Need help determining how toxic this backlinking is

[CEDRSolutions]

Okay, so my company has an SEO company already.  However, we're trying to get people internally cross-trained on SEO, so I've been selected to kind of do a crash-course in SEO and look at our site from a new perspective.  We are in the process of getting our old site ported over to a new one we've also created on Wordpress.  I've been doing a LOT of online research, but this is definitely a very new field for me.

Here's our current site:  www.cedrsolutions.com

So, here's my question:  While doing some SEO-optimizing automatic tests on our site, I came across some weird backlinks to one of our pages: http://www.cedrsolutions.com/dental-office-manual/

http://en.calameo.com/read/003415063525a885728e7

Here's the thing:  We didn't make this.  It looks HORRIBLE, the copy is gibberish, and it looks weird.  Doing some more searching, I started finding stuff like this

https://lessons.engrade.com/dentalofficemanual/1

http://pumosust.over-blog.com/2014/09/how-to-get-customized-dental-office-manuals-online.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egMonqa5eRo (????  I don't even understand how someone did this, the photo in the book is just the photo from our page)

http://www.tuugo.in/Companies/cedr-hr-solutions/0150008267958#!

http://www.webjam.com/dental_office_manual/$my_blog/2014/09/12/how_to_get_customized_dental_office_manuals_online

Conservatively, I'd say there's at least 100 of these types of pages out there linking to us, maybe more

Then I started finding comments on blogs

http://blog.kenexa.com/hr-focus-on-increasing-revenue-not-just-managing-costs/

http://geekologie.com/2012/05/bad-ideas-boyfriend-visits-dentist-ex-da.php (some NSFW language on that one)

So, my first thought is obviously "Okay, these are gibberish, over-optimized, and ALL of them are trying to bump our relevancy for something along the lines "Dental office manual"

EDIT:  I should also mention these links ALL just appeared out of thin air.  A whole bunch in early July, and more in mid-September.  They didn't just slowly accumulate.

So (finally) here's my questions:

1.  Did our current SEO company probably do this? The only thing they've mentioned before is that they were going to create some backlinks for us, with an assurance they'd be genuine links that would build Pagerank without getting us slapped by Google.

2.  Am I correct in my opinion that these are toxic links that could get manual action taken against us by Google?  I'm not sure how LIKELY it is (as again, there's only about 100 or so) but they seem to be violating multiple Google principles.  With how often Google pushes out algorithm updates I feel like we could still get busted for this even if the links are like 6-7 months old and not sending us much traffic.

I'm asking because I've been told to set up a conference call with the account manager at our current SEO place, and I want to know what I'm getting into.  I might be wildly over-reacting about nothing, I might be kind of right but it's not that bad, or I might be 100% right and what they are doing is not cool at all, and could kill our SEO if we get busted by Google. I'm not sure which it is.

Checking Google webmaster tools and analytics, I don't see any drops in organic traffic between July '14 and now, so I don't think we've been smacked by Google algorithm-wise. And there's no notice from Google of manual action being taken, or anything being wrong with our backlinks, so I'm fairly confident these links haven't hurt us at least as of today. I'm just worried going forward (especially when we finish the new site and submit it to Google to get crawled, the URLs will be the same)

Sorry this was so long.  I'm kind of nervous, honestly. On the one hand, these backlinks seem SUPER sketchy to me, but on the other hand, I don't KNOW any of this stuff.  It sounds kind of ridiculous for me, someone with maybe 3 weeks of intense Google-education in SEO, to be questioning something a real, established SEO company is doing.  I mean, I kind of have to assume they know better, right?

[MonicaOConnor]

These all look like directory listings and guest blog posts. I don't believe they are toxic, but I also don't think they are the best kind of links either. I would have a chat with your seo company and give them the clear understanding of exactly what you want your content to sound like and where you want it to be.

Guest blogging is not an unacceptable form of backlinking. In my opinion it is just not 100% best practice anymore. You want high authority natural links.

[CEDRSolutions]

I'm not disagreeing (I mean, I asked for opinions, so I appreciate your input) but I feel like a lot of what I've read about what kinds of things annoy Google's algorithm, these posts are like Exhibit A for how to do everything incorrectly.

• Most of the posts are either written by a robot script or a non-english speaker.  With how insanely keyword optimized the writing is, and how a lot of it is borderline gibberish, it just screams "SPAM" to me.  My understanding the rule of thumb with Google's algorithm is "If it feels really spammy to you, it will come across as spammy to Google"

• Is it really just kind of frowned-upon for an SEO company to just slap our name on content that like, without discussing it with us first?  That fake CEDR e-book, and the Youtube video, those look like a 12 year old made it.  A potential customer who sees that kind of stuff isn't going to think "Well, these guys sure seem competent and like someone I can trust with my livelihood!"  I would think doing this sort of thing without telling us would be a HUGE red-flag no-no.

• Bottom line though, your feeling is that these links are very unlikely to get us penalized at all, SEO-wise?

[MonicaOConnor]

Yes, you are not incorrect. As I said, this is not necessarily bad, but it isn't necessarily good. The tactic isn't bad, but the implementation is bad. If you can rewrite the content, that would be my recommendation. Before you disavow, ask the webmaster of the other sites to remove the links if you feel that is what you want to do.

If the current company you are working with published these articles, you should remind them of Hummingbird, Panda and Penguin. I am not saying these links are best practice, but there are alternatives to disavowing them. Without knowing what the rest of your link profile is I cannot say that removing them would be my first jump. I would first try to fix the content and anchor text, second I would ask whichever webmaster has links you can't salvage to remove them, and my last resort would be to disavow them.

[CEDRSolutions]

Thanks, you've answered my question!  I understand what you're saying, building a backlink profile in this way isn't automatically bad, per se, if it's done really well.  But we seem to be in agreement that these were done very poorly.

I'll ask about getting them re-written, of course since this is the first we're seeing of these links, it's entirely possible our SEO company will deny ever making them.  Of course, in that case, it's either a poorly done negative-SEO campaign, or someone REALLY likes CEDR and is just incapable of expressing it correctly.

I know removal is the best step, and then disavowal. Do you agree then, that these links are a penalty threat from Google if just left alone and Google later notices them? I'm assuming that's why you didn't mention just ignoring them as an option.

[MonicaOConnor]

That is tough to say. I think there is more likely the sites themselves can be punished for having poor quality content, but, that being said Penguin is becoming ever more advanced and you can be penalized for being in a bad neighborhood. So far that refers specifically to link profiles, but I don't put it passed Google to start including content in that evaluation as well. My rule of thumb is always go with your gut, because your instinct is usually spot on. If you get bad vibes then do whatever you can to make sure you are satisfied with the end result.

[McTaggart]

I'd say you need to get a full overview of what's been done so far - and sign-off on anything that they're planning to do for you in the future (including tactics, target media and so on). You might find this helpful: http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/what-is-nofollow/ 

See the bit here, under "How do we get natural links" http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/unnatural-links/

Switch to PR focused work, in the future, where your submissions are editorially reviewed (sure, some will be rejected - yet this is all about quality over quantity).

This is a good rundown of what not to do: http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/seo-to-avoid/