Google has been saying negative SEO is really not a thing and has been saying that for years and years. But it is rare to see a Googler respond to a specific concern raised by an SEO. But that is what John Mueller of Google did the other day.
John responded to one specific example on Twitter saying that he looked "at the site, I don't see any negative seo effects there." He then added "most of those links have no effect at all." He said in general "sites collect links from all kinds of weird & spammy places over time" and because of that Google is "pretty good at ignoring them," and by "them" he means bad links.
Here is the original question:
I'll defer to @JohnMu but I believe we generally view that as an optional thing.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) November 21, 2019
Here is John's response:
FWIW looking at the site, I don't see any negative seo effects there. Like the others in the forums posted, most of those links have no effect at all -- sites collect links from all kinds of weird & spammy places over time, we're pretty good at ignoring them.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) November 21, 2019
Forum discussion at Twitter.
