I'm sure most of you who run a business website won't need me to tell you that having a link back yo your site is a good thing?
Getting good links from reputable websites is like currency in the online world and if you are careful and sensible in your link building programme, your own site may get a boost up the rankings. However, get link building wrong and things can change dramatically.
This appears to be the case for one major UK landscaping brand that has "used a variety of questionable techniques to secure links to our website."
I received an email from an SEO consultant company (full email published below minus identities) asking that I remove links on a certain page because, as implied, that the previous SEO company had paid me to place the links "with the intention of manipulating search engine rankings."
Overlooking the implication that I might have been party to this underhand manipulation, this looks like s serious matter for this well known landscaping brand. They appear to be taking urgent action to try to undo any damage which may have been caused.
Search providers take a very dim view of paid-for links and take an even dimmer view of outright attempts to manipulate their search engine page results.
I don't sell links but I do, on occasions, allow guest post on Landscape Juice; when I do, I add a no-follow attribute (rel=”nofollow”) to the link. This attribute effectively negates the link from a SEO perspective.
Here's the email less the identities:
We are sorry to bother you with this and would like to apologize up front for the inconvenience.
We have discovered that a previous SEO consultant we hired to help promote our website www.xxxxxxx.co.uk have used a variety of questionable techniques to secure links to our website. These links were placed purely for SEO purposes, with the intention of manipulating search engine rankings.
We believe that these links have been placed or requested by a third party. The presence of these links is harmful to our site's good standing with search engines, and unfortunately, retaining them may also be potentially harmful to your own website's reputation.
The links we have found are as follows:
http://www.landscapejuice.com/2009/12/xx-xxxx-x-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxx-xx-xx-xxxxxxxxxxx.html
http://www.landscapejuice.com/2009/12/http://www.landscapejuice.com/2009/12/xx-xxxx-x-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxx-xx-xx-xxxxxxxxxxx.html?asset_id=6a00d8345192c169e2012876235e3e970c
We would greatly appreciate your help resolving this problem and the urgent removal of the links. Can you please let me know once the links have been removed by return email. If you need more information, please email me and I will be happy to assist. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you and do appreciate your help.
Sincerely,
xxxxxx
xxxxxxx Ltd
www.xxxxxx.co.uk
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Replies
I wrote back to the SEO company and told them I was unhappy with the implication that Landscape Juice was selling links.
I recently received the following further correspondence:
Dear Website Owner,
We are sorry to bother you with this again.
We contacted you by email recently because we have been guilty of using some questionable techniques to secure links to our client’s website xxxxxx. This includes some links that have been placed on your website www.landscapejuice.com. These links were placed purely for SEO purposes, with the intention of manipulating search rankings.
We asked you to kindly remove these links but so far we have had no response from you.
At the end of our project we will need to report our findings to Google so we can disavow any links that webmasters will not remove for us. We would not like to have to include your website in the list that we submit to Google.
So are now asking again if you could please remove any links on your site that point to xxxxxx.com.
There are (or have been) links at these URLs: [removed for publication purposes]
Once again, we are very sorry that your site has been implicated in these bad practices and would greatly appreciate your help with resolving this problem.
Please can you let me know once the links to have been removed by return email?
If you need any verification from xxxxxxx regarding this request please contact Joni Carpenter on xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx. xxxx will be happy to assist.
I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you and do appreciate your help.
Sincerely,
I have also had direct correspondence with the marketing manager of the company itself.
I told them of my regret that the SEO have chosen to act in the way they have. After all, it was the SEO company that has acted improperly, not Landscape Juice.
It sounds as if they are trying to remove all tenuous links to their site - the majority of which are probably on sites set up by the link farms purely for creating irrelevant keyword-rich articles and inbound links. These are more likely to be considered as 'bad neighbourhoods' than links on LJN I would think. If the links on LJN are relevant to the post and add value to the topic being discussed, I cannot imagine they would be that harmful to the site in question. By the tone of the email, it sounds like they have another overseas SEO company undertaking work for them, so maybe they are just using a scattergun approach to try and undo previous damage.
Hi George
Sorry for the late reply.
Just for clarity, the requests relate to posts on www.landscapejuice.com and not LJN.
I've had direct correspondence with the actual company and they blamed me for having juice in the title of my site and for talking about link-building.
Paving Superstore said:
There appears to be a run on link removal requests. From a large, very well know online brand (not landscape related).
Got another today:
Hi,
My name is Chris and I work at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
I am contacting you with regards to your site landscapejuice.com
We are currently conducting a review of all of the sites that link to us externally. As a result we were hoping you might be able to assist us by removing or adding a nofollow attribute to the links to our xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx website on the below pages as soon as possible?
[link removed]
It would be greatly appreciated if you could please reply to this email to confirm that the links have been removed or nofollowed.
Should you have any questions, or require any support in removing the links, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Kind Regards
Apologies for the mix up on the site urls.
I'm still thinking that these links would not actually do any harm to the company, especially if they are no follow links. It goes to show that the company is probably guilty of far worse heinous crimes if they are desperate to remove all tracks!
With the Penguin and Panda updates, it's easy to become paranoid. I guess the annoying thing is the work involved from your side to remove all their links, especially when they are ethical in the first place.
Regards,
George