In this article, we look at the legal issues around recording calls on your mobile, and the different methods for doing so.

Is It Legal To Record Phone Calls On Your Mobile? 

In the UK, as an individual mobile phone user, generally speaking, secretly recording a conversation is not a criminal offence and is not prohibited if that recording is just for personal use, and the consent of the person you’re recording is not needed. There may, however, be a question about whether it’s if ethical, depending on the circumstances.

There are certain situations where the legality of recording a call on your mobile may be questioned. For example:

– If the recording is then sold to a third-party or made public without the consent of the participant(s).

– If there’s a claim for damages involved.

– If, as in the case of journalists (for example), consent hasn’t been obtained or the recording is not judged to be in the public interest.

There may, of course, be other possible sets of circumstances where recording a call on a mobile could contravene laws but these would need to be checked with a qualified legal professional.

What About Businesses? 

For businesses, however, there are more rules laws to comply with as regards the recording of phone calls. These can include a potentially complex mix of the following:

– Under the Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000, there are some situations where recording a phone call is legal. For example, these include for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime, in the interests of national security, or to ascertain whether standards are being achieved by persons using the system in the course of their duties. The full set of circumstances can be found here on the government’s website.

– Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) individuals can tape conversations if the recording is for their own use.

– Businesses that store personal information (such as recorded phone calls) must be registered with the Data Protection Commissioner.

– If a business records a call with an employee without their consent, this could be breach of their privacy under the Human Rights Act 1998.

– Under GDPR, there are several aspects to comply with when recording calls. For example, consent needs to be acquired, and businesses must explain why they’re recording calls. Participants may give their consent to calls being recorded, for example for a specific stated purpose, to fulfil a legal obligation, to defend the interests of participants, or in the best interest of the public. Also, how the data (phone call recording) is processed, stored, and shared is matter for data protection GDPR. For instance, call recordings must be securely stored and managed, and only retained for the length of time required to fulfil the purpose of the recording. The recordings held by a business must be relevant to that business and only held by that business.

How To Record Calls On Your Mobile 

There are several different ways to record calls on a mobile. These include:

– On Android, using Google Voice app or, until recently, other third-party Android apps such as Truecaller app. Due to the vulnerability to misuse of the Accessibility API, an update to the Google Play Store developer policy means that third-party call recording apps must now stop offering their services.

– On an iPhone, to record a phone call (on a speakerphone), use the Voice Memos app.

– In an iPhone, use an iPhone recorder app that allows 3-way conference calls (a 3-Way Call Merge App), e.g. Rev, TapeACall Pro, or Call Recorder Pro.

– Gain consent from the caller, put the caller on speaker, and record them with an external device.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Although it sounds like a straightforward subject, and apps exist to enable recordings, for businesses, recording calls on mobiles is covered by several laws. These relate to data protection and human rights. Although there are situations where recording calls would be acceptable, e.g. detecting crime or monitoring standards, businesses need to be clear about what recordings are for, should gain consent, and store the call data in a way that is compliant with GDPR and ensure that storage is set up to allow deletion if requested. For businesses, recording calls on mobiles may be helpful, but possibly legally complex, depending on the circumstances. If in any doubt, businesses would be advised to check with legally qualified professionals.

Disclaimer: The contents of this article should in no way be used or accepted as legal advice or legally accurate. The information contained here has been researched and compiled in good faith; however, the writers are not legally qualified or legal experts and information included here to create an interesting article that is correct to the best of our knowledge. 

In this article, we look at the immediate challenges ahead for Twitter with Elon Musk now at the helm, plus we look at some of the likely ways that he could start adding more revenue.

What Happened? 

