Welcome to the Q&A Forum

If they are tags then they should show up in the tag section of Posts or possibly in the comments. Not sure if you allow uploads to your site, but if you do you should check out the upload folder(s). Keep in mind, these URLs could be showing up somewhere out in cyberspace, not necessarily on your site. Take those steps I pointed out and you should see those ugly URLs go away within a few weeks, not accounting for other factors.

I agree with Mark Scully on this one, but would like to add some thoughts: If you are looking to clean out your backlink profile you should go about it in a very methodical fashion. I would recommend exporting the links to an Excel file and then, in a new sheet, start skimming and categorizing them -needs more research; relevant; potentially harmful; show stopper. It will be time consuming but once you have a basic categorization set you can start reaching out. There is a real possibility that many of the directory links are from neglected and orphaned directories and that the contact e-mail may not be in operation anymore. When you find this to be the case, note it on your categorized Excel sheet. Note the date you sent the link removal request and note the response; if there is no response, note that as well. Be realistic concerning the expected reply time (this is a big deal to you; it is probably not a big deal to those hosting the directories) and send out second and third requests. If it was me, I would concentrate on the two most harmful categories and give them a real thorough going through. After a few weeks (I know, it's a long-ish project) you should have a nice detailed actions-taken report and should feel comfortable utilizing the disavow links tool if needed. Note: This tool, from what I understand, is not a click-and-fix and you will need to have a file of the links you would like disavowed to upload to Google for review. Barry Schwartz, over at seroundtable.com, has a nice post concerning this and he supplies an example of what a disavow report might look like: [image: disavow-file-1350481037.png] Watch the video by Matt Cutts explaining the tool and use it with caution and only as a last resort; don't spam them with reports. One final note: Some of these links may not be harming you as of now. Use your best judgement and ask yourself this question: "if I knew another penguin update was coming tomorrow, would having this link cause me to worry?" It isn't always a straightforward answer, but if you find yourself stretching and searching for a rational to view the link as relevant or user-centric, then it probably isn't. I am sure there is plenty more to say on the topic, and I hope some others chime in with their thoughts. It's time to earn that paycheck. Keep us posted, and happy digging.

I would try both and see what happens The problem with rel canonical though, is that your not using it as intended and could get caught out or have the link devalued I dont see any problem with a plain text link. personally i would KISS and use the text link As to whether its worth it, it depends how good the linkbait is and how many links/power it gathers. The only way you can know is to try and then see the effect on your rankings. You could certainly get more value than one link out of it though; link out to other articles that link back to your ecom site. When you have this type of  powerful 3rd party site, you can then start swapping links from your site in return for links from theirs to your ecommerce site