Hello, I own a web directory that's doing pretty well, it's PR3, but lately I've received some requests from some site owners asking me to remove their links from the directory. Do you have any ideas why they want this? Thank you. - is this Penguin related? I could ask 1 dollar for each link removal
SEO firms are starting a new service of link analysis and removal. You are under no legal obligation to remove anything. I charge them and you never hear from them again. It's all Bull S**t.
I'm referring to real directories of course, not scripts with no database calling themselves directories.
If you are getting a lot of requests, you might have an SEO'er trying to make a quick buck off of you. See http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=2502951 for an example. This all started because some "professional SEO" weeny decided to create a bit of link bait over proclaiming a huge number of directories were deemed bad neighborhoods, deindexed, penalized and generally evil incarnate. Problem was he had no facts to back up his accusations. But, meanwhile people saw his original post and are creating a crisis that doesn't exist. Sadly Google created this stink with Penguin and sending out letters to folks telling them some sites they have backlinks on could be detrimental to their site. The weeny took a few cases where the evil site mentioned by Google in these letters was a directory and chaos ensued. I suggest you get caught up on the details as it would seem you have been targeted by someone out to line their pockets at your expense.
panic has been created by G and now it's all happening. Many are doing it. Some one asked me to send out mails for him since his site was hit by penguin.
I received a request from a gmail account to remove a listing from a clean directory. I said sure but I would require an email from the domain of the site or the email that added the listing. I have not heard from them in 2 weeks. Beware of people trying to remove links from websites that may not be their own.
I had a similar request but insisted on an email from the site domain. The request was from the same email account as the submitter but there's no assurance that person/company is still working for the benefit of the submitted domain. I also asked for the same review fee as the original submission. I haven't heard back.
While major search engine optimization companies have often removed links to improve their client's backlink profiles, the cost of such time extensive services was often priced above the budget of many website owners. The link removal industry is indeed developing and will continue growing as the cost for such services is reduced. Search Engine Roundtable had a short but to the point post on this today at: http://www.seroundtable.com/link-removals-15349.html
I received many request to link removal to my directories too. Also on our social bookmarking site there was many link removal request, even account removal request. I was surpised that links to some sites from my social site could destroy pages. Increadible story. Here is more about my story of google panic http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=2470361
It's getting out of hand. Today I was paid $50.00 to remove a link that was initially added for free. I suggested to them beforehand that maybe my directory wasn't a "bad place" to have a link. The SEO company then agreed with that statement but said that they were removing all directory links. I took their money. On occasion I have replied to a link removal request pointing out that the major part of the Penquin was over SEO optimisation and after I had looked at their site I suggested that the overuse of keywords was more likely the reason for the penalty. I ask - had they received an email from Google pointing out suspicious links as a problem - if the answer is NO, then their problem is definitely over SEO optimisation.
Penguin is definitely taking a toll on my directory business. I am already seeing less submissions for last month and the first few days of this month. April was the worst. So far requests to remove listings have been few and far in between but SEO companies are not submitting as many listings as they used to.