Technical Definition
Toxic links are backlinks from low-quality, spammy, or manipulative sources that could harm rankings. Examples: link farms, paid link networks, irrelevant link schemes. Google's algorithms (Penguin) can devalue or penalize sites with toxic link profiles. Identified through link audits. The disavow tool can be used to disclaim toxic links.
Simple Explanation (ELI13)
Toxic links are bad backlinks from spammy or sketchy websites. Having too many can hurt your rankings or even get you penalized. They might come from link schemes, hacked sites, or paid links. If you find toxic links pointing to your site, you can tell Google to ignore them using the disavow tool.
Related Terms
Link Audit, Disavow, Penguin, Link Spam
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