Billionaire Elon Musk recently became Twitter’s largest shareholder after acquiring a 9.2 per cent stake in the social media company. Twitter then invited Musk to join its Board. Musk, however, announced that he would not be joining Twitter’s Board. Instead, Musk launched a hostile takeover bid, offering to make Twitter Inc private in an unsolicited deal valued at $43 billion. Musk offered to pay $54.20 per share in cash, 38 per cent above the price in the hope of winning-over shareholders. Twitter looked set to resist by adopting a ‘poison pill’ strategy (where the target company dilutes an acquirer’s voting shares). After threatening to cut Board members’ salaries to $0 if he was able to acquire the company, on April 25 Twitter’s Board accepted an offer from Musk to buy Twitter for $44 billion. Musk now intends to take the company into private ownership and has indicated that he plans to make many changes, which is one of the reasons why Musk buying Twitter was met with a mixed response as those within the company feared cultural change and job losses.

On successfully buying Twitter, Musk said that “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”

Musk also commented “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”  Concern has been expressed by many about what too much ‘free speech’ could mean for the company.

However, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey thanked Musk and current Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal for “getting the company out of an impossible situation” and said that taking the company back from Wall Street (public ownership) and the ad model (mostly funded by advertising) was a good move.

Challenges 

Although Musk is optimistic about Twitter’s future, many are wondering how he can add more revenue. To achieve this, Musk’s Twitter must tackle many other challenges. These include:

– Musk’s view that Twitter has done too much to control its platform, and that there needs to be more free speech could make advertisers nervous. Twitter currently relies upon advertising for 90 per cent of its revenues. If more free speech means less restrictive moderation and potentially toxic content, advertisers may fear that their brands may be tarnished by association and stop ad spends with Twitter.

– Some brand managers have criticised Twitter as becoming a less engaging and interesting platform over the last year where a high expectation customer-service perception can easily lead to complaints and trolling.

– Even though Twitter has a daily user base of 229 million people, the company hasn’t generated significant profits in nearly nine years as a public company and share values have lagged behind those of rivals.

– Ongoing, stiff competition from other social media platforms (e.g. TikTok) and their visions for the future, e.g. Meta providing new potential advertising ideas for companies.

– The unusual nature of the deal to buy Twitter, i.e. more cash than the typical buyout and more debt than Twitter may be able to cope with. This, combined with the underwhelming profits, and the dangers of free speech and its deterrent effect on advertisers could threaten the company’s ability to pay off the high debt and interest payments.

– No other current meaningful source of revenue other than advertising, meaning that the company may have to continue with its current model for longer. No real revenue source changes coupled with nervous advertisers could create huge risk.

– Fears for Tesla. For example, some people have expressed concern that Musk’s Twitter deal and the work needed to make changes and create more revenue could take his attention away from Tesla. Also, Musk selling Tesla shares and putting them up as collateral for personal loans to raise cash means that Tesla’s value may now be linked to Twitter’s. This could mean that any problems with Twitter, e.g. caused by the wrong kind of “free speech” or trouble paying back debt could mean Musk drawing even more on Tesla stock, thereby creating more risk for Tesla.

Adding Revenue To Twitter

However, it’s not all doom and gloom. It’s worth remembering some of the things that the deal has going for it. For example:

– An established global platform with huge user numbers and influence.

– Elon Musk’s track record at launching successful companies (PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX), and his positive personal brand values, e.g. adding some excitement and interest and a focus on innovative ideas and the future.

– A better than expected number of monetisable daily active users / mDAU figure (despite the error), good projected growth figures, and a recent jump in net income (due to $1bn coming from the sale of Twitter’s mobile advertising unit MoPub to AppLovin).

With this in mind (plus Musk’s dislike for traditional advertising models) and his intention to make changes, there are several ways that Twitter’s revenue could be improved. These include:

– The enhanced product features, open-source algorithms, spam-beating and authentication changes building trust among advertisers (and attracting new ones) while creating new revenue opportunities.

– Crypto advertisers, knowing about Musk’s liking for cryptocurrencies, buying more advertising with Twitter.

– A focus on subscription concepts like Blue. This subscription service, launched in June 2021 in Australia and Canada (Twitter’s first subscription service), offering a set of special features and perks to subscribers. Musk’s Tweets have also signalled a possible offering of the Twitter verified blue checkmark, and ad-free interface and additional edit capabilities bundled with the Blue subscription fee.

– New types of experiential and immersive advertising which command higher rates from advertisers (again, remembering Musk’s dislike of traditional advertising).

