How to get rid of bad links that a previous SEO firm created for my client?

[Chris.Bleill]

This post is deleted!

[GIGS20]

While bad backlinks should not have a major impact on your search ranking, there are still a few ways to get them taken down.

1. Delete any links you may have created by logging into old user accounts and getting rid of forum signatures, website information and personal profiles. If you created links in a hurry, you may be unsatisfied with them once your site begins generating natural backlinks.

2. Build good links by sharing content with other publications in your niche and encouraging readers to do the same. The more good backlinks you have, the less important your old backlinks will be.

3. Contact the owner of the website that currently hosts your bad links. You can usually find contact information on the website, but may need to use a "WHOIS" search to determine the actual owner.

4. Request removal of the bad backlink. Most webmasters are more than happy to remove an old link.

5. Bad links do not affect your search ranking as much as good links. Because links are generally outside of your control, you should not receive penalties for bad backlinks unless your site is breaking spam rules.

[edited by staff to add that the source for this is http://www.ehow.com/how_8586529_rid-bad-backlinks.html]

[Chris.Bleill]

This post is deleted!

[irvingw]

you lost me at  "While bad backlinks should not have a major impact on your search ranking"

if you have thousands of links from places with no contact info and they are pointing to your clients homepage and the homepage is not a subdomain, it is very difficult and time consuming to do.

Since the site is penalized for those specific keywords you can start looking into secondary keywords to rank for and re-optimize the site for those new phrases which are not penalized.

[Chris.Bleill]

The site is actually not penalized by Google (I've already communicated with them).  It's just lost major traction in the the SERP.

The root domain has a lot of links, but there are two category pages which are hit the hardest, and one of them is the "bread and butter" category, which makes it hard to re-engineer for another set of search terms.

I really do think removing as many of these links as possible is the way to go, just looking to see if there was a better way other than counting on the good graces of the webmasters for the spammy sites or the original firm that created the links?

[GIGS20]

I think removing as many of these links as possible will be really your best option at this moment. The bad thing about search engine ranking is that every bit of knowledge is built solely on speculation, rather than actual proven fact. That is the unfortunate part.

[Ewan.Kennedy]

It's very noble of you to try and sort out problems for your client that were not of your own making so they are very lucky to have you.

I would say protect yourself and make sure they understand the enormity of the challenge you have taken on and that they value your services.

Get them involved to help you sort out what is, after all, the consequences of their own poor decision-making.

[loopyal]

Those pages, while not great, are far from the worst out there. At least the articles make sense, And they are relevant to your Client site. You probably can't get all of the links removed, and you may remove some that are helping you, so your problem may worsen. I would go looking to see if there are worse examples and try to get those removed first. Look for pages where the text makes no sense or the site name and site theme doesn't relate to the client site.