Consensus on Paying to Remove Links
-
Hi all,
For discussion...
I am painstakingly working my way through a link profile, highlighting 'unnatural links' and contacting webmasters to try and get the links removed - I haven't got as far as 'disavow' or a 'Reconsideration Request'
I have found a large number (around 150) of links from http://www.bookmarks4you.com and when I have attempted to contact the site for link removals I have had a payment request in order to do so.
Now the amount being requested is low and so it may be worthwhile, however, I wondered what the consensus was with regards to this sort of demand?
I know I could simply add the links to my 'disavow list' but for the sake of a small payment, I could get rid of them much quicker!
Also, the majority of sites that I am contacting only have a contact from as opposed to an email address that I can use directly - what I am doing is taking a screen print of each contact form in order to have proof that I am actually doing the 'hard graft' as opposed to simply adding sites to a disavow list - is this a worthwhile exercise?
Many thanks
Andy
-
Did you see much movement with your SERPs after submitting the disavow?
-
-
Remus - thanks so much for the link. Kind of missed that video and it does make sense. Thanks
-
Martin S. I have used the disavow tool and submitted a reconsideration request thought that was clear from my first reply which I explain how google reacted to this?
In particular: A client contacted me recently and I removed roughly 80% of his link profile before submitting a reconsideration request. Google came back and pointed out an article from a spin blog which is not your regular wordpress spam crap rather a very high reputable authoritative site.
Regards
-
-
Anyone out their actually used the disavow tool? A lot of SEO's on Moz recommend it as a (last resort) solution but don't seem to have actually submitted a disavow and documented what happened next.
Anyone?
-
Hi Yiannis,
I did not say they will be blacklisted. But they will have consequences for sure.
Listen to Matt Cutts video about the disavow tool, starting with min 6.20:
-
Noone suffers if you use the disavow link. Because you disavow a web site that doesnt mean that google blacklists it. Not as far as I know at least. Got a source confirming this?
-
Hi Andy,
You do not have to pay the webmasters to remove the links.
Here is a detailed article that could help you:
Google: Don't Pay The Link Mobster For Link Removals, Just Disavow Them
On the long term they will suffer if you use the dissavow tool, so it's in their interest also. The more people will use it against them the worse it will be for them!
-
Hello Andy,
To my experience if the amount is low there is no harm in paying them to remove the links, in the end of the day they will do some admin work and noone wants to work for free (plus they didnt put your links there - you or your SEO guy did). Google wants to see that you are doing effort in getting rid of all the spammy links and they expect that some people would ask money. make sure you include this to your reconsideration request document, at least I did.
A quick advise. Make sure you remove EVERYTHING that is spammy. That includes even one single article you spinned. Once you submit the reconsideration request they will dig in to see if you have any further faults.
A client contacted me recently and I removed roughly 80% of his link profile before submitting a reconsideration request. Google came back and pointed out an article from a spin blog which is not your regular wordpress spam crap rather a very high reputable authoritative site. While other people hosting articles do not have a "link warning" or "manual penalty" Google still says it should be removed.
Best of luck!
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
-
Does redirecting a duplicate page NOT in Google‘s index pass link juice? (External links not showing in search console)
Hello! We have a powerful page that has been selected by Google as a duplicate page of another page on the site. The duplicate is not indexed by Google, and the referring domains pointing towards that page aren’t recognized by Google in the search console (when looking at the links report). My question is - if we 301 redirect the duplicate page towards the one that Google has selected as canonical, will the link juice be passed to the new page? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Lewald10 -
Top hierarchy pages vs footer links vs header links
Hi All, We want to change some of the linking structure on our website. I think we are repeating some non-important pages at footer menu. So I want to move them as second hierarchy level pages and bring some important pages at footer menu. But I have confusion which pages will get more influence: Top menu or bottom menu or normal pages? What is the best place to link non-important pages; so the link juice will not get diluted by passing through these. And what is the right place for "keyword-pages" which must influence our rankings for such keywords? Again one thing to notice here is we cannot highlight pages which are created in keyword perspective in top menu. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
More bad links