– Changes to executive pay and layoffs, thereby decreasing costs.

– New ways of monetising Tweets. For example, charging companies fees for embedding or quote-tweeting verified users.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Although Elon Musk has succeeded in buying Twitter, there are many challenges and risks to overcome to start producing more revenue and relying less on traditional advertising. In the meantime, Musk needs to keep advertisers on-board and convince them that Twitter will be the home of the right kind of ‘free speech,’ keep Twitter competitive, and start rolling out some fresh ideas, fast. In essence, it’s going to be a case of innovating, segmentation (for subscription-based services like ‘Blue’), adding value, and augmenting Twitter’s product in a way that prolongs its product life cycle. If a shake-up and some new vision is needed, Elon Musk may certainly be capable of providing that, and the hope is that advertisers like Musk’s ideas (as the ex-CEO of Twitter does) and the kind of direction that he thinks Twitter should go in. For Twitter employees and Board members, it looks like being a time of uncertainty and possible bad news employment-wise, although competitors may see Twitter having the world’s richest man with plenty of big business success behind him, a strong personal brand, and a sometimes-unpredictable style as a threat. Twitter’s advertisers will be watching closely for any possible negative ‘free speech’ that could rub-off on their brand and may be preparing possible alternative advertising strategies. Some business advertisers may welcome Musk and new advertising opportunities. With Tesla’s fate now tied-in with that of Twitter, the near future is likely to be worrying. However, as always with Elon Musk, his many different tweets and comments mean that it is hard to say exactly what happens next, and even though the challenge is substantial, it probably wouldn’t be prudent to bet against him succeeding.

Google has announced that it is changing its policies to allow more types of personally identifiable information removal requests.

Personal Information Showing Up In Google Search 

Google acknowledges that personally identifiable information of some users can and does show up in Google search queries. This can make users concerned, e.g. about how it could be used against them in harmful ways such as scams, hacking and fraud, unwanted direct contact, or even physical harm. This is why Google’s users can submit a request to Google that certain personally identifiable information is removed from Search.

Removal Requests Limited To Certain Situations Before 

Although, for many years, users have been able to request the removal of certain sensitive, personally identifiable information from Google’s Search, it has only been allowed in certain cases, e.g. doxxing or where information like bank account or credit card numbers are visible that could be used for financial fraud.

New Policy Expansion 

This new policy expansion by Google means that users can now request the removal of additional types of information when they find it in Search results. For example, users can now request the removal of personal contact information like a phone number, email address, or physical address. The policy also allows for the removal of additional information that may pose a risk for identity theft, such as confidential log-in credentials when it appears in Search results.

Why The Change? 

Google says that this change in policy is in response to the fact that the internet is always evolving and with information popping up in unexpected places and being used in new ways, its policies and protections now need to evolve too.

The policy change may also reflect the fact that GDPR, which is now well established, gives users the ‘right to be forgotten’, the UK’s Online Safety Bill is on the way to becoming law, and the tech industry in the U.S. has also come under increased regulatory scrutiny. For example, following a hearing by the US Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security last October about kids and online safety, Google started allowing people under 18 or their parents request to the deletion of their photos from search results. Google also now allows requests from users for the removal from Google Search of non-consensual explicit or intimate personal images and involuntary fake pornography.

The new policy changes will, therefore, bring Google further in line with these new laws designed to protect users and their privacy, and help it to avoid more regulatory scrutiny.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

An increased amount of scrutiny, the tightening of existing policy and the introduction of new regulations around privacy (and particularly the protection of children online) appear to be the drivers of Google’s new policy changes. Businesses and organisations in the UK, for example, have had a legal responsibility for many years under GDPR (now UK GDPR) to give people the ‘right to be forgotten’. It may, therefore, seem only fair that Google, which has the power to cause great upset and harm (through what’s displayed in its search engine results) is now making it easier for people to request that certain information and images which could be used against them be removed. Many users may have found it frustrating in the past to have to make requests that may not have been granted, with Google having the final say over certain information or images that a UK company would have been legally obliged to quickly remove. It is, of course, good news also that these recent policy changes could offer children and young people more protection. There is still, however, some way to go with more effort and investment and changes needed from the social media companies to make the Internet a much safer place for all.

