Does anyone have any suggestions on removing spammy links?

[gbssinc]

""It wasn't our mistake so I'm not gonna admit it." Really? It requires a lot of humility to resolve this issue. When you say "it was not our mistake", that is not true in most cases. Usually the site owner, or an agent of the site owner (employee, web developer, "SEO", link builder, etc) caused at least some if not most of the manipulative links to be created. If you recently purchased the site then you would want to explain that to Google and provide evidence of your statement. "

You're just judging me without listening what really happened.

Thanks again for your reply.

[RyanKent]

I have carefully read all of your responses in this Q&A. You seem to feel that both Google and I are not listening because we are not responding in the manner you desire. Just because I do not agree with you does not mean I did not read or understand what you shared.

[gbssinc]

First, if you read all my responses how come you're saying " When you say "it was not our mistake", that is not true in most cases"? You didn't even ask what exactly happened. You didn't even try to understand what the problem is. This is a part of listening(communication) and you did fail on that. You judge just like Google without listening to what I need to say. If you're like this with your clients, good luck to them.

[KeriMorgret]

Hi! Just a note from an SEOmoz staffer here that unless someone has an Associate or Staff label on their avatar they are just a volunteer and donating their time and experience to others in Q&A, and we prefer that people keep things in a friendly tone and keep to the questions asked without getting into personal judgements.

If you'd like a confidential answer to a question and answers only from an SEOmoz Staff or Associate, you're welcome to use your private question credit.

[gbssinc]

Thanks for the reminder Keri and I apologize for the tone.

[RyanKent]

I recognize this situation is difficult and a lot of emotions are involved. I would like to be helpful which is why I have volunteered time sharing the results of my experiences...to help others such as yourself.

I sympathize with your situation. A manual penalty for manipulative links has driven some companies out of business, other companies have been forced to lay employees off, and many SEO companies lost clients. I fully understand the impact.

Please keep in mind the original Q&A was asked and answered. You added to this thread stating "This is exactly what happened to us. We have removed over 600K links so far but still not enough for google. We are out of luck now because we cannot get any more links removed! ".

If you are requesting assistance I'll do whatever I can to help, but it is upon YOU to let us know your situation and how we can help. You stated you removed 600k links. And? For my first client I removed 3.5 million links and the penalty was not lifted. It makes no difference how many links you remove per se.

You also shared you are "out of luck" because you could not remove more links. Google has repeatedly lifted penalties for sites who were not able to remove all the links. Why is this statement relevant?

I humbly suggest the problem is neither Google nor me. You have a problem with how Google is ranking your site. We can hopefully agree on that statement. Based on your replies, the information you are sharing is not relevant to removing the penalty. You can say "I removed 600k links! How is that not relevant" My first client removed 3.5 million links and the penalty remained. Google does not care how many links you remove. The penalty is in place because of the links which remain.

Next, you mentioned the remaining links are impossible to remove. Here is the information which is helpful to Google:

1. Did you send a polite e-mail requesting link removal to the domain owner?

2. Did the e-mail contain a list of all links from that domain to your site?

3. Did you send the e-mail to the e-mail address on file with the WHOIS registry?

4. Did you also send the e-mail to any e-mail address on the site (if different)?

5. Did you also use the site's Contact Form (if available)?

6. Did you save a copy of all communications sent along with the date they were sent? Are you making these communications available to Google?

7. Did you verify which links were removed? Did you follow up with webmasters request regarding link removal?

IF you began with a comprehensive list of all known links to your site (i.e. not just Google WMT links and not just Google + OSE links but a comprehensive list from many sources) and IF you properly identified all the manipulative links and then followed the above process, Google will remove the manual penalty. The only other requirement is you admit any wrongdoings and commit to honestly following Google's Guidelines going forward.

I hope you find this information helpful. If not, I will simply accept you may be beyond my ability to assist.

Good Luck.

[gbssinc]

Thanks Ryan for taking your time and writing back.

[InetDesign]

I think Google has opened a can of worms with Penguin. The problem is... removing links that are nearly impossible to remove. The next thing the spammers are going to do is flood the competing sites with bad back links in order get them penalized so their clients will be equal in being penalized, thus pushing up their own rankings. I think in the long run it is going to get real messy.
Also, I can't verify this but it appears that Google looks the other way with Penguin if the company is spending quite a bit in PPC...
I am by no means an expert but this is how it appears to me.

[cbielich]

I know I have done this before, good idea to check with

http://www.noindexchecker.com/

[MattAntonino]

Fantastic, fantastic post Ryan!  Dealing with this for a client now - good info!

[sebastiankoch]

Hi Ryan Kent :),

I got a problem with most of my important keywords they all went to hell some months after penguin. Google said that there was no manual penality. I know that the problem is that I have too many links with keywords.
Will changing this links with my url or brand will help? or should I delete them all ?

Since them I foccus on building non keyword links but still not working.

[RyanKent]

Will changing this links with my url or brand will help? or should I delete them all ?

If you built manipulative links to your site, my recommendation would be to delete them.

If you modify the links to change the anchor text, you MAY fool the Penguin algorithm in the short run. I strongly believe Google will update Penguin in a similar manner as to how they have updated Panda over the past 2 years. If that happens, Google will incorporate signals other then anchor text and you will be in the same situation in a short period of time.

[sebastiankoch]

Thanks for the reply!

I would like to tell you more about these links.

I have a coupon agregattor website

There are an image, a button that I ask online shops to put if they want to apear in my site and don´t have a proper affiliate marketing programme.

The thing is that I don´t know how bad google sees this as many of my competitors do it and I am th eonly one that is penalized, just because I added a kexword for the image button.

What do you think about these links? I think they are fair as I promote them and their customers can find coupons for the shop in my site. But I am afraid google algorith does no see it that way.

Thanks!
Sebastian

[RyanKent]

If you are providing affiliate links to another site, or anything similar, the links need to either have the "nofollow" attribute applied or be 302 redirected. The major affiliate programs I am aware of do such.