Can Any Inbound Linking Hurt My Ranking?
The answer is simple – inbound linking cannot hurt your search ranking. How is this known for certain? Well, for one, if inbound were to hurt your rank, your competitors would continually link to your site from link farms. Such a scenario is beyond your control. For this reason, Google cannot penalize your site for any inbound linking. On the other hand, you can be penalized for illegitimate external linking.