How to remove backlinks?

[nrv]

Hey guys,

With all this anti over optimization movement going around with Google, I decided to do a link building profile audit. I see some pages with PR 0 and some pages that expired.

My websites are not penalized at this moment, however I do want to avoid this at all costs.

• What can I do?
• Could a backlink from an expired domain penalize my site?

[anthonydnelson]

I wouldn't worry about removing these backlinks, unless you know they are paid or part of a network.

Instead, focus on building some good strong natural links through creating amazing content. The stronger your overall backlink profile is, the less likely you will ever find yourself in trouble over a few bad links.

[A_Q]

I would recommend you take action and remove poor back links wherever possible. Why run the risk of being penalised when these links are giving you next to no benefit?

There are a few things you can do

1. Contact the sites that you are worried about and request that the link is removed
2. Sit tight and hope for the best
3. Change the URL of the pages that have poor links pointing to them and remove the original page without redirecting (this has obvious implications for users

I'd recommend you try and contact sites wherever possible, accepting that this is very difficult as I imagine many of the back links you may have will be automated.

If a domain is expired there is no back link in place so you should not be penalised for it as Google should identify that the link is no longer present.

Hope this helps.

[RankSurge]

Like Anthony said - create great content, and you'll never have to worry about linking penalties. Here's another item to consider - links are always going to be pointed to your site, and not all are going to be of high quality sites today. But, you never know that one blog that stays online and in 5 years from now has grown into an authority site.

People are way over-reacting to this latest Google "penalty". If it was that easy to lose your rankings to just a few blog networks, why wouldn't I go out and get thousands of "bad" links pointed to my competitor to de-rank them?

Look deeper at what Google is trying to accomplish.

[nrv]

Thanks for the replies! Sometimes its harder to create great content when you are an agency and don't have control of what  your clients are doing all the time.