What do you say in your emails to horrible sites to remove your links?

[Martin_S]

Morning guys,

I've the unenviable task of having to rectify poor link building (a previous company's work, not mine) which inevitably means emailing tons and tons of horrible directories with links to the client from as far back as 5/6 years ago.

I'm sure many of you are in the same boat so it begs the question:

What have you said to these types of sites that is effective in getting them to remove the links?

This could even be a two/three-parter:

If you've had little joy in requesting removals, have you dis-avowed the links, and what (if any) effect did it have?

Thanks,

M.

[Martin_S]

Thanks Carla and Marie,

[MarieHaynes]

I have found that a site is either going to comply to your request or they are not.  There's probably nothing you can say to convince or bully them into changing their mind.

I generally say something like,

"Hi!  My name is Marie Haynes and I am working with example.com who is currently dealing with an unnatural links penalty from Google.  We are attempting to remove or nofollow all self made links that point to our site and are writing to you to ask if you could help.  There are links on the following pages of yours that point to our site:

(example links)

Please know that your site's integrity is not in question here.  If you feel that this link was made by you without us or an SEO asking for it, then please let me know and we will keep it.  Otherwise, if you are able to remove or nofollow that would help us greatly."

[Carla_Dawson]

Hi Martin,

Great question. I run into this situation all the time just like trying to tell a potential customer that their Flash website has to be redone.

I usually call them and try to educate them on what Google is now requiring. That poor link building practices work in the past but not today and that their a in danger of getting dinged by the Google Spam team. I also try and fine one good article that explains all this from a very reliable source so that they don't think you are making it up.

Education is the only way. I find educating my clients the best way to sell white hat linkbuilding services. Yes it is time consuming but effective and it builds trust.

I would not bash the other SEO company. I would just explain that Google has improved their algorithm and that these techniques are considered black hat or poor link building techniques and that they should correct them or else....

Hope that answers your question. The same issue pops up with websites that have poor web architectures. When you suggest to the client, that they need to modify their website, they freak out.

Good luck and I hope this answers your question

Carla