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Thanks for the reply.  I gathered from additional resources that there is no one site. Nor any tool that properly evaluates them as spam sites so I guess I am rolling up my sleves to get the work done. There are some obvious site I need to diavow so I will start with them.   I have not read about how you resubmit disavow but I guess you just add to the list and send it again.  I will try to make this first pass rather comprehensive. I did read about another post which seems to indicate that one you have your list there is a tool to help you evalute the sites. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-check-which-links-can-harm-your-sites-rankingsI will try to post my experience with trying to use this method.

The traffic was cut in 1/2 with Penguin.  The link profile sucks but I am working on it.  I guess I will start by disavowing the obviously bad site and give it a few weeks.  The thing that is puzzling is the few good links we have will be exact match anchor becuse the name of the site is an exact match.  This is the EMD delima.

Yup - I asked John Mueller from Google about this and want to know what his reply was? Me: "Can I just ask if Google have these sorts of bot-user services on their radar?" John: "Yes, we have abuse teams working on those kinds of elements too." Andy

Thanks Sergio!

Hi Konstantin, Is your client located in 20 cities, or serving 20 cities from 1 physical location? In either case, I definitely do not recommend putting a static list of cities anywhere on the site. As Casey has guessed, Google is indeed setting their sights on this practice of listing cities in big chunks. There has recently been an update to the Webmaster guidelines (see: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66358)  that sent some buzz through the Local SEO community.: Keyword stuffing "Keyword stuffing" refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site's ranking in Google search results. Often these keywords appear in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose). Filling pages with keywords or numbers results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site's ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context. Examples of keyword stuffing include: Lists of phone numbers without substantial added value Blocks of text listing cities and states a webpage is trying to rank for Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural, for example: We sell custom cigar humidors. Our custom cigar humidors are handmade. If you’re thinking of buying a custom cigar humidor, please contact our custom cigar humidor specialists at custom.cigar.humidors@example.com. (Bolded emphasis mine) So, regardless of whether you client has 1 office or 20, avoid this practice of placing chunks of city names on the site. The appropriate approach is to create unique content on city landing pages dedicated to each locale. Don't take any short cuts in this work. Be prepared to write creatively and uniquely for each city you cover. I can't overstate the importance of this work. Good luck!

Paying to be included in a directory is not the same a a paid link. You are paying for membership, & if your website meet the requirements then the directory will accept you & link to your site as it does with all it's members. I have used directories for a long time, they have worked great, & they will continue to work great. Think the key to making it it work is diversify your links, you need all kinds of back links to be successful. Also when it comes to directories, I try to create unique description for each listing. If you copy & past the same description for every link you build then some them may get ignored.

Great!  I'll let you know how it works out.  It'll be a couple of days before I'm done the current link audit so I'll report back after that.

thanks

I believe that social signals are important however I doubt if Google has a way of knowing how many "likes" you got (Bing may know due to their somewhat partnership). What I do believe is that Google does recognize people coming from social media like FB and gives you credit for it (as a site that has social appearance)and that it does recognize other types of shares such as twitter, tumblr, stumblupon and obviously Google +. There was an article here at MOZ once and they tried to analyze social signals. I thinkk that the result was that there is a correlation but not necessarily causation. Good luck

Hi Mark, The best directories (or link cataloques) are going to be the ones most related to your website. For example, if your site is about dentistry in Denmark, then a Denmark directory of dentists will be your best best. There's no particular disadvantage to using .com directories. What's more important is the relevancy and trustworthiness of the directory itself. A few things to look out for are: Make sure the directory hasn't been penalized, make sure it only links out to good sites through a selective, editorial process. If the directory accepts anyone, you don't want to be there. A word of caution: over the past year Google has cracked down hard on directories, and websites that contain mostly low quality directory links in their profile have been hit equally as hard. Directory links are still okay, but make sure you balance them out with high quality "earned" links or you are asking for trouble. The SEOmoz Directory List is a good place to start. These have been vetted as not being penalized, but it's still very possible to overdo it. Proceed with caution. Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO!

It took me about 2-3 weeks each time.  I have a large list of Wordpress ping services and I manually pinged everything I could so it's possible it could take longer. Make sure you have a sitemap in WMT and it should speed you along as well.  If you just made the change, I'd suggest resubmitting a map so they recrawl fresh.

So far I've only seen a beta tester of the tool post results.  Looks promising. http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/google-disavow-tool-released-we-tested-it.html http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/disavow-tool-beta-test-recovery-laid-bare.html

Thank you thank you thank you! I think something SEOmoz has does that, too, but in my brain-overloaded state, it didn't occur to me how to use it. I feel so enlightened -- you have made my day!

I have found that most webmasters have a really hard time objectively deciding which links are spam. If you have received an unnatural links message than an unnatural link is any link that you, or your SEO created. You don't need to worry about any nofollowed links. Almost all keyword anchor texted links are unnatural.  I also call the following unnatural: -links from article sites -followed blog comments using anchor text -most directory links (think - would I make this link if search engines didn't exist?) -followed forum sigs or links from forum posts -followed bookmarks -most blogroll links The only truly natural links are ones where the other webmaster was the one who decided to link to you.

Rand reiterated in a recent whiteboard that yes, only the first instance of the link would provide value. "Now, we all know as SEOs that the first anchor text link counts and only one on the page is going to pass that value. Linking repeatedly to the same page with the same anchor is not helpful for SEO, and it makes our sites look really spammy and manipulative and questionable to someone who's browsing it." http://www.seomoz.org/blog/6-changes-every-seo-should-make-before-the-over-optimization-penalty-hits-whiteboard-friday Think about the user 1st, do they need another avenue to find that page, or is the naviation well structured enough to get them there.

Hi Kristopher, I went and checked out your site. It's very pretty. I think the picture of you and your son is adorable! Okay, so here's my advice: Right now, in your blog, there are lots of great photos. To me, your blog is looking more like a portfolio than a blog (not a criticism, just an observation). What if you started writing posts about photography that would appeal to other photographers? I know that you aren't necessarily wanting other photographers as "customers" but if your advice is valuable and unique, it would attract inbound links. Lots of inbound links from other photographers would set you up as an authority. The stronger your authority the higher you rank. The higer you rank, the more traffic you will get. That new traffic, once they see that you have an authoritative and active blog (even if they aren't photographers and don't understand a word), they will be more likely to choose you for their project. Also, I'm guessing the photography world is pretty small. I bet if you asked someone influential to write a guest post for you, they'd probably do it. I'm thinking you're pretty passionate about photography. The great thing about that is you will never run out of ideas to write about. I hope this helps! Dana