With many governments (including the UK Government) being targeted with Pegasus phone-spying software, there’s now news that Spain’s PM’s has also been hit.

What Is Pegasus? 

Pegasus spyware is sold by Israeli-based NSO Group to governments to carry out surveillance by infecting phones with surveillance software. The software is sold to nation states, for millions of (US) dollars as a complete surveillance toolkit.

What Can It Do? 

Pegasus can extract the contents of a phone, give the operator access to any texts, photographs, the camera, and the microphone. This gives the Pegasus operator the ability to conduct real-time surveillance and extract sensitive data. Pegasus is typically used by law enforcement for tracking criminals, or for authoritarians / governments listening-in on people of interest such as journalists and activists as a way of quashing dissent.

What Happened In Spain? 

Spain’s minister for the presidency, Félix Bolaños, recently announced at a press conference that the mobile phones of both Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez, and defence minister Margarita Robles had been infected by Pegasus in May and June 2021.

Data Extracted 

It was announced that the phones belonging to Spain’s PM Pedro Sánchez phone had been infected twice, resulting in a large amount of data being extracted.

Who Was Responsible? 

No country has been specifically identified but, based on that claim that the data extraction couldn’t be traced to any Spanish state agency, the perpetrators have been described as an “external” force.

Previous Infections – Catalan’s Politicians & More 

Earlier this month, the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab revealed that at least 65 Catalan politicians and activists had been targeted by Pegasus and Candiru spyware. These included the president of the Catalan government, Pere Aragonès, European Parliament members, Catalan legislators, jurists, activists, and some of their family members. It has been reported that suspicion over these hacks have been focused on the Spanish government in Madrid given its opposition to and the crushing of Catalonia’s attempt at independence.

Inquiry To Meet 

Following the spyware attack and the potentially serious consequences, the European Parliament’s Pegasus inquiry will meet this week in Strasbourg to find a way to stop spyware being used in Europe.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Many countries are reported to be using Pegasus and similar solutions, mostly as a constructive way to fight crime and get the heads-up on any possible national security threats. It was perhaps not a surprise that the finger was pointed at Madrid over the use of spyware on Catalan politicians but the discoveries of spying on the heart of the UK and Spain’s government has caused real concern. Although European governments probably recognise the importance of their own use of perhaps Pegasus or similar, these recent incidents could galvanize efforts in the EU to provide better protection and find a way to stop spyware being used across Europe. Ways to avoid phone infection by Pegasus includes rebooting the device daily (to clean it), disabling iMessage and Facetime (exploitation vectors), keeping the device up to date with the latest patches, and never clicking on unsolicited links in SMS or email messages.

New research by British Gas (Centrica) has revealed that UK households could save an average of £147 per year on their electricity bills by switching off their ‘vampire electronics’.

What Are Vampire Devices? 

So-called ‘vampire devices’ are those household electronic devices, plugged into the mains, that continue to drain power when left on standby. These include remote-ready devices with an obvious standby-mode (indicated by a light) such as TVs, PC monitors, and games consoles. Other less obvious, non-remote vampire devices include smart speakers, alarm clocks, microwaves, digital radios, charging laptops and mobiles, white goods, and kitchen appliances and gadgets, such as coffee machines.

The biggest energy-draining vampire devices identified in the British Gas (Centrica) research in terms of cost and hours left on standby are TVs, Set top box/ satellite boxes, and modems/ internet routers.

Unaware 

The British Gas research showed that almost most one in five (16 per cent) of UK householders were unaware that many household appliances use up electricity whilst not in use, and over one in three (35 per cent) said they wish they’d known devices were costing them money whilst on standby.

Effort 

It is not surprising that, given the well-publicised hike in energy prices, almost two thirds of those in the British Gas research (63 per cent) said they would make more effort to switch their appliances off now they know they could save money. However, of the 21 per cent who said they will continue to leave appliances on standby when inactive, 50 per cent said this was because the effort of switching them off isn’t worth the cost saving.

