There has never been so much confusion and fear in the Webmaster community since Google started sending out the “Unnatural Links” messages. Some 700,000 messages have gone out to website owners via their Webmaster Tools accounts. This has caused many to freak-the-frick-out and ruin years of their own hard work and money. Webmasters need to slow down because not all links violate the Google Webmaster Guidelines.
Is 2012 really going to be the year we unlink everything? Or add the “no-follow” tags to all our links?
We received someone’s email request by mistake. What’s ironic about the request we received is:
#1 We don’t own, control or work with the website in which we received this email for. How does that even happen? Are Webmasters sending out so many requests they are actually getting their contact information confused?
#2 Looking at the link I seriously doubt it’s a paid link. It’s one of four links on the page within the content of the article. Each link points to a different domain name listed as a resource in this article.
#3 The page itself says it was created a few years ago and is a PR5 page. Have Webmasters lost their mind? Is this really happening?
My advice to webmasters is to STOP and think for a minute. Just because Google says you have “Unnatural Links” doesn’t mean you need to get rid of all your links. Nine times out of ten you received this message because of a spammy technique you or someone you hired did. This is what you get when you hire someone for $99.00 to SEO your website. Did you really think you would get high-quality rankings for a super cheap price?
If you did happen to receive one of these “Unnatural Links” emails here is my step-by-step process for what you should do.
Step 1: Discover you backlinks.
A great tool to use is SEOMOZ’s Open Site Explore. With their tool, you can see most if not all the links you have pointing to your website.
Step 2: Understand what a paid link looks like.
One of the more important steps and the most subjected is to understand what a paid link looks like. Here are the most common paid links:
Blog Comments: Do you have lots of blog comments with your keywords stuff into them? Spam. Oh, by the way, good luck trying to remove these. Bloggers have nothing else better to do that remove blog comments you spammed.
Footer Links: Do you have links that are in the footer of a website pointing to yours? Unless you provide free software these links will seem unnatural to Google. The main purