How Can Low Quality Links Be Removed?

[sdennison]

Let's say that in looking in OSE that you find an overall low quality link profile.

Let's say that some of those links were acquired by using article marketing systems like UAW or SEO Link Vine, which were hard hit in Penguin.

Let's also say that some keywords were targeted within blog networks that passed a lot of page rank to targeted pages.

Let's say that at one point in time an offshore link building team was used and they posted low quality blog comments on pages with hundreds of outbound links.

Let's say as a result of the drop in SERPS that you've finally been convinced that there must be a better way and in the process join SEO Moz - and now you want to clean up the low quality link profile.

How does one go about removing links on such a diverse number of sites? Are there best practices for how to remove links you longer want pointed to your site?

Or is it simply best to go on about the work of building a lot of quality links and let the past be in the past?

Thanks for your input Mozzers...

[mrgeezer2u]

Carlos,

Just wanted to say "Thanks" for this post. I am in a similar situation as Scott, and I had my doubts that a reconsideration request would yield any results. Nice to hear that it does. My "prior" seo advised me to wait it out. When I insisted, they wanted me to remove all reference to them in my response as well as remove their IDs in Webmaster Tools. Been trying to unwind things on my own before i submit a reconsideration. Do you think Google will remove the penalty if i just tell them I fired the SEO?

Thanks again.

[David_ODonnell]

If you had a list of the URLs you could outsource the job of actually contacting the sites using a template link removal request. However you might find that a lot of the low value sites that accept articles from UAW and similar are highly automated, so the chance of getting a reply / link removed may be quite low.

[CarlosFernandes]

yup... if it was page that is the problem and not your homepage... then what I would do is recreate that page - but when recreating it - take a close look at the on-page seo attributes.

See if there are any other close variations of the money keywords. Look at variations you could make the page name instead of what it used to be. I would stay away from an exact match between your page title tag, H1 and page url too on this new page. I would also try and change the content up if you can. Reword it to the best you can and check it on a duplicate content checker.

Again - previously when I gave some advice to you I (maybe wrongly) assumed it was home page you linked to..  If it was a page that was heavily optimized around the keyword and you linked to that - you maybe in luck.

This doesn't mean to forget what I said above - I would still try to get some delinking action done - IF ONLY just so you can post to G about your proactive measures taken.  I know a lot will disagree with me here...   but it is worth doing.

I have witnessed three websites having penalties revoked in the past 8 weeks. All three sent reconsideration requests  with some evidence of proactive delinking measures.

So - although you can and should republish a new page - still try to do the other stuff I mentioned.

[sdennison]

Are you suggesting that to 'recreate' a page that was dropped and by re-naming the page I might bring the content back in view?

The domain is still indexed - some of the pages have lost 10-40 spots, some only down 3-5 spots but for money keywords that were targeted in blog networks the serps are ugly. Pages that were in the top 10 are now out of the top 100.

[CarlosFernandes]

I forgot to ask you...   were the links to specific page or to your domain ?

One things seems sure - the penalties do seem to be PAGE and KEYWORD specific.

They do not affect the entire domain - or at least I have not seen evidence of that on these latest round of penalizations.

Unlike the example I gave above where his entire domain was toast.  These latest warnings and penalties seem quite different.

So, if it is to a page...  and not your domain - then you have a road to salvation

[sdennison]

Carlos - you've provided an incredible amount of solid, actionable advice in your reply. I'm certainly willing to 'dig-in' and try to reverse some of the damage.

Oddly my traffic was low before Pengin and its a bit higher now. However my 'money' keywords are no longer in the top 100. Almost as if there was a penalty applied in addition to the loss of the link juice.

All of my pages are still indexed -they're just not ranking as they were a few weeks ago.

Look for my PM regarding the tool you used to quickly gather whois data and if you can provide guidance on the email you sent, that'd be a real gift.

Thank you again for your input. I believe that this will be useful to others who are also dealing with these issues.

Scott

[sdennison]

Thanks Todd - definitely looking for quality, higher authority link opportunities. You've offered some really helpful suggestions...

SD

[CarlosFernandes]

i think he may have been being sarcastic.

If you are not going to do any damage rectification at all - I would say either forget about traffic from Google and build your traffic from other channels   - or move onto a new domain.

[sdennison]

With over 900 of these 'links' - its a big job. Thanks for your input Adam.

