Dealing with manual penalty...
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I'm in the back-and-forth with Google's Quality Search team at the moment. We discovered a manual penalty on our website and have been trying to get it removed as of late. Problem is, tons of spammy incoming links.
We did not ask for or purchase any of these links, it just so happens that spammy websites are linking to our site. Regardless, I've done my best to remove quite a few links in the past week or so, responding to the Quality Search team with a spreadsheet of the links in question and the action taken on each link.
No luck so far.
I've heard that if I send an email to a website asking for a link removal, I should share that with Google as well. I may try that.
Some of the links are posted on websites with no contact info. A WhoIs search brings up a hidden registrant. Removing these links is far from easy.
My question is, what are some techniques that are proven to be effective when working your way through the removal of a manual penalty? I know Google isn't going to tell me all of the offending links (they've offered a few examples, we've had those removed - still penalized) so what's the best way for me to find them myself? And, when I have a link removed, it may stay in Webmaster Tools as an active link for a while even though it no longer exists. Does the Quality Search team use Webmaster Tools to check or do they use something else?
It's an open-ended question, really. Any help dealing with a manual penalty and what you have done to get that penalty removed is of great help to me. Thanks!
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Ryan Kent has some experience with this, and shared it in this Q&A at http://www.seomoz.org/q/does-anyone-have-any-suggestions-on-removing-spammy-links
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