How do you block incoming links to your site?

[HelpingHandNetwork]

With the new update to google focusing on link spam and multiple anchor text ? If you have incoming links that you would like to block or make no follow?

[HelpingHandNetwork]

I guess the only real way is to use site explorer and then contact the site directly... We have been spammed bad by competitors and google is penalizing us.. I have contacted the sites and am waiting for response...

[NakulGoyal]

Yes, as Ryan said, this is the nature of the internet. Just like you can write about anything, anybody, you can create a link to anybody and just to clarify, the block that Ryan is talking about is essentially that if someone linked to you, you could "technically" setup a block so anybody visiting your website from that link, would not be able to access your website..but it would still get counted as a link from that website to yours.

[RyanKent]

It can't be done with respect to Google's visibility. Anyone can link to you at any time and there is nothing you can do about it.

The main positive action you can take is to earn as many good links as possible so if you get some bad links pointed to your site they will only represent a small percentage of your total links.

I know people hate this answer but we have to trust Google has systems in place to deal with black hat SEO tactics of link spamming a competitor's site.

If you wanted to go to extreme measures, you can block a link from reaching your site in your web server settings. On Apache servers (the most common servers) you can do it in the htaccess file. Once again, this is not recommended but those who are extremely determined to block the links from working can do it this way.