If a bad link domain drops from my site do I regain authority.

[jameslane88]

Hi Guys,

I wanted to know for example if 2 years ago I purchased SEO from some guys that were building links to sites that had very high PR which was important way back when.

And now those links are negatively affecting my SEO stopping me reaching position 1 for a term 'replacement keys' and we are stuck in position 2.

If the sites were to be reset or domains sold for those sites that were linking in do you think this was remove the penalty on us as a knock-on effect.

Thanks

James

[PaddyDisplays]

I don't think its much of a penalty if you in 2nd place!  If your were being penalised it would be alot worse than that (think 20- 50 places).

I would think google would be just not give any credit for the dodgy link, so removing it would make no difference

that's my understanding of it anyway

[KevinBudzynski]

Definitely disavow any spammy links.  As Paddy said, if you are getting penalized, it would be much worse. Just keep up with contextual relevant and/or popular inbound links and you may get to one.

[jameslane88]

But do you not think that marketing this keyword any more would damage the domain, and that I should concentrate my linking building efforts to domain and brand for a while to even out the percentages. Because replacement keys is far higher than the domain with the amount of domains linking.