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Quick question though. Using SEOMoz metrics some article directories have near 100 authority.

Should I use authority in determining which directories to try and remove my links from.

This is really great info thank you so much!

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I will take this into consideration and keep a log so I can work my way out of it.

It is weird to say this but my intent was to never "game" google. I was trying to develop a site for my students and friend's students. I didn't have time to do, what I then knew little about, "SEO" so I hired someone.

That is to not blame them. They did exactly what was needed and worked under those algorithms.

I just hate seeing a site like mine that helps kids fall underneath sites that are just Adsense farms.

They should just devalue links completely over time instead of penalizing. Some of those links are 5 years old.

I saw it for my entire site but my inner pages keep their rankings very well. I get several pieces of new content every day.

It is also hard to tell because my traffic is oriented towards to school year. I monitor my keywords and like i said,

for the keyword chemistry help i had been ranked 3-6 for years and it just dropped to 100

for chemistry tutor i was always 2-3 and it dropped to 8-10

so I sent in a request for reconsideration because I felt I had done nothing wrong

They specifically told me. I initially thought I got caught up in a Panda update. I hardly think about bad links anymore since it had been years since I attempted article marketing. I asked them to reconsider and they replied:

"We've reviewed your site and we still see links to your site that violate our quality guidelines.

Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes.

We encourage you to make changes to comply with our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results.

If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request."

Do you think this is effective even though Google has specifically said they were penalizing me until I remove these links?

Do you think this is effective even though Google has specifically said they were penalizing me until I remove these links?