Older People More Likely To Switch-Off Devices 

The British Gas research also showed that while three quarters of those aged 55-64 said they would switch off appliances to save money on bills, just over one third (35 per cent) of 18-24-year-olds said they found the idea less appealing.

Tips 

Some tips for stopping energy being wasted and reducing energy bills by limiting the effects of vampire devices include:

– Swich off devices at the mains at night rather than leaving them on standby.

– Make it easier to switch off devices at night by adding several to one extension lead.

– Consider using smart plugs. These allow you to check everything is turned off from your phone.

– Turn off lights when you leave a room and use a smart thermostat to avoid heating unnecessarily.

– Only operate the washing machine and dishwasher when they are full and avoid putting too much water in the kettle if it’s just for one cup of tea.

– Avoid over-charging mobiles and laptops unnecessarily.

– Consider using a smart meter.

What Does This Mean For Your Organisation? 

As highlighted by the British Gas research, knowing what vampire devices are and changing habits to switch off at the mains at night can make an enormous difference to bills, and help reduce greenhouse gas production. With hybrid working, for example, adopting these energy conserving, bill-busting tips could help reduce the overall household bill and smaller business may find it easier to locate and switch-off power draining devices. Bigger companies and SMEs can combine good practice over limiting the effects of vampire devices with other measures such as energy audits, teaching staff how to save energy, switching tariffs, keeping equipment up to date (energy efficiency), using timers, thermostats, and smart meters, looking at lighting efficiency, and generating their own power e.g., solar panels.

WhatsApp is warning users that scammers are sending messages from fake WhatsApp Support accounts, some of which even have a profile photo containing a verified badge. WhatsApop says these scam contacts are asking for private information such as credit card details to avoid terminating a WhatsApp account and, in some cases, for the user’s 6-digit code to log into the WhatsApp account. If users receive any such messages, the advice is to block and report the contact within their chat info.

If you need a really fast and simple way to remove the background from any photo, you may wish to try using ‘removebg’. Here’s how it works:

– Go to www.remove.bg.

– Click on ‘Upload An Image’ to upload the photo from your device that you would like to remove the background from.

– The website tool automatically and instantly removes the background.

– Click on the ‘Download Image’ button to download a .png file of the photo with the background removed.

Please note, we have no affiliation to this app or website and are simply suggesting it as a fast problem-solver that we have noticed and tried. Other options and programs for removing photo backgrounds are, of course, available.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria and particularly sustainability are now key to many business spending decisions. Here we look at some of the current key trends.

Ten Trends 

1. Putting sustainability at the heart of the business. This is now much more than just an attractive concept. The need to tackle global warming, meet net-zero targets, appeal to environmentally aware customers, and compete successfully means that sustainability is now a highly valued feature of products and services has made sustainability an important trend. Businesses and organisations that can be proactive and successfully manage sustainability transformation have a brighter future. As part of a company’s broader ESG efforts, measuring, assessing, and monitoring a company’s sustainability impacts can help it to pinpoint priority areas to change to improve sustainability.

2. Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG) frameworks. These are the global standardised frameworks for measuring and managing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from both private and public sector companies, organistions, operations and value chains. By understanding what Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions are, companies are finding that they are better able to make the realistic goals and targets required to address them. For example, Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions e.g., from the factory or vehicles, and Scope 2 emissions are indirect greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere e.g., from HVAC systems. Scope 3 emissions make up the majority and include those generated from upstream sources (raw materials production) and downstream sources (distribution and recycling).

3. Extending product life cycles through the circular economy. In technology, for example, this could include the recycling of precious metals in phone handsets and other e-waste and increasing ‘fix your own device’ possibilities, information, and help.

4. Addressing climate adaptation as part of a risk mitigation strategy. Climate change adaption refers to making alterations that can accommodate the current and future effects of climate change, thereby attempting to avoid disruption to operations, supply chains, and customers.

5. Creating a more sustainable supply chain by making greater efforts to connect data gaps and help achieve sustainability goals across the whole supply chain.

