, a single link building method, or a single provider creates concentration risk. If that publisher network loses trust with Google, or that link building method becomes a recognised pattern, a concentrated profile takes the full impact.
Anchor text diversity
Exact-match anchor text on every link is one of the clearest signals of a manipulative link campaign. A natural anchor text distribution includes branded anchors, URL anchors, partial match anchors, and generic anchors like “this article” or “according to research here”. Exact-match anchors should make up no more than 10 to 15 percent of a healthy profile.
Topical relevance
Links from domains and pages topically relevant to your content carry more weight and carry less update risk than links from high-DR but tangentially related publishers. A SaaS company with most of its links from genuine tech and software publishers has a more resilient profile than the same DR coming primarily from generic content sites.
Publisher traffic and quality
Every publisher in your backlink profile should have genuine organic traffic from real readers. Publishers with high DR but minimal traffic are either new, penalised, or buying their own links. Links from these domains offer less equity than their DR suggests and carry higher risk if Google re-evaluates their authority.
Auditing Your Current Profile for Update Risk
Open your backlink profile in Ahrefs and filter for referring domains. For each significant referring domain, check organic traffic in Site Explorer. Any referring domain with DR above 30 but fewer than 1,000 monthly organic visitors warrants closer inspection. These are either new domains accumulating DR through link schemes or sites that have lost organic visibility.
Also review anchor text distribution. If more than 20 percent of your anchors are exact-match keywords, the profile has an unnatural pattern that will draw scrutiny in future updates. Search Engine Land’s backlink audit guide covers the full process for systematically cleaning and assessing your link profile.
What to Do With Low-Quality Links
The disavow tool in Google Search Console allows you to tell Google to ignore specific links when assessing your site. For links from PBNs, link farms, or obviously spammy sites, disavowal is the appropriate action. For borderline links from low-traffic sites that are otherwise legitimate, the safer approach is often to leave them and dilute their proportion through new high-quality link acquisition.
Google has stated that their algorithms are generally good at ignoring low-quality links without needing disavowal. However, if you have a significant volume of links from sites that were part of link schemes, disavowal provides an additional layer of protection.
Building Update-Proof Links Going Forward
Every link you build from this point should be evaluated against three questions: Would this link exist if SEO did not exist? Is the publisher a real site that real people read? Does the surrounding content make the link genuinely useful to a reader?
Links that pass all three questions are update-proof by definition. They represent exactly what Google’s link evaluation system is designed to reward. Our editorial link building, guest posting, and niche edits services are all built around this standard. If you want to assess your current profile and build a campaign to strengthen it, get in touch.