Hi, After a recent disastrous dalliance with a rogue SEO company I disavowed quite a few domains (links he had gained) which I was receiving a penalty of about 23 places. I cleaned up the site and added meta descriptions where missing, and deleted duplicate titles and pages. This gained me another 5 places. In the meantime I have been getting a few links from wedding blogs, adobe forums and other relevant sites so was expecting an upward momentum. Since the high point of bottom of page 1 I have slowly slid back down to near the bottom of page two for my main keywords. Just checked my webmaster tools latest links and another 4 domains have appeared (gained by the dodgy SEO) : domain:erwinskee.blog.co.uk domain:grencholerz.blog.co.uk domain:valeriiees.blog.co.uk domain:gb.bizin.eu They all look bad so I am going to disavow. I expect to find an improvement when I disavow these new domains. As I have said, have started using the open site explorer tool to check my competitors backlinks and getting some low level links(I'm a wedding photographer) like forum comments and blog comments and good directories. I know there is much more than this to SEO and plan on raising my game as time progresses. I have also gained more links from the domains I disavowed on the 8th January mostly from www.friendfeed.com. will webmaster tools ignore any new links from previously disavowed domains? Like I have said I know there are better ways to get links, but are these links (forum comments, blog comments and respectable directories) one way of raising my rankings? To be honest that is all my competitors have got other than some of the top boys might have a photograph or two on another site with a link. No-one has a decent article or review anywhere (which is my next stage of getting links). Thanks! David.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WallerD0 -
Advice on Link Removal Services
Hello everyone, Due to the Penguin update my site unfortunately took a bit of a hit. A little while ago I submitted all of our questionable/bad links to the disavow tool, however I still wante to go back and delete any and all problematic links that are still out there. Ive looked into many services, however I haven't been too impressed. Removeem - The email addresses they provided weren't always valid, and their email tool didn't always deploy correctly - a lot of cross referencing and was not saving me any time. Link Detox - Free trial was a bust. They show you 10 links on the free trial, however for me, 9 of the 10 were all the same. Couldn't get a good feel of their system. Rmoov - Their tool is one where you upload your own links, and they help manage everything, however they DONT allow you to email through their system, so Im not sure how this helps my process if I have to do everthing manaully anyway. A lot of sites I see are also a full service approach that charge you based on how many links they remove, and this can get quite costly. I have also contacted:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Lukin
Link Delete - No reponse from multiple email requests
Linkquidator - No response
Infatex - No response My questions to all of you are: Is there any company out there that you recommend that provide a self service tool [online or desktop driven]? Is this even an avenue I should explore, or should I compile my own list [as 3rd party algorithms are not always accurate] and reach out to sites manually? Is disavowing good enough and Im just spinning my wheeles trying to now get them all removed? Thanks!0 -
Link Building with a Scholarship
One of my clients is using a scholarship to build links. We have a nofollow PR campaign getting ready to start and are doing some social marketing for the scholarship page on the site. We are also trying to get backlinks from highschools and colleges that link to scholarship opportunities. So far this has been a slow process. Does anybody have any advice for speeding any of this up? Has somebody ever done a campaign like this before? Is there some kind of database with financial aid contact info for a lot of schools? I contact a lot of schools and always tend to get put on the backburner.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atomicx0 -
Dummy links in posts
Hi, Dummy links in posts. We use 100's of sample/example lnks as below http://<domain name></domain name> http://localhost http://192.168.1.1 http:/some site name as example which is not available/sample.html many more is there any tag we can use to show its a sample and not a link and while we scan pages to find broken links they are skipped and not reported as 404 etc? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mtthompsons0 -
Footer Link
Hello, Some of my hosted clients don't mind if I put a footer link on the bottom of their website. I would like to put a footer link that looks like Seomoz's - http://imgur.com/GrC8y Basically it would look like so: "Powered by "my company name". The world's #1 "keyword" provider (LOGO goes here) Here are my questions: 1. Would this hurt or help my rankings? 2. Should the logo be hosted by my clients so that a different ip is hosting my logo (where my image name will get picked up)? Or is it best to host it myself? 3. If my company name and keyword are getting linked, is that one link too many? 4. Is it a good idea to use a different keyword so that other keywords get picked up by SERPs, or should I set myself up on one keyword ? Thank you so much! Shawn
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shawn1240 -
Aside from creative link bait, what's a solid link building strategy involve?
All things considered, directories, blogs, articles, press releases, forums, social profiles, student discount pages, etc, what do you consider to be a strong, phased, link building strategy? I'm talking beyond natural/organic link bait, since many larger accounts will not allow you to add content to their website or take 6 months to approve a content strategy. I've got my own list, but would love to hear what the community considers to be a strong, structured, timeline-based strategy for link building.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stevewiideman1