6. Being more honest in disclosing carbon footprint information. For example, because of this need, some large banks are now exploring ways to move investment from more carbon-intensive industries to industries that are actively reducing emissions.

7. Creating ‘Green IT’ services and structures. Tech heavy industries are now looking at ways to reduce carbon emissions across their IT functions and supply chains. Also, big technology companies e.g., Microsoft and Google are currently working on minimising the carbon footprint of their data centres.

8. Impact sourcing. Many companies and organisations are trying to prioritise a focus on employing marginalised and disadvantaged populations, reducing workplace bias, and increasing diversity.

9. Turning to more responsible and transparent AI and using a more holistic approach to minimise the chance for algorithms (which are now widely used) to cause harm.

10. Improving ESG analytics and reporting to help stay ahead of developments and keep stakeholders informed.

What Does This Mean For Your Organisation? 

These trends indicate the value that is now placed upon sustainability and the investment and efforts that businesses and organisations are putting into the many strands needed to achieve goals and hit targets. Businesses and organisations are now not just focused on their own operations, but on the genuine sustainability credentials of all those along the supply chain and across their value chains.

The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab has reported finding evidence that Pegasus spyware was being used to listen-in on UK government networks for 10 Downing Street and the Foreign and Commonwealth Offices (FCO) in 2020 and 2021.

Pegasus 

Pegasus spyware is sold by Israeli-based NSO Group to governments to carry out surveillance by infecting phones with malicious surveillance software. Pegasus is essentially a complete surveillance toolkit that’s generally sold to nation states at prices that could be millions of US dollars. The software can extract the contents of a phone, give the operator access to any texts, photographs, the camera, and the microphone. This gives the Pegasus operator the ability to conduct real-time surveillance, e.g. of private meetings. Pegasus is used for several surveillance purposes, e.g. by law enforcement tracking criminals, or for authoritarians / governments listening-in on people of interest such as journalists and activists as a way of quashing dissent. For example, Spain has recently been reported as being implicated in the use of Pegasus (and Candiru) to spy on 65 individuals related to Catalonia’s government.

Who Was Listening? 

The Citizen Lab has reported that the suspected infections related to the FCO were associated with Pegasus operators linked to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), India, Cyprus, and Jordan. Also, the suspected infection at the UK Prime Minister’s Office has been linked to the UAE.

How Did They Get Infected With Spyware? 

According to The Citizen Lab, it is because the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and its successor office, the Foreign Commonwealth and Development office (FCDO), have personnel in many countries. The suspected FCO infections may, therefore, have related to FCO devices located abroad and using foreign SIM cards. This is a similar situation to the hacking of foreign phone numbers used by US State Department employees in Uganda in 2021. Citizen Lab has also concluded that Pegasus was used to infect a device connected to 10 Downing Street’s network and the office of Prime Minister Boris Johnson on July 26 and 27, 2020. It was the servers to which the data was transmitted which led The Citizen Lab suspects to suspect that the UAE was most likely behind the hack.

In addition to the Downing Street infection, Citizen Lab reports that phones connected to the Foreign Office were hacked using Pegasus on at least five occasions, from July, 2020, through June, 2021.

NSO Says.. 

NSO Group, the makers of the surveillance software are reported to have said that the recent allegations about the use of its software are false and that organisations like The Citizens Lab are politically motivated, and their reports may be inaccurate.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Pegasus is known to be widely used by governments and agencies around the world and has legitimate uses e.g., tracking criminals. However, its ability to provide real-time surveillance and the difficulty in detecting it are likely reasons why it appears to have been used for many less savoury purposes and surveillance linked to repression. It is, of course, worrying that it could be so easy for (allegedly) other states to listen-in on Downing Street and the UK Prime Minister, the implications of which we don’t yet fully know.  Research fromfrom Amnesty International and Citizen Lab suggest that ways individuals can avoid infection by Pegasus includes rebooting the device daily (to clean it), disabling iMessage and Facetime (exploitation vectors), keeping the device up to date with the latest patches, and never clicking on unsolicited links in SMS or email messages.

