First off I just want to say thanks Penguin! Now I get to start the joyous experience doing a back-link audit, and removing all the negative links. Also I now have to be on constant alert for Black SEO tactics targeted at my domain due to the cut throat business I am in. I think it can only be a matter of time before Google says all backlinks do not matter. Unfortunately, I need rank now!!
So I have a couple of questions:
First how important is domain rank in a back-link audit? Should I remove myself from indexes with low domain rank, and leave ones with high? Should I remove myself from as many indexes as possible? What about obvious paid blog posts that have high domain rank? Do you leave those? What is considered a low Domain Rank for back-links, under 35 - 40?
Second, what is a good success rate for a back link audit. How can you measure improvement, other than waiting for your PR or SERP to go up?
Third, in some situations it looks like back-links are legitimate, but they all point to my home page. Is it worth pursuing for example asking these people to link to the specific product they are referring to for example children picnic tables instead of just our home page?
And, lastly what legal rights do I have to get back-links removed? Is it only on sites that copy my content that I have copy written? Is it possible to prevent Google from counting these back-links through an .htaccess file?
Thanks in advance for all of the help. I hope to take what I learn and put it into a guide of some capacity as I am sure many people are going through this same situation at the moment.
