Remove Unatural Links by SEO Co.

[ypl]

The SEO firm we hired built 2797 links with 123 domain within two month period (March and April) when we don't know better.

We received Google's warning on 3/28, and they didn't tell us anything but keep building.  Well, that's history now.  We learned our lesson.  That's why we are a member of SEOmoz.

The SEO firm is not too keen on helping us remove the link (we've discontinue the service) after one initial attempt to a few site with tons of links (performed by their Indian team).

I've got advice from this Forum regarding link removal.  The most suggestions we get is to remove it as many as possible and move on building good links.  But, I am afraid such approach will take us years to come ahead as we are under staffed.

I saw here that someone mentioned their link building firm wants to charge $10 for links removed.  Based on that idea, I wonder if I should offer some monetary incentive?  If so, what amount would make financial sense?

[NakulGoyal]

Honestly, my advice would be to grab a list of your backlinks using both Google Webmaster Console as well as the OpenSiteExplorer and merge them into a spreadsheet and get rid of all the duplicates.

Next step would be to identify which of those links are spammy and you'd be better of having them removed. This is in my opinion the hardest part depending upon the volume of sites/links.

Then hire somebody to find email addresses of the websites where you want links removed. Finding something on the page and if nothing else, using whois. I would then send an email to each one of those contacts and in a quick short email, tell me the URL where the link is located and your site URL. Tell them to remove the link right away since you have received a Google Warning. I would imagine this taking care of a good portion of those links. I would send another email in a week and then again for a total of 2-4 times to see if you get a response and get the link removed. When nothing else worked, offer then $10 for the link removal and that should gain their attention. If that does not work either, I would suggest you move on.

I hope this helps. You could get somebody on odesk.com or a similar site to get all the labor intensive work done.

[rdreich49]

We were penalized for back links our SEO firm acquired for us long before the Penguin update.  As I found out, link removal can be a slow, painful process.  After months of trying to do it ourselves, we hired Virante, a company that is SEOMoz-recommended.  They are fast and efficient and it was well worth the money.

Only one of the directories they contacted wanted to be paid $10 per removed link.  It's no wonder they were one of the spammiest site contacted.

[wcuk]

Hi Richard please can you tell me the price you paid for virante to remove the links for you, we to are in the same boat,.

[ypl]

Richard,

Thank you so much for sharing the info.  I will definitely give them a call and compare their cost vs. what Nakul suggested.

It's very kind of you to share the "secret".

[ypl]

Hi Nakul,

Thanks for the detailed suggestion again.

We will take Richard's suggestion to explore the possibility of hiring  Virante if the price is right.  However, it is great learning experience to gain insight to your thought process.

Have a great weekend!