Link Removals (DA Damage?)

[brightonseorob]

Hi,

I am now working on a website with some rubbish links in their profile, which were created by the previous SEO Company. They are footer links from unrelated business websites. All authority from these links have been removed by Google during the latest updates and our SEOMOz DA went from 37 to 35 after the past Penguin update.

My question is: Should I get these links removed or rather will we see any advantage to getting the links removed?

Or should I just focus my efforts on getting a better link profile together using content?

What I don't want to happen is to remove these not great links and then see a decrease even further of the authority.

Thanks

[brightonseorob]

Hi Robert,

Thanks for the answer, that was pretty much my take on the matter. The sites in question are all sites build by the previous SEO company, so there seems to be a small link network. Their Auth and PR has dropped dramatically.

Thanks

Rob

[RobertFisher]

Rob

You say: "All authority from these links have been removed by Google during the latest updates and ..."

How did you determine this? And, this is one of those questions where it depends on the site, what it does, criticality of PR for given pages, etc. So, with a client site wherein business results are at stake, I would not make a change without first notifying the client and achieving agreement on course.

That said, I do not see how a bunch of footer links are going to have that big of an impact on a site due to the minimal effect of where they are coming from. You could use the disavow tool from Google and use it judiciously to see what the effect is. Assuming you had 100 of these type links coming in, break it down into the worst 20, next, next, next and then disavow the lowest 20 and wait for effect, etc.

There are all types of ways you can manipulate a plan like that. To me, improving the profile is wise no matter what else you do.

Hope this helps,