[CarlosFernandes]

Lets say that all this happened to you...   I would give you the same advice that we have give two new clients this past week that have come to us with this problem after the Penguin update.  They had also used LinkVine and other article systems.

We also have two clients it has happened to - where the links were not through Blog / Splog networks but genuine natural links that happened due to a book launch. many of them were low quality and may ahve looked spammy - but we know for certain she never did anything BH or even GH.

Anyway, our advice would be to attack from both sides.

I would say not to continue your link building though - at least not in the way you were doing it before.

If you are going to do ANY link building it needs to be done with a new perspective. They need to be real links that you acquire through means of networking or blogging or writing your own articles.

Yup - a lot of work... but it will pay off.

If you are going to any paid link building (which I wouldnt advise) I would ask for nofollows on them.

Even though some high trafficked websites in the SEO community still SELL links (such as SER) - it is not enough to rely on webmasters to tell you you have to have a nofollow on the paid links.  You should ask for them.

If you were to engage in paid link building without nofollows you need to change your entire strayegy and make sure they have a diverse range of anchor texts. Put your URL in some, put your company name in some. DO NOT just go after a money keyword.  I want to be clear though - I am in no way advising this.

My advice though would be to not do paid link building unless doing nofollows.
Certainly stay away from those Blog networks such as those you mentioned.

Some on other forums are also advising clients that it is a waste of time trying to attack the bad links.

I disagree - and although it may take a lot of time and resources....  you have to ask yourself what your domain is worth to you. If you have spent a lot of time on the website and had it for some years - but just made some mistakes in your eagerness to get ahead... then hold your hands up (which it sounds like you are doing), turn a corner and attack vigorously to try to get it all corrected.

Get a list of all the domains linking to you, and all their pages for each individual domain.

Input the domain list into some software (PM ME) that will quickly get you as many of the contact details (from whois records). Within a  few minutes you could have a database of emails for a 1000 domains that  you will need to contact.  Come up with a standard email format.... or with a little programming you could make your own script to do all this.  That is what we have done for the clients above.  We got through this task for hundreds of domains within a few days.

Now, I must admit - even though our email is nicely worded and effective (as it reads) - I would say, just based on the following two points - the success rate of this will be very low...

• The webmasters of these offending websites that have links to you have NOTHING to gain by spending time to delink you...

• The WHOIS information isnt always the best contact information

BUT - at least you are doing something.

Your success rate may be 2-5% with this - but even if you manage to get 20 or 30 of these sites to delink your website...it is still something you can document and send to Google as aproactive steps you have taken to rectify the situation.

Depending on the amount of links to your website - it may only change the percentage of good links to bad links slightly....  That's why you need to do what you can on acquiring natural links.

It might not be a quick process. It will $%##$ you off doing it. There is no guarantee they will lift a penalty - EVER - but one thing is for sure - if you dont do anything and show some proactive action to remedy the problems - they are 100% sure to never lift it.

I know one website that had a penalty 18 months ago... the owner did not want to do any reconsideration request - since they thought it would result in a manual review.

The only thing his actions (or lack of ) did was ensure his website never allowed back into the index.  A 10,000 page website that was top in their industry. He did stuff wrong - but didn't want to admit it.  Doing a SITE:domain.com  search to this day (18 months on) doesn't find any of his pages.

So, it all depends on what the domain means to you and if you are prepared to do SOME action on the bad stuff - because you will have to in my opinion.

Hope this helps - and if you need the name of that software that I recommend for the WHOIS records - just PM me.  I don't like putting links in posts since it looks like advertising / promoting.  It isn't our software but one we use.

Any other questions - just let us know.

Carlos

[EvolveCreative]

I wouldn't put my priority on removing the low quality links. With that amount of spam it's going to be nearly impossible to get them all removed anyway. I'd spend my time lowering bounce rate and working on social. Go through each page and ask yourself, "Can this be improved?"

As always, look for authoritative link opportunities. Try getting some media mentions using helpareporterout.com. Guest posts are always good too. Look for ways to get traffic through your links. Try running some contests.

Here's an interesting poll about the Panda update last year.

http://www.seroundtable.com/panda-poll-14693.html

Only about 10% recovered fully from Panda, but I'm betting most people just gave up after they were hit.

Good luck!

[Digital360]

Contact each site directly and ask nicely to have the links removed.