Preparing for Penguin: Remove, Disavow, or change to branded

[BobGW]

For someone that has 80 root domains pointing to their domain and 10 of them are sitewide backlinks from 10 PR4+ sites. All paid for. All with the same main keyword anchor text

Should I advise him to remove the links, dissavow the links, dissavow then remove or just change to branded anchor text for the 10 sitewide links. Another option is to just keep one link (preferrably editorial) from each site.

The only reason not to pull them off right away is that the client could not sustain his business with a drop in sales. These are by far the strongest 10 root domains. Eventually, when he has enough good backlinks these are all coming off.

There was a huge drop in sales for this site last fall, but it recovered almost completely by changing keyword stuffing and adding ecommerce content.

Looking to keep his sales and also prepare for this years updates.

[mememax]

Hey Bob, if those links are topic-related and aren't delivering you any traffic I agree with Thom in his huge and detailed answer. Swap it to an editorial article to an improtant page of your site would be my pick.

[ThompsonPaul]

You're exactly right on what I meant when I referred to relevancy, Bob. Doesn't need to be exactly the same niche, but a reader would immediately understand why these two sites might be talking about each other.

So yea, I'd say trying to replace the sitewide with an editorial link to a relevant page on your site (same criteria) is probably the best/safest way to try to hold onto some of that ranking juice.

Glad you found it helpful - appreciate you letting me know.

Paul

[BobGW]

I spoke to the owner. There's only 4 in question and one nofollow now

On the 4, I looked and they're not generating traffic. I'm unclear what you mean by relevant in this case. They are generally related to our niche as, for example, an informational clothing site (backlink provider) is related to a store that sells socks (our site)

We have 81 linking root domains and one nice piece of content if that helps.

What do you recommend for these 4? I'm guessing swapping for an editorial link is your recommendation, but due to not exact niche relevancy, I'm wondering if you'll suggest removal.

Thanks for the awesome advice, btw

[ThompsonPaul]

You're in a delicate spot, Bob. I'd say your plan should be to "hope for the best, but plan for the worst".

Obviously, as you indicated, you're going to need to do something about those links as that link profile is just begging to get hammered.

You could clean them all at once, take the traffic hit, and then try to build back as quick as possible, but if the site is doing well now, it seems a shame to take such a hit.

I'd suggest putting a clear, well-prioritized, well-funded plan in place to start building link-worthy content and promoting it in ways that earn those backlinks as quickly as possible. (This work is going to have to be done regardless, so not like it's a temporary expense).

Then, for every 6 or 8 new quality incoming links, clean up one of the 10 problematic links. This will look natural to the SEs (as it is natural) and hopefully won't attract the attention of the slappers while you're working through the process.

Best case scenario, you'll get through offsetting all the problem links without getting hurt by a penalty or algo update.

In order to be ready in case of the worst-case scenario, (Google slaps the site with a penalty a week from now), you should also immediately build a confirmed contact list of the webmasters in control of the problematic links. (I mean an email or phone number that you've confirmed actually gets a response from a human). That way if you get hit before you can clean up naturally, you can get those problem links dealt with immediately and can show Google what you've done in a quick reconsideration request.

Also, document the process as you work through attracting the new links, so you can be specific about what you've been doing in that direction, should a reconsideration request become necessary

As far as how to deal with the problem links - do not submit a disavow!! That is a last-ditch process if there's no other way to get links removed, which is not your case. (Plus the disavow process could attract unwanted attention. Yea, I'm cynical like that

I'd actually suggest a mix of tactics for those 10 sites, depending on different circumstances:

• If a site's links are generating quality traffic, just ask that they be no-followed.
• If using the no-follow approach on a number of the sites, also see if they can mix up the anchor text, making sure to include at least some branded (as you hinted)
• If the main value of the links is for juice, and the site is relevant to your own, ask that they be swapped for a legit editorial link or two. A couple of the strong, new, link-worthy content resources you've just built will help here. (And will probably be stronger than a sitewide anyway)
• If the links aren't generating quality traffic and aren't relevant to your niche, just get them removed.

Does that approach sound like it might work?

Paul

[mememax]

Hi Bob, normally I would advice to remove clearly paid links or limit them to the homepage but your case seems quite different.

You said that those links are not only helping this site for their SEO purposes but that those links are driving him sales. In that case I imagine that those links are receiving clicks so they're actually highly related. I think that google will (or maybe it's actually) look at CTR of your backlinks. If they're trafficked they're high value also for the users so I will maintain them. However if you've generated them quicker than the normal you may consider use them as nofollowed links driving traffic to their site and ask those sites to write a post speaking about your company's services. In that sense you may push in a branded or url based link and still have the traffic from those links. I f you are able to get value and traffic from those links I woul dnot remove them, and for sure I won't ever disavow anything if you haven't received any warning from google.

Maybe you may consider to point them in a spreadsheet so if you receive a warning you'll always be able to disavow them and ask for a reconsideration.