Is it worthwhile to remove a large quantity of lesser quality links if you are able to do so easily?

[Poindexter]

So I've recently started working at a new company where I lead up their SEO efforts. In regards to link building I've discovered that a little over 75% of the anchor text on the links to the homepage (at least of the 10k SEOmoz provides) are non branded keywords. We don't appear to have any penalties, however, in my opinion we have what is an unnatural link profile for our homepage.

As I investigated further I've noticed that a lot of these links (not all) are from irrelevant blogs where the link is found in the footer. (Clearly this was the result of some less than ideal get links quick strategy that was implemented in the past.) At first I was overwhelmed thinking that I'd have to try and contact these sites individually to see if I could get the link removed, however, I soon discovered that the site these links are actually linking to is not our domain, but is instead a domain that redirects to our site.

So this brings me to my question: Should I remove the redirect from this other site to rid myself of these links. The white hat side of me strongly thinks this is a good step forward, however, a small part of me wonders what the ramifications would be. These types of redirects seem to account for a fairly high number of links, however what value that actually contribute is difficult to know.

Any thoughts?

[Poindexter]

Thanks for the answer Carson! I took your advice and just laid out the two scenarios, so we'll see what get's decided.

Unfortunately it doesn't look like we have WMT setup, so I don't know if those sites have warnings, but you make an interesting point. Also the spammy stuff has been stopped for sometime now, so the worry is more whether it's diluting our link profile from being stronger by retaining these types of links. (And of course getting penalized for having them in the future.)

I think it's a rare occurrence that an SEO has the opportunity to remove so many links as easily as this, as I know most would have to contact each site individually. I just know that big changes usually result in significant outcomes/consequences, so my worry would be rank drops. Just because, no matter how you slice it, we would be giving up a large quantity of links, even if they are lower in quality.

Regardless, the link building plan moving forward is to build links using legit higher quality tactics, however, my bias is to just pull the plug and say goodbye to these spammy links and move on. I'll just have to see what higher ups say.

Thanks again for the advice. It's great to know that even as a one person SEO department that there's a great community like this where I can discuss these kinds of scenarios.

[Carson-Ward]

Do you have WMT on the redirecting site? It would be nice to know if the redirecting site may have already received a warning.

My best advice to you is that this is both an SEO decision and a business decision. I would hate to see you, as the new SEO, be held responsible to make the decision and take the heat for all of this. It sounds like you have a firm grasp of the alternative courses of action, the pros and cons of each, and the risks involved. Present the situation to the business owners or managers, the risk of keeping them (penalties) and the risk of cutting them (drops).

It sounds like a legitimate link-building campaign is part of any strategy going forward, so stopping the spammy stuff and doing good stuff in the future might be enough. Again, though, I'd suggest letting people in leadership positions at least weigh in on it.