What is the best way to remove and fight back backlink spam?

[matti_wilson]

Removing low quality and spam backlinks. What is the most effective clean-up process?

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Matti

In a nutshell, if it is really bad, then start again on a new domain.

What I am seeing with a few people I am helping is that where the site has had historical results, but is now penalised, attempting to clean up if the back link profile is pretty rotten (90% + placed links) is a pretty tough gig.

There are some tools out there that are proving useful and the pick of the bunch would be:

• rmoov
• Link Cleanup and Contact
• Remove’em

These all have pros and cons so you will likely want to use all of them.

Additionally, you will want to make sure the site is worth saving and likely invest some time and effort in generating some honest links through some solid content marketing. Maybe build some kind of free report or something specific to the site that you can use to do some outreach based link building. Do some blogging, invest some time and effort in the quality of the site.

Additionally, if you have a penalty, be prepared to put in a few requests and if you intend to disavow, be thorough.

With some experience here, you also have to ask yourself - what are you trying to save? If the answer to that question is that you are trying to save some spam links that still seem to be working at the moment, then, seriously, start again.

Without a link and some research it is hard to make a call but know this, it is a tough job to remove bad links and unless you have a link profile where there is something worth saving, then a new domain is likely the fastest way to sort out this mess and make sure you don't get hit again when they tighten up the link penalties down the road (you know it's going to happen).

There really is no generic answer here and every situation is different but be sure to know what you are getting yourself into before you undertake this and do an honest review of the site, the content and the links to make sure this is a battle you can win.

This is a good read:

http://cyrusshepard.com/penalty-lifted/

Hope that helps buddy

Marcus

[matti_wilson]

thank you for the response Marcus. so far  it's not really that bad. I discovered that there were some pretty bizarre links that facilitated the atrophy of our rankings but not quite reach 90% spam links.Starting a new domain is far more than I think. I'll probably look at the tools that you suggested and see what's out there then.

Regards,

Matti

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Matti

Glad it helped buddy. Check out those tools, they won't do the job for you but they will certainly help out with some of the manual labour aspects.

Marcus