Is Brand name anchor text on a widget Spam

[Simonws001]

We have partial match penalty in WMT on one of our smaller sites.

There are a few (less than 10)  instances of widgets linking to us using our Brand Name as the anchor text. Would this fail a reconsideration request do you think?

The widget links without the no-follow attribute.

[Simonws001]

Thank you Tom - I like it - if in doubt, take it out.

We will contact the businesses with the widget and ask them to remove. If we can't get hold of them, do you think disavow will be satisfactory before filing a reconsideration?

Additionally, I have read recently there is an option to remove URLs from within WMT (a section called "optimisation.") But I cannot see this - and wonder if I have misunderstand.. (It looks to me the only section in WMT regarding link removal is an option to remove pages from within your own website from the index?) Is there a section in WMT to remove inbound links from third party websites?

Thanks indeed for your help

[TomRayner]

Hey Simon

So, the anchor text itself won't be seen as spam, as it's a brand name.  So there won't be any "anchor-text" trigger here.

Having a follow link in an embeddable widget has been identified in the past as an unnatural link scheme by Google.  Of course, that doesn't mean that it doesn't work - in fact it continues to do so for big websites who abuse it on a much bigger scale than just 10 times.

However, that doesn't mean that it would not trigger a penalty for you.  If your question is implying that you are filing a reconsideration request because you currently have a penalty, I am quite confident that Google would want you to remove those widget links (and for you to testify that you have done).  When it comes to reconsideration requests and link audits - if in doubt, take it out.

I feel any frustrations that you may have as it can often seem to be one rule for the big boys and another for everyone else.  But my advice here would be to remove those links, as much as it pains me to say.

Hope this helps.

Tom