Service Baiting: The Toxic Backlinks You Did Not Buy

Your backlink report may show hundreds of new links from domains you have never heard of. If you bought none of them, open the Manual actions report in Google Search Console first.

We call this service baiting, and the label is ours. It is a review that praises a link vendor and names a real business that never used it. The review then sits on many domains. One such review began appearing against our domain in April 2026.

Tools call links like these toxic. Semrush says there is no official definition, and Google’s spam policies call them link spam.

Why a vendor can name anyone

A private blog network is a group of websites that exist to sell links. They have no real readers. Google’s spam policies list buying links for ranking purposes as link spam. In December 2022 Google said it can detect sites buying links and sites passing links on. It aims to nullify those links at scale and asks people to report inorganic link building. So Google’s systems look at the buyer and at the network. A vendor that claims 5,000 sites can publish anything, including a review with your name in it.

A review we never wrote

Ahrefs first saw this review on 18 April 2026. By 8 August it sat on 225 referring domains. It names our domain:

“Before discovering SEOExpress.org, hautelab.agency barely registered on search engines with minimal traffic. Now? My organic visits have surged by over 300%…”

We have never been a customer of SEOExpress.org. We did not write the review, commission it or approve it. We found it the way you would find yours, by opening our own backlink report. The domains carrying it were in the disavow file we sent to Google on 8 August 2026.

We cannot show who published the pages. They promote SEOExpress.org.

Two of the pages carrying the review, from our Ahrefs backlinks report. Both links are nofollow and both pages carry a spam label. Ahrefs first saw these two pages on 26 July and 19 May 2026. The table below gives 18 April 2026, the earliest date for the whole group.

What the vendor’s homepage said

We looked at the SEOExpress.org homepage on 8 August 2026. It advertised a 5,000-site private blog network and two permanent dofollow links per post. Its headline read “PBN Links That Index. Rank. Dominate.” Those are the vendor’s own claims.

We captured the SEOExpress.org homepage on 8 August 2026.

Update, 13 October 2026: the vendor’s domain now redirects to a different site. That site says the network is winding down and that an SEO company recently acquired the domain.

What it looks like on our own profile

Two waves of anchors reached our profile two months apart, in April and June 2026. The first wave opens like testimonials. The second opens like adverts.

Anchor text	Referring domains	Dofollow links	First seen
“Before discovering SEOExpress.org, hautelab.agency barely registered…”	225	0	18 Apr 2026
“There was a time when nobody could find [a domain] online…”	33	0	18 Apr 2026
“Everything [a domain] needs: premium guest posts, contextual backlinks…”	41	0	18 Jun 2026
“Rank hautelab.agency higher with guest posts and backlinks…”	37	0	19 Jun 2026
“TELEGRAM [handle], SEO BACKLINKS, PBN, TRAFFIC BOOST”	18	0	23 Jun 2026
hautelab.agency (our actual brand name)	17	1	24 Jan 2026

Ahrefs, 8 August 2026. Each date is the earliest first-seen date for that anchor. Square brackets replace the names and handles of other parties.

The largest anchor in our table praises a vendor we have never paid. Our own brand name sits on 17 domains. The review outweighs it by more than 13 to one.

What the dofollow column shows

Look at the dofollow column again. Every vendor row is zero. The only dofollow link in the table sits on our own brand name.

Both pages in the Ahrefs capture carry a nofollow tag. Google has said since 10 September 2019 that it treats nofollow as a hint. It may consider such a link or exclude it, so we do not assume the link is dead.

Our reading is that the April links promote SEOExpress.org. Its homepage sells dofollow links, and these links carry nofollow. We cannot show who placed them. We cannot tie the June wave to that vendor. We cannot prove the intent. A profile that looks alarming in a screenshot may carry little weight. The Manual actions report, and your Search Console messages, tell you whether Google has taken manual action.

Why we read this as service baiting, not a negative SEO attack

A negative SEO attack aims to damage a specific target. By our definition, service baiting aims to sell a product, and the site it names is incidental.

Two features in our table and capture informed that interpretation. They do not prove intent.

• The anchors are sales copy and none opens with a commercial keyword of ours. Three of the five advertise guest posts, backlinks or PBN links. Anchor wording alone cannot tell you whether someone intends to harm your rankings.
• The two pages we captured follow one template. They sit on two domains, open with the same long phrase in the title and share a URL slug.

