404 backlinks to my website

404 backlinks from lots of spam websites

[carlweitz]

So, I have a question regarding a bunch of broken backlinks discovered in semrush. For example: I see a link on a website that directs to one of my webpages, when I click on that website I see a 404 page and today I disovered 500+ such broken backlinks, for example:

and I don't know why but they were discovered in one day and they seem to break on the same day.
The reason why asking, I see a drastic drop in rankings, pageviews and visitors. I know I might sound histeric, but I made audit of website and I have no technical seo problems, nor buy backlinks, etc.
Can someone please give me a clue where should I dig?
Thank you so much!
Best Regards,
Carl

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 3:02 pm (utc) on May 24, 2022]
[edit reason] nuked the links...no need for the issue. [/edit]

[Brett_Tabke]

Hey, welcome to WebmasterWorld,

Really hard to say what is going on there. I don't think we can determine that from your description. There is really only speculation we could do.

> discovered

SemRush is good, but did the back links show up in Google or Bing as indexed?

[not2easy]

Hi carlweitz and welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]

You can look into links in your GSC (Google Search Console) account. If you find 404 errors from links to your site that you had nothing to do with, it is usually because Google has determined that the links were not real links but rather the work of bots and scripts. It is not something to be too concerned about, it happens and goes away and Google can figure out that it is not related to you or your site.

Brett is right, if you don't see these links in search results, don't be too concerned.

[carlweitz]

Hello and sorry for replying so late. Thank you, Dear Brett Tabke and not2easy for your replies (thanks for welcoming me! :) ). Anyway, I can't upload an image on this topic, that's why I use a link (https://ibb.co/r0j79r8). You see, the drop in pageviews and ranking started in april 20, 21, 22, and then of a sudden, it hit down on the 19th of May. Could it be some kind of google update, I did nothing with my website during these months.

[not2easy]

We have a monthly thread where people from around the world compare notes and observations regarding Google on an almost hourly basis: [webmasterworld.com...] The most recent posts there would agree with what you are seeing over the past week or so. It is likely an adjustment of some type.

[carlweitz]

Oh, thank you Dear not2easy for your reply. I will check the link you provided! Have a nice day! :)

[martinibuster]

There is no connection between 404 and ranking drops. 404 Page Not Found is a good response for pages that do not exist and are 100% natural and normal.

If you are worried about ranking drops, look elsewhere.

Many have been posting about ranking drops so it appears that something may have changed to a specific part of Google's algorithm but not enough to qualify as a core algorithm update.

In my opinion they probably updated their algorithms with more efficient AI or hardware or both.

[carlweitz]

Hello Dear martinbuster! Thank you for your response and I agree with you 100%! The only thing is that my friend has a similar project in the same niche and he wasn't targeted by that "strange" update. We started our projects at the same time, but he has no changes at all. It's very strange I must admit. Anyway, thank you for your time and information.