Unnatural Link Profile

[Chiefblob]

Hi All,

We are about to take on a new client whose site has been penalised for having a very unnatural link profile. They have over 1k links, which have 5 differing anchor texts, though the majority leans towards one particular phrase.

Their previous SEO company had done this for them and the strategy worked, keeping them in the top 3 for most phrases, until Penguin. Now they reside in the 70-100 ranks.

My initial though is we need to get rid of a lot of these links, however its going to be labour intensive and as we all know, labour is expensive.

The website is nicely designed and has lots of great unique content. Its just the link profile letting it down.

My question is;

If this were your client, what would you recommend? A link removal program which could take a long time and be very expensive or would you recommend that they start again and build a new site, also expensive and time consuming.

or would you suggest something different?

If anyone knows of any Link removal people who have done a good job in the past I'd love to get some contact details.

Thanks

Aran

[William.Lau]

If its 1K, LinkDelete can probably do it for about $400-$500.

But the main problem is that the links aren't guaranteed to be removed. Its based on cooperation of those webmasters, which usually are not helpful.

Another big problem is that this is a gamble.

1- You don't know if the links can be removed (uncooperative webmasters)

2- Even if you remove a good portion of links, it doesn't GUARANTEE an accepted reconsideration from Google.

[Chiefblob]

Thanks William.

The client will not be happy to start over again, but I cannot see them being happy to spend money deleting links which they paid the last guys to implement!

you know what clients are like!!

Its a tough call! I'll check out the services you mentioned, thanks.

[William.Lau]

Hi Aran,

Some link removal services are rmoov and linkdelete. Google those to find exact site.

As for using a new domain, it is brought up a lot. It really varies for what your client's goals are and what you hope to achieve. The site was previously ranking at 3 but that was with spammy links. Now without those links would they still rank? Probably not.

If the site has SOME good links I'd suggest keeping the domain and removing those 1k links as it is not THAT bad if they are on same domains. But getting them removed is a hard task.

If the site has no good links and the domain isn't anything special like an EMD, I'd say just dump it. This is assuming the domain is not anything important like brand name.

You will have to consult with your client and see what they want and what their budget is. Removing links is hella annoying. LinkDelete does a lot of it for you and customer service is good overall.