On "Google: We Don't Penalize For Old Outbound Links With Shady Content"

Mueller's right that you don't get dinged for links you can't control, but this answer dodges the harder question: whether Google weights those old links as credibility signals anymore. A stale link to a page that became spam is probably worthless to you now, not harmful, which is different from what most SEOs worry about—whether their site's authority gets dragged down by association. The practical move is still to audit old links and disavow the clearly toxic ones, not because of penalties but because they're dead weight in your profile. Treat this as permission to stop obsessing, not an excuse to ignore link rot.