Google’s John Mueller said that link spam left in the comments section has no effect on Google Search or SEO. He wrote on Bluesky:

“These links all have no effect – they're from spammers dropping links into comments. These would not have any effect, positive nor negative, on your site.”

In other words, even if a site has a lot of spammy links in its comment sections, those links will not positively or negatively impact the site’s performance in Google Search.

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Context of the exchange

A user posted a comment asking for help with a spammy link that was pointing to their blog:

“I would like to bring an issue to your attention that is caused via below mentioned domain. I have emailed the owner also but no response yet! What I must do now? I have already disavowed in GSC too but our web traffic is constantly dropping.

URL – mattsoncreative.com/blog/2013/09…”

The user also sent a message to the site owner requesting removal of the unwanted anchor tag.

John Mueller’s reply was:

“These links all have no effect – they’re from spammers dropping links into comments. These would not have any effect, positive nor negative, on your site.”

— John Mueller, January 18, 2026 at 3:25 AM

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Additional background

Google has long downplayed link spam as a waste of time to deal with. The company has previously stated that link spam “doesn’t work in forums” and that webmasters can generally ignore it. Discussions on this topic have also taken place on Bluesky.