Should I Pay For Link Removal?
-
Hi,
I'm in the middle of a link removal campaign and getting a lot of replies from site owners asking for payment or directing me to a link which is effectively a payment page.
The way I see it is my client is paying me to do their SEO. I'd rather be spending my time and their money building quality links, therefore the link removal process is in my way and requests for payment an insult.
However, I am not without sympathy for site owners being expected to remove links free of charge. After all there's absolutely no incentive for them.
So far I've had a zero tolerance attitude towards this and refused to pay, but just wondered what everyone else's opinion was.
On the other hand, many site owners have been very helpful and removed the links at my request. Is it the right thing for me to remove these domains from my Disavow Links file?
I'm finding it to be a bit of a moral conundrum to be honest!
-
Anthony, Marie, Chris, thanks a million for your responses, all most helpful.
Chris, it's funny you should mention this: "...site owners probably feel violated and that you essentially got what was coming to you."
The most recent response I had from a site owner was exactly this. The email stated the link had not appeared there by chance, it had been placed free of charge by either my client, or someone acting on their behalf. Which is true, unfortunately.
Marie, the particular sites I'm dealing with at the moment I will never want links from in future
Thanks again for your responses, you've definitely answered my query.
-
You're right. There's no harm in including a file on your disavow even if they have removed your link. However, if you think you could get a natural link from this site in the future you may want to take it off of your list. (That's pretty uncommon though.)
There is a limit to the size of the disavow file (2 MB) but it's pretty hard to reach this limit. If you had a file that was too big then you'd want to not include sites that had removed your link already.
-
Paying for link removal is a conundrum since as you state the site owners probably feel violated and that you essentially got what was coming to you. I have chosen to pay a couple that had been de-indexed from Google and even so, one did remove the links and the other has not.
As to your other question on removing sites from your disavow list that have been cooperative and removed the links, from what I have read there is no harm in disavowing them anyway. The risk is that some site owners may not have properly removed the link and it may come back. They may have temporarily redirected it to hide it or they don't know how to remove it possibly due to an older platform. I would be interested to hear from experts such as Marie on this point.
-
I almost never pay for link removal. John Mueller mentioned in a hangout that if you have a manual review then you can just make a note in your spreadsheet that the site owner asked for money and then just disavow that link.
However, if I have a site where I am really struggling to get links removed, I might recommend paying for a few to come down. I don't like to pay more than $10 per link though.
-
No, you do not have to pay for link removals. Document the request, note they asked for payment, and then disavow the site.
http://www.seroundtable.com/google-disavow-link-payment-17387.html
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Paying for listing rather than a link
Hi If you pay to have a website listed within a web page as it will be beneficial to have it there for both the business and website audience, is this considered a dangerous tactic? The link is relevant to the situation and its not being done simply for a link Thanks in advance
Link Building | | TheZenAgency0 -
Link building strategy - my weak link!
Please help me understand link building. I've read the articles on Moz, but they seem vague to me. Specific questions: 1. How do I get my webpage on good quality sites? 2. Guest blogging? Good or not? 3. What about when people pick up one of our blog stories and publish it on their site with a link back? Is that bad now because it is duplicate content??? 4. Forum posts with a link in the signature? Good or not? 5. Directories - I get it that these are no longer good... are they severely negative? Should I take them down. 6. PR - Looks like this is bad... right??? 7. Youtube - any value? 8. Pinterst, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram? Any value to backlinks here? 9. What about sites like redit? 10. Anything else I should consider?
Link Building | | CalicoKitty20000 -
If you discount a subscription when the client links to you, does that classify as a paid link?
For example, we all subscribe to MOZ, but if we received a 25% discount on our subscription if we linked back, would that be considered by Google as a paid link, or would it be seen as a sales tool / promotion?
Link Building | | JonathanSmith0 -
How much time does it take for the links to be forwarded to redirected link?
Hi there,
Link Building | | MoeezLodhi
Thank you for taking out some time for this question; I have changed the permalinks last week for a website.. I forgot to redirect old permalinks to the new one.. So I did 301 redirection, it has been 4-5 days since I did that but the links are not forwarded to the new Permalink so far.
How much time should I wait for the links to be forwarded to the new permalinks? Secondly, I am sure I have done the 301 redirect correctly, as when I go to the old url / permalink it directs me to the new permalink. So I am sure 301 is done correctly. Do I need to submit the sitemap again?0 -
Using sitewide links to improve link profile?
Hi Guys... When I look at my competitor's link profile, they often have thousands of backlinks. For example, one of our main competitor, he got 3,400 backlinks in total but only 80 referring domains. When I look at my link profile, I have around 50-60 referring domains, but hardly 80 backlinks. My question is, is it okay to get a few sitewide links (no-follow of course!) to get to the thousands backlinks? Or I will be able to achieve top rankings with my current link profile? Thanks!!
Link Building | | TheSEOGuy10 -
Does blocking domains help remove bad links?
I have affiliate websites that are harming for one of 2 reasons: 1. They are on adult websites (and I don't want to be in a bad neighborhood) or 2. They are using a Frameset (so their content appears identical to mine and I am getting "credit" for all their junk links) I cannot get these websites to remove our links so I have blocked their IPs on our production firewall. Is this an effective method or should I do something else with these links?
Link Building | | theLotter0 -
How do I stop Spammy links?
I've just taken over a clients site, and they are clearly being penalized for theier previous agency having purchased from a link network. They have thousands of low value links. Once I have identified them, how do I stop them? Is there a code, or a blocker or something that I can use to reject the links? Thanks in advance guys.
Link Building | | Dekoda_Jones0 -
For a new site, does it matter which sites I get back links from first? I.e., are the first back links more important than later ones?
I've heard that when a site is new, the sources from which it gets its first back links are very important -- that the early links are more important for ranking than later links. Is this true. If so, what would be some good places to get these very first links? Thanks.
Link Building | | sigma3x0