For a lot of Nepali businesses, Dashain and Tihar are the busiest weeks of the year. People shop for new clothes, book trips home, plan treks and squeeze in appointments before the holidays. More people are searching, so whatever shows up on Google gets a closer look.
That makes this a good time to check your backlinks. Some of the links pointing to your site are helping you. Some aren’t doing much. A few might even be hurting you, and you’d never know unless you looked.
A backlink audit isn’t complicated. The slow part is fixing what you find, because you’re usually waiting on other site owners to reply. That’s why it pays to start before the rush.
The Short Version
Quick Answer: A backlink audit means going through the links that point to your website and spotting the ones that look irrelevant, low quality or risky. You collect your backlinks, look at where each one comes from, flag the weak ones and decide what to do about them. Do it before a busy season and you’ll have time to act on what you find.
What an Audit Can (and Can’t) Do
An audit shows you who links to you, whether those sites make sense for your business, and whether any links look suspicious. If you’re new to the basics, our guide to inbound and outbound links explains how links work.
What it won’t do is guarantee better rankings. Backlinks matter, but Google looks at plenty of other things too. Be careful with anyone who promises rankings from links alone. Think of the audit as a health check that catches problems early and protects the links you already have.
Why Do It Before Dashain?
Mostly because you’ll have time. Emailing site owners and waiting for a reply can drag on for weeks, and nobody wants to deal with that in the middle of the festive season.
An audit now also gives you a “before” picture. Once the season is over, you can compare and see what changed. And if there’s a spammy link sitting on your profile, it’s much easier to deal with now than halfway through a sales campaign.
The Backlink Audit Checklist
Go through these in order. For a small business site, the first round usually takes an afternoon.
- Collect your backlinks. Open the Links report in Google Search Console. It lists the external sites linking to your verified site. If you use a free backlink checker, add its results too. No single tool catches every link, so combine what you have.
- Check if the link makes sense. Is the linking site related to what you do? A trekking agency getting a link from a travel blog is normal. The same agency getting a link from a random gambling page is not.
- Look at the quality. Good links tend to sit inside the main content of a page, use natural, descriptive anchor text and come from lots of different websites, not dozens of pages on one site.
- Watch for red flags. Some patterns are things Google specifically discourages: paid links that aren’t disclosed, link farms, private blog networks, lots of “you link me, I link you” swaps, anchor text stuffed with keywords and automated comment spam. Our white-hat link building strategies show what healthy link earning looks like.
- Put each link in a group. Keep the ones that are clearly fine. Keep an eye on the ones you’re unsure about. Dig into the ones that look harmful or make no sense.
- Deal with the bad ones. Ask the site owner to remove the link, or to mark it nofollow if it’s paid or untrusted. Google also has a disavow tool, but treat it as a last resort for links you can’t get removed, and only use it if you’re seeing a real pattern of spam.
- Write it down and check again later. Save your list with the date and what you decided for each link. Then take another look once the festive season is over.
Good Links vs. Links Worth a Second Look
| What to check | Usually fine | Worth a closer look |
|---|---|---|
| Topic of the linking site | Related to your business | Has nothing to do with you |
| Where the link sits | Inside a useful article or page | Footer, sidebar or a list of random links |
| Anchor text | Reads naturally | The same exact keyword over and over |
| Number of sources | Many different websites | Lots of links from one site or network |
| How you got it | Outreach, partnerships, genuine mentions | Bought, automated or swapped in bulk |
Who Should Check First?
Any business with a busy season will benefit, but some feel it more than others.
Online stores are near the top of the list. A clothing shop like Newish Fashion Destiny needs its product pages showing up when people search for festive outfits, so a clean link profile matters before a big sale.
Travel and trekking companies are another. An agency like Discover Himalaya Nepal is often seen by people visiting its site for the first time, and trust counts for a lot.
Clinics and service businesses round it out. A practice like Agni Dental wants local patients landing on a site that looks credible and well kept.
Mistakes People Make
- Removing every link they don’t recognise. Not knowing a site doesn’t make it bad. Check relevance and quality before deciding anything.
- Obsessing over a score. Metrics like Domain Authority come from third-party tools. Google doesn’t use them, so don’t treat them as the final word.
- Rushing to disavow. If there’s no real problem, the disavow tool can do more harm than good.
- Doing it once and forgetting about it. Websites change all the time. Pages get deleted, sites get redesigned and links come and go.
FAQs
What is a backlink audit?
It’s a review of the links pointing to your site, done to catch ones that look irrelevant, low quality or risky.
How do I do one?
Pull your backlinks from Google Search Console and any free checker you use. Look at each linking site for relevance and quality, then sort the links into keep, watch and investigate.
What are toxic backlinks?
Links that look fake or manipulative, like ones from link farms, private blog networks, undisclosed paid placements or automated spam.
Should I remove low-quality backlinks?
Not straight away. First check whether the link is actually irrelevant or part of a spammy pattern. If it is, ask the site owner to remove it or make it nofollow.
How often should I check my backlinks?
There’s no fixed rule. A good habit is before and after your busy season, plus any time you notice something odd.
Will an audit improve my rankings?
Not on its own. Backlinks are just one factor, so an audit protects what you have but can’t promise a particular result.
Final Thoughts
Checking your backlinks before Dashain shows you which links are working for you and which ones need attention, while you still have time to do something about it. Go through the checklist, note what you decide, and check again after the holidays.
Don’t have time to do it yourself? Backlinks Nepal offers a free backlink audit, with no strings attached. You can also read our guide to digital backlink agencies in Nepal before you decide who to work with, or message us on WhatsApp (+977-9709085038).