Can your site be penalised by backlinks?

[Maximise]

Hi,

I just wanted to get some clarification on whether Google would penalize your site if you had many links coming from a questionable site.

We've been struggling with rankings for years even though we have one of the oldest sites in the industry with a good link profile and the site is well optimized.

I was looking through webmaster tools and noticed that one website links to us over 100,000 times, all to the home page. The site is www.vietnamfuntravel.com. When I looked at the site it seems that they operate a massive links exchange, I'm not sure what the history is and why they link to us so much though.

Is there any chance that this could impact us negatively? if it is then what would be the best way to deal with the situation? I could ask them to take the links down but can't guarantee they would do it quickly (if at all). Would blocking their domain from our htaccess file have the desired effect?

[perfectweb]

Yes, there is a very good chance that this is negatively affecting you.

[baptisteplace]

Hi maximise,

The url you gave is wrong, beware there is your site's url. Anyway, the vietnamfuntravel website won't give any juice, it looks really suspicious and link exchange is in the menu !

I don't think these backlinks could impact negatively your site, but I would recommend to remove them anyway. They don't give you much, and this would sanitize your backlink profile.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

There is always a chance that this could cause you harm so I would proceed with caution and do what you can to remove it. On the one hand it could cause you problems, on the other, it might not. Then there is somewhere in between where it might have just a small impact.

Truth is, where best practice is concerned, that is not a healthy link so I would consider getting it removed.

Regards,

Andy

[moldybacon]

This is a sensitive subject, there is a chance but you really need to look at it on a case/case bases. You would have to contact google webspam team and start an investigation. To be more of a judge I would really need to take a look at your keywords/competition as it is really case/case and your competitors could just have better quality links/content.

Oh & blocking them from your .htaccess will have no effect whatsoever on the links! If your niche is competitive it could negatively effect your ranking, so just be sure before you ask them to remove the links.

[Goetzman]

although backlinks can, its more onpage stuff that Google hates. Otherwise everyone would be attacking their competitors

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Worthwhile having a watch of this http://www.seomoz.org/blog/preventing-linkbased-penalties-whiteboard-friday