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Hi Marie,

Thanks for the reply. Sorry, let me re-phrase. Its affecting our reports in terms of anchor text %.

At the moment we have not been hit due to it but it would be far easier for us to have accurate reports on our anchor text %. These spammy links have distorted the analytics a lot if that makes sense.

We have disavowed them and hoping we can carry on as if they are not there.

Thanks for the detailed response, appreciate it!

We have disavowed them so hoping they won't do us any harm in the future. It's reassuring to know you've done a study like that. Very interesting.

I will still proceed to send him a legal document out of principle, he needs to be shaken up a bit.

thanks again

He's an absolute idiot.

Demanded 5$ a link removal, I phoned him then he said he never sent such an email. I sent him a screenshot of the email then he starts denying the links are his etc.

I hate people who build a business on such negativity. He claims it's not him after I make it clear I won't be spending a penny on link removals from him.

It totally depends on how many links you have to start with though? His 3000 links is treble what our official links are. Makes our anchor text 50% of the keyword he has targeted and just messes up our reports.

Ye I think I will draft up a legal document to send to him. He has really rattled my cage with his responses.

The issue I have isn't so much the links because I know Google (should) will know it's negative SEO. It's just that our anchor text is now 50% "table tennis tables" which comes from all his sites. Correct me if I'm wrong but disavowing will simply tell Google not to count those links but will my anchor text still be negative in Googles eyes because technically the links are still there?

I will be drafting a legal letter today and sending it to him. He is an absolute joke, people like him really annoy me.

His "official" site and all the spammy ones have the same IP, email, number, location how can he possibly deny it... rant over. Thanks for the reply!

We have a list of 240 domains (look exactly the same) linking to our site for a certain keyword. over 3000 links in total. It means that 50% of our keywords are this keyword and it's not a branded keyword which can affect us in the long term.

I have done a WHOIS search and found a name, email and number. Vikas Kumar. I linkedin searched him and found his "legit" SEO site which has EXACTLY the same registration details as the spam sites.

I emailed him and he said it would cost 5$ a link removal. I phoned him and he DENIED these emails. He then denied owning these sites etc.

We have disavowed them but the anchor text % is still affecting us. Is there anything we can do? I know negative SEO isn't illegal but it's really frustrating.

Anyone else had any problems with this type of thing?

That's great feedback Monica! Thanks for your insight.

Our view was also that if it's good for the user then it should be good for SEO. It feel like the right thing to do.

We're hoping that word will get round each of these communities that we are trying to locate every location and they will pull together and help us out trying to find as many places as possible.

We hadn't thought about including the USA, but I guess we could! We'll see what would be involved.

Thanks again for your response.

We have come up with an idea to add a cool mapping app to our website. This will enable users to find locations to be able to play a range of games in their local vicinity, such as pool/table tennis/pinball/arcade games/foosball.

Players and venues will be able to add locations to our mapping system. They can add a review, details, what machines/equipment is there, add photos. The owner can add any special offers or events.

Potential benefits:

• Community - finding places to play these games is hard. This would be great for everyone who loves these games to find new places to play them
• Engagement - visitors to our site will find this really useful and show us more love and respect
• SEO - this is the tricky bit...

If we ask venue owners to show a "We're listed!" logo on their homepage linking back to our mapping system will this be beneficial to us SEO wise?

Potential positives:

• lots of relevant homepage backlinks to us
• lots of relevant visitors to our mapping system who may choose to peruse the rest of our website

Potential issues:

• will this type of backlink be viewed poorly by Google?
• will the relatively low DA of the sites that will be linking to us weaken our link profile?

This will be a massive project for us to undertake, both financially to build the app but also for us to populate our maps by contacting all the relevant locations to invite them to participate.

Any insight, views or experience the Moz community can share with us on this would be gratefully received!