Bad Backlink Removals for the Independent Webmaster – Tips and Guidance

Marketing on the internet has become quite turbulent in the last few years as Google has brought out stricter and stricter boundaries to ensure that only the very best websites get to the top of SERPS (Search engine results pages).

Those website owners who have not used a professional approach to building links in the past may well have found the site suddenly penalised by Google. (We are proud to say here at Web Results Direct that we have never had one client with this issue!)

But the fact is, whilst we advocate (and practise) a professional and ethical approach inbound link generation through great content and “traditional” digital marketing activities in order to build a robust presence on the internet, we cannot ignore the fact that that the problem of removing unwanted links from websites is rife – and the task of removing links is often highly time consuming and laborious. So this article offers tips as to how to make that task a little bit easier.

Good fundamental communication is key

A great part of the problem with link removal is communication. Once you have tracked down a viable contact for the owner of the linked website you begin a long haul of sending out messages asking for the link to be removed. If you went heavy with paid and placed links this could run into thousands if not hundreds of thousands.

Many site owners will contract in SEOs to do the work for them and this can be useful – but it is a good idea to create a set template for communication based on the tips below.

Use an email with your own website address

Make sure that whoever you ask to do the task is working from an inbox attached to your website. This will immediately verify that contact is not dodgy. For instance, a malicious competitor to the site owner you are contacting may want to remove positive links and so put the site owners Google positioning at risk.  Hence, some web owners will simply not respond to emails that do not appear right – or it may delay the process as he/she asks for further verification.

Short, sweet and specific

Don’t assume the website owner will understand why the link needs to be removed. Talk to them. Let them know the whole story. But everyone is busy and he/she is doing you a favour so you need to be as short, sweet and most of all, be as specific as possible.  Clearly state the URL of the page the link is coming from and the URL of the page on your site.

Gentle persuasion

Remember that the website owner is doing you a favour. They do not legally have to remove the links. Therefore the best approach is subtle persuasion.  Let them know your situation and that you are removing all site links as you have been penalised by Google.  Communicate as professional to professional (do not make demands or threats!) and you will more likely get a speedy and successful response.

Make it clear in the email exactly what you need doing and also that you would like a quick reply once the link has been removed.

If you have fallen foul of the Google algorithms through the use of black hat, or unethical, SEO practices, and are looking for professional support in order to regain your rankings and traffic then contact us – we’d be very pleased to review your case and provide you with the most appropriate solutions for your needs.

Good luck!