Detected a bad site linking to you? what to do?

[maestrosonrisas]

I have detected on linkdetox site that had stolen a face photo of a smile from a star my website and is linking to the page.

I uploade a disavow with that site very bad domain. But my question is if should a take that picture of my site or rename so the link goes to 404.

It is not an important or relevant page for my website

[MarieHaynes]

There's no harm in disavowing the link but it's probably not necessary.  The point of the disavow tool is to allow webmasters to ask Google to not count links that were made for SEO purposes.  If you had placed this here so that you could increase your rankings then sure, I'd disavow it.  It's unlikely that it's a negative SEO tactic...not with just one link.  But, if you had a pile of these and you felt it was negative SEO then I'd disavow.

Every site, even the ones with the cleanest backlink profiles have bizarre links that appear like this.  I would just ignore it.

If, however, you are trying to get it removed because you don't like the idea of your face residing on a page filled with porn, then if you can't contact the webmaster, you can try reporting the site to its host.  Sometimes the host will remove spam pages/sites.

[crackingmedia]

That's really helpful. Thanks Jeff.

[GPainter]

You can always email -

postmaster@

and/or

webmaster@

Those two should go through to some one who looks after the site. Disavow will be enough to stop the link causing you any problems.

[maestrosonrisas]

This bad site has no contact information. Impossible to reach the webmaster to ask for removal.

I am wounder if the disavow will be ok. But in this case i will rename the page and delete the photos.

[GPainter]

Agree with Peter & Jeff,

If you're really upset with a link you can disavow it if you want to do it correctly you should email them prior, but if you jsut want it done, add the domain to the disavow list and job done.

[customerparadigm.com]

FYI, Google's Matt Cutts has broken from the previously stated mantra on the disavow tool, and now is encouraging Webmasters to use it if they are worried if a link is from a bad domain, due to poor SEO (or someone else trying to hurt your site by creating bad links):

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2309486/Matt-Cutts-Use-the-Link-Disavow-Tool-Even-if-Your-Site-Hasnt-Been-Penalized

[crackingmedia]

I would ask the site owner to remove the photo and link. If that fails then if the page is not important to you then it will be simpler to remove it than wait for the disavow to take effect.

Peter

[maestrosonrisas]

I have more than 3000 original pictures on my website with the water and they are constantly stolen. I dont mind about that.

In this case is a porn site. On other cases among with good sites there are sites that i dont want the link of the credit and i delete the linked picture the link remains but goes to a 404.

I mean deleting the photo because i community advice deleting or rename the page i wild do that also with the disavow.

What would you do?

[GPainter]

So a site is using a photo from your site but giving you credit for the photo by giving you a link?

How are you sure it's a "very bad domain" ?

The disavow will be fine it tells Google you don't want that site linked to your in anyway. If you don't want people stealing your images you could look into water marks.

[crackingmedia]

Hi Dario

The first thing you should really do it contact the site who created the bad link and ask them to remove it and the photo if you are not happy about that also. If they are unresponsive then sending in a Disavow should really be done after speaking to the offending site's owner.

If though, as you say, the page is not important to you, then if the above doesn't work then yes, just remove the page.

Peter