Someone not removing a link to our site

[Ouzan]

Hi Mozzers,

We recently worked with an SEO company that bought a few sitewide links without our permission which caused us to get a huge slap by the last panda/penguin update.

We managed to remove most of the links except one site (The biggest one).
He simply doesn't reply to our emails etc...

What should I do in such case?

Thanks.

[DanDeceuster]

You want to disavow the link with Google if it is hurting you: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main?pli=1

Be sure to look up tutorials on how to submit links to disavow so that you do it right. And be darn sure you want the link disavowed. But that way you can take care of any nasty links hanging around out there regardless of the webmaster's cooperation.

[Mike_Davis]

Good news!  Both Google and Bing both have a disavow link tool:

Google:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main?pli=1

Bing:

http://www.bing.com/webmaster/help/how-to-disavow-links-0c56a26f

Enjoy and you owe me a coke!

[MikeRoberts]

Are you certain this link is causing a problem? If so, considering they aren't being cooperative have you looked into using the Disavow Links tool?

[DaveMri]

Have you received a message from Google (through webmaster tools) regarding unnatural links? If yes, then you might have been manually penalized. The disavow tool might work well in your case - only disavow spam links like the one you mentioned -.

If you didn't receive the unnatural links message, this tool might still help, but instead (or in addition), I would concentrate in earning high quality links.

[Ouzan]

Yes I am sure it's hurting me as it is a link from 1,000's of his pages, horrible & nasty sitewide.

The thing about Disavow is that I heard it isn't really reommended to use it, especially if you are the reason that this link is there.
I am maybe not the reason but it is a SEO company that I hired...

Do you guys sitll think I should use it?

We do have some super high quality links by the way.
This slap really came out of nowhere , caused us to lose about 65% of our organic traffic.

Do you have any other suggestions for me :)?

[DanDeceuster]

You don't have to explain yourself to Google when using the disavow tool. Simply list the domain and disavow all links from that domain. Doesn't matter why they are there. I would disavow as soon as possible. That's why the tool is there, to ignore the links you can't get removed.

[irvingw]

Call him first of all if there is a phone number. Email him multiple times and offer to paypal him $20 for his coding time to remove the link. Tell him you're going to keep emailing him because the links NEED to come down. That usually works.

[Ouzan]

I pretty much tried it, I guess I shall wait a little longer for his reply.
If none is given, I will disavow his link I guess.

Thanks everyone !