I've been following a little thread over in the phpLD forums and just wanted to note that in multiple countries (ex. US, Australia) we are seeing hosts side with the directory owners. A website can pretty much link to whatever they wish so long as the purpose is not to distribute illegal content or link to hate sites and that sort of thing. I've seen some of the sites involved in these link removal requests, and I will agree they have a linking a problem, but generally directories are not the problem. It is profile spamming and blog commenting and other non-edited linking. So this is really great that hosts are backing us up, and I don't think you need to feel inclined to remove links if you don't want to do that (though make sure you understand your host's policy).
We have been getting tons of delisting requests, and most recently DMCA requests to remove links that the owner's in question either PAID to have us list, or paid someone else to list of their own choosing. The reasoning is always the same; "Google Says we are being punished for having you link to our site". If linking to a web site could truly cause a web site to be delisted or punished by Google, then people would be listing the crap out of their competitors site for the sole purpose of getting them punished or delisted from Google. I believe if a web site is being punished for whatever reason, its obvious to me the cause lies elsewhere. One link from one directory is not causing harm to some obscure site on the internet. I fail to see how it is even possible. I have yet to see a single person respond to the contrary with concrete proof that Google specifically told them that KingBloom.Com is causing their site harm. If that is the case, then we have a strong case for anti-trust against Google. DMCA's are not intended for the removal of links. Using a DMCA threat to action a link removal is ludicrous at best. I think I may have to institute a policy of charging for the time involved to remove the link. The way things are going I may end up making a good living off that.
I think as a directory is financed by charging for reviewing and editing it's acceptable to charge a fee for a link removal.
This shouldn't be a surprise really. DMCA is about copyright. Linking to a site generally has nothing to do with copyright. The only way I could see a DMCA coming into play is if the description was lifted from the site content or meta tag or if there's a screen shot or image from the site included. I'm glad to see that a number of webhosts are getting this one right.
Ditto... It just baffles my mind the number of people that try to use the DMCA incorrectly and inappropriately.
"Totally Agree with you on this " When i see people talking like that, that they are getting harmed by links from sites e.g directories or other sources i get surprise because it would be soo easy for the competitors to through down there competitors soo easily . and David .... i think the profile links are also not harmful in this case because now a days you can get thousands of profile links for just for few $$ and via this way it would be soo easy to bring down your competitors JUST LIVE WITHOUT FEAR OF THIS UN PROVED NEWS
@Mia and frozenshark.. People ARE doing just that (spamming poor link submissions) - very effectively too by all accounts. Even seen some people SELLING this service to people who want to beat their competitor when they are at #2 on google and want to be #1.
@chuckun...wel if it is soo "THAN GOOGLE IS A BIG FOOL AND SOON THE WHOLE INTERNET WILL TURN IN TO A BIG SPAMMY CRAP"
Looks like the scare tactics worked. People that are removing links are morons. My site has literally 2 million links pointing to it. Many of them from directories. Google never sent me a "you have spam links" warning. These people getting these warnings are gaining really poor links from really poor places. They probably are the kinds of people who submit to junk blogs to get the free "dofollow" link and are only now realising just how bad it was to do that. Akismet can't be wrong, I get around 300-1000 links of that type every single day to my blog. Imagine how often this happens across the web. The over-reaction in the industry and the requests for removal are the "chicken littles" panicking that the sky is falling in. Blame SEOs in influential positions for distributing extremely bad propaganda. @Syted: 100% agree - If they want to remove your content, make them pay for it. It is after all YOUR content.
Excellent point. I did not get a warning either. You would think you and I would be the first, so it sounds to me like the "spam links" are of another breed. I dey co believe something like 10% of directories are absolute rubbish, maybe a little higher, but there are many that are VERY well done, and lots in between. The simple idea that a link was properly categorized gives a search engine like google information they can use.
They are the same people who were before spamming us for link exchange and whatnot, now they spam us again with link removal requests, for sure they can forget it.. Their scare tactics don't work against my lazyness: http://www.best-reviewers.com/ispam/toxic-link-removal-request-8640.htm
Wow David. Only 10% rubbish. What an optimist you are. If only that were the case. From what I've seen less than 10% are worthwhile.
If they are automatic approval of links, I would call that 100% rubbish. I don't know what percent are auto approval. I have one running as a test, but it only allows pagerank 1 or higher. Then there are the ones that only do paid links, but in some cases don't allow gambling sites. There is going to be lots of things that improve as you go up the ranks of directories, but if the links are properly categorized, that in my opinion brings them out of the bottom 10%.
Proper categorization alone still would allow Indian florists, long sales-letters and other nonsense that a "quality" directory would never link to.
I think even good directories have the occasional bad link, but my point is just that if there is "some" editorial process, that is better than the ones that have none, and it still provides signals that search engines like google would use such as the categorization.
I saw a site i think mentioning here will not be good but it was something related to deleting backlinks and they were in search of web directory owners whom according to there statement should contain 30 k plus sites in there directory and it should be accepting links from the last three years atleast lol THIS IS OBVIOUSLY BU** S**t , they will find a site in there affiliate directory owners directories some site and than will contact there webmaster tiling them your link in xyz dir is harming you and bla bla and will till them that they will remove it and hence will charge them and will pay small to the affiliate dir owner and will take the rest in pocket .... THIS IS SOO CREAPY WHAT IS INTERNET TURNING IN TO I PERSONALY RECIEVED SOME LINK REMOVAL REQUESTS BUT I MAILED THEM WITH A REQUEST OF BIG CHARGE JUST TO MAKE THEM RUN AWAY AND THEY REALLY DIDNT CAME BACK LOL