How can we remove links that have been acquired by our seo agnet that has been using inappropriate methods?

[playingcards]

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[DesignbysoapLtd]

Hi Charles,

Unfortunately this is a notoriously difficult thing to achieve, but it can be done. Before you start you should realise that attempting to get rid of every one of these links will take a huge amount of time, effort, patience and resources, so you should try and ascertain how much these links are harming you and whether or not you'd be better off spending that time trying to offset them with high quality content and ethical, high authority link-building (or a combination of the above, trying to get rid of the worst links while attempting to gain relevant, powerful links to offset them).

If you're URL's have been completely de-indexed, then you could consider a reconsideration request - if you do choose to go down these route you'll need to be aware that the request will trigger a manual review of your backlink profile, so you need to be sure you've gotten rid of all of the links, or you have proof that the links are not you're doing and you've made some effort to get rid of them (this would include screenshots of removal requests, etc). You will probably have to be very honest with Google and if you tell them that an SEO company was responsible, they will probably expect you to name the company.

Right then, if you do want to get rid of the links, you should create a database (something simple in excel will do) of the links you're looking to remove, and try and order them in terms of worst to best. To do this, you'll have to find out what links are hurting your site (as you don't want to go removing decent links, as this won't help at all, you need to try and have a structured approach rather than just diving straight in).

This superb article from Modestos (fantastic SEO engineer) should help you when it comes to identifying these links and structuring them:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-check-which-links-can-harm-your-sites-rankings

Once you have your list or URL's with links to be removed, you need to go about trying to find out who you can contact about each particular site - this is a long and often frustrating process (as by the sounds of it your SEO firm will have been using things like article marketing, where the link will appear on a generic blog template with no contact information). The first thing you should look for on each site is a 'contact' page of some description where you can get in touch with the webmaster - the WHOIS information can also help you if no contact page exists. Add all the contact details into your excel sheet next to the corresponding URL, noting any gaps that occur for further investigation. Once you're satisfied you have all the contact details you're going to find, you need to start the process of calling or emailing webmasters requesting the removal of links to your sites. Bear in mind this will almost inevitably be a very frustrating and slow process.

Your next step is to request that your SEO company either tell you the platforms / services used to gain the links, or they help you remove the low quality links. If they've been using an article marketing site like Build My Rank, they will have a much easier job of removing those links (in fact BMR even offered a 'delete all live posts' service, as we found when trying to do this exact job for a client who had moved to us).

I should tell you though that completing this satisfactorily or getting all the links will be more or less impossible, so you need to consider either situation management (i.e. getting rid of the worst links and starting doing things the right way) or make a genuine effort to remove all links and demonstrate this to Google in the hopes that they will reindex you.

Hope that helps!

[playingcards]

Hi John,

Thank you for your reply - it is tremendously helpful.

Would you like to contact us at sales@customizedplayingcards.com and possibly discuss you helping us?

Please let me know.

Thank you,

Charles

[DesignbysoapLtd]

Hi Charles,

No problem at all - really pleased it helped!

I will drop you an email tomorrow and see how we can help out with things (it's nearly midnight here in the UK!), hopefully we'll be able to help you put a strong strategy in place to deal with this and get things back on track for you.

Thanks Charles