Cleaning up a toxic backlink profile and rebuilding search the right way
Undoing a previous agency's spam links, then rebuilding authority with genuine editorial coverage.
- Client
- Harbour Financial
- Year
- 2024
Harbour came to us after a previous agency had quietly bought thousands of low-quality backlinks. Rankings had climbed briefly, then collapsed, and traffic had flatlined for over a year. In a regulated, trust-sensitive sector, a backlink profile full of spam wasn't just useless — it was a liability that made the whole domain look untrustworthy to Google.
The approach
An honest backlink audit
We audited the full link profile, separating the genuinely earned links from the toxic ones, and documented exactly how the domain had got into trouble so there were no surprises.
A careful cleanup, not a panic
We worked through removals where we could, then built and submitted a considered disavow file for the rest — methodically, so we cleaned up the spam without throwing away links that were actually helping.
Technical foundations fixed
We resolved crawl and indexation issues, tightened the site architecture and internal linking, and made sure the pages that mattered could finally be understood and ranked.
Links earned, not bought
We rebuilt authority through digital PR — original commentary and data pitched to financial and regional press — so new links came from real editorial coverage that both Google and clients trust.
What it delivered
- −92%
- of toxic referring domains removed or disavowed
- +140%
- organic traffic over twelve months
- 18
- earned editorial links from genuine press coverage
- Page 1
- for priority advice-led search terms
“The Marketing District were the first people to actually explain what the last agency had done to us. They cleaned up the mess, did the links properly this time, and our traffic has climbed steadily ever since.”
Related case studies
Brightwell Plumbing — local service build
A fast, findable site for a heating firm — structured for local search and designed to win the call.
Craftson Ceramics — Shopify replatform
A careful WooCommerce-to-Shopify migration that kept the rankings and rebuilt the buying journey around speed.
Got a brief like this?
Tell us where you are and where you want to be. We'll tell you, plainly, whether we can help and what it would take.