In this tech insight, we look at what ‘toxic’ backlinks are, how to identify them, and how to remove them.

Backlinks

Backlinks (incoming links) are believed to be one of Google’s top three ranking factors. Trustworthy backlinks from websites with a high authority score are a factor which contribute to higher search engine rankings. However, some lower quality links, perhaps from suspect websites, referred to as unnatural links / spammy links / “toxic links” can have an opposite negative effect on search engine rankings.

What Makes A Link “Toxic”? 

According to Google’s guidelines, “Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any behaviour that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.” For example, this could include buying or selling links that pass PageRank, excessive link exchanges, large-scale article marketing or guest posting campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links and using automated programs or services to create links to a website. Also, Google identifies links that weren’t editorially placed or vouched for by the site’s owner on a page as being “unnatural links”. Examples are text advertisements, paid-for advertorials or native advertising that all pass PageRank (PageRank is a value of importance allocated to a page by Google’s algorithms).

In summary, a toxic link is a non-editorially placed link that comes from websites that have been set up for the purpose of linking out, and which aren’t topically relevant, and aren’t indexed by Google. Also, toxic links can be links:

– Forced in blog comments or on a private blog network (PBN).

– From ‘spun’ content. This involves writing one article, using software to spin it into many different variations, and posting it on different directories while including backlinks from the text.

– Hidden in footers.

In low-quality directories.

– Included on every page of a website

– Using exact match keywords or followed links marked as sponsored.

– From large reciprocal linking schemes (lacking relevance).

– From a widget or plugin (putting the link there as the developer).

– From scaled guest posting (platforms solely for exchanging guest posts).

Opposite of Toxic = Quality Links 

The kinds of links that are unlikely to be marked as toxic and really could deliver a boost to search engine rankings are what could be considered ‘quality’ links. These are essentially links that have been editorially placed as a result of someone finding the content on a valuable page and choosing to link to it. It also helps if that link comes from a trusted, relevant web page with a good PageRank that has the potential to send referral traffic, and uses a relevant keyword / key phrase in the anchor link.

How Toxic Links Are Discovered 

The main ways that toxic links from web pages to websites are discovered include being identified by search engine algorithms, a competitor submitting a spam report to the search engine, or simply being in a niche that’s known for spam. Competitors may also discover a website’s toxic links by using specialist SEO software, e.g. SEMRush.

Consequences Of Having / Building Toxic Links

If a website has unnatural / spammy / toxic backlinks, the consequences could be:

– A drop in search engine rankings.

– A manual action by the search engines being triggered, e.g. a review. This could mean a ranking penalty being applied to certain pages (or site-wide) until the toxic links are removed from the pages they came from.

– The links being ignored by the search engines, bringing no benefit to the website.

How To Discover Whether Your Website Has Toxic Links 

In order to discover what backlinks you have (and which may be toxic), conduct a website (root domain) link audit of the website. This can be carried out manually, or using specialist SEO audit programs, e.g. SemRush, Majestic, SpyFu, Screaming Frog, and many more. Link audits can also be paid-for and outsourced to digital marketing companies or agencies. Also, Google’s Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) can be used.

Once the toxic links have been identified:

– Build a remove list (and a whitelist).

– Contact the site owners for your ‘remove list’ and manually ask them to remove links to your site, keeping a record of which ones and what the response was. Software tools include templates for removal requests.

– For all those that don’t reply, create a ‘disavow list’ (text) for the links that need to be removed. Login to Google Search Console, submit the file via Google’s link disavow tool, and wait.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

The quality of a website’s backlinks has been for many years, and still is an important factor for helping to decide both PageRank and search engine rankings. Google for example, has clear guidelines about what makes a quality link, and what will be regarded as an unnatural (toxic) link. There are now many ways e.g., using specialist SEO software to discover which links could be holding a website back from achieving the kind of better rankings which could translate into more sales and enquiries. Also, insights into backlinks to competitor websites can help to deliver competitive advantage. This is why many companies and organisations now regularly monitor their toxic backlinks either in-house or outsourced to a third-party as well as trying to keep expanding their quality backlinks.