Real attacks do happen in this sector. Escorta is Italy’s largest Italian-language escort directory. The November 2024 core update cost it 73% of its top-three rankings there. A flood of hostile backlinks followed. Its referring domains went from under 1,000 to over 2,600 in a single month. That is a rise of more than 1,600.

The Escorta case study says a healthy profile does not grow that way. We rebuilt authority to outweigh the flood and watched the profile to separate real links from hostile ones. Average position improved from 12.6 to 7.2.

We cover real attacks in more depth in recovering from a negative SEO attack and false DMCA notices.

Five checks that separate noise from a problem

Run these in order.

1. Open the Manual actions report in Search Console. A green check means Google has taken no manual action. A manual action for unnatural links appears there and in your Search Console messages. If you have one, Google’s steps run in order. Review the links, ask for removal, disavow what you cannot remove, then submit a reconsideration request.
2. Read the anchor text before you count anything. Vendor sales copy or a Telegram handle can suggest promotion. Commercial keywords also deserve investigation, but neither pattern proves intent.
3. Check the dofollow count before you look at volume. A large number of nofollow links from unrelated sites looks like advertising. That is what we saw on our own profile. A smaller number of dofollow links with exact-match commercial anchors is a different conversation.
4. Watch your rankings before you look at Domain Rating. Ahrefs defines Domain Rating against the other sites in its database, so it can move when they do. Your positions on the terms that pay you are the signal that counts.
5. Look at the shape. Check how many domains and destination pages are involved. A concentration on one page is worth investigating, but distribution alone cannot establish intent.

Do not disavow automatically because of this pattern alone. A clear Manual actions report does not rule out a likely future action. Assess Google’s full test below and investigate relevant ranking changes.

When to disavow, and when to leave it alone

Google’s disavow help page says most sites will not need the tool. It sets two conditions. You need a considerable number of spammy, artificial or low-quality links. Those links must also have caused a manual action, or be likely to cause one. The page calls the tool an advanced feature to use with caution.

Our file went further than that. On 8 August 2026 we sent Google one file. It held 486 of the 545 live referring domains across both of our own sites. That is 89% of them.

We classified every one of those 545 live referring domains by hand. We allowlisted 47 as clients, partners, publications and our own group. We left 12 out and flagged them for review, because we were not certain enough to remove them.

Measured against Google’s test, the single file is the outlier. No vendor link in our table is dofollow, and Google’s second condition is a manual action, caused or likely. The file also differs from what we advise elsewhere. Our guide to finding and removing spammy backlinks says most spam links need no action. It also says to disavow in phases. For Escorts and Babes, Australia’s largest adult directory, we built and submitted a disavow file that we refresh quarterly.

Take the 486 as a record of what we did on 8 August 2026. If you are in the same position, check the Manual actions report first. Disavow in phases only if you need to.

If you do disavow, we work to three rules:

• Choose URL or domain scope after reviewing the links. Domain scope excludes all links from that domain, so check for legitimate links before using it.
• Never disavow on low traffic alone. Small legitimate sites and genuine placements look thin in a spreadsheet. Excluding legitimate links can harm search performance.
• Keep a written do-not-disavow list. Ours runs to 47 entries, so nobody re-adds them in six months.

The vendor anchor templates are in our criteria now, because domains change every week and the copy does not. The full test we apply to any link is in our link quality checklist.

Check your report again after you file. Our two waves arrived two months apart. The newest spam domain landed the night before we submitted the file.

HauteLab and the vendor

We have never bought links from SEOExpress.org, and we do not buy links from PBN vendors.

Our Ahrefs report shows 225 domains carrying the review.

A testimonial anchor naming a domain, including a competitor’s, is not evidence that the domain bought anything.

Judge us on our clients’ rankings and on what we tell you. A link report full of spam we did not build says nothing about us. The warning signs that matter are in how to spot a bad SEO agency.

If you are weighing up a link vendor

Buying links from a network that exists to sell them puts a manual action on the table. The alternative is slower. It means placements on real websites with real readers, in this sector, where the page earns the link. Assess each placement on its own merits, and keep records so you can review it later.

That is the work our in-house team has done in the adult sector for more than ten years. Our Backlink Audit reviews every backlink and separates the links that build authority from the ones dragging it down. It hands back a ready-to-upload disavow file.

Not sure whether your report is advertising or a problem? Ask us a question and we will tell you straight. If the answer is that you should do nothing, we will say so.