Would removing or making non relevant links no follow boost a site?

[Benjamin379]

Hi,

I have just been checking out the backlinks for a prospective new client. It appears they have a number of links that are totally irrelevant to their nature of business and I was wondering if they would improve in the rankings etc if I removed them or made them no follow instead? Or would I simply just be throwing away crucial link juice?

Thanks in advance

[OlegKorneitchouk]

Instead of removing links, just focus on building new links.

The only time I would remove links is if you were affected by Penguin or a manual penalty (i.e. a large part of your backlink profile comes from shitty sites). Receiving a link from a irrelevant site wouldn't hurt your rankings unless you do it en mass. Removing those links may hurt your authority.

Cheers,
Oleg

[Aggie]

You're never going to be able to 100% control who's linking to you.  As long as you have a diverse link profile comprised primarily of links earned from developing useful, quality content you won't likely be penalized.

That said, I WOULD evaluate the link profile to determine if it's heavily weighted from sites that Google is scrutinizing i.e. Directories, Low Quality Article Marketing Sites, etc. and determine where you have opportunity to develop social worthy content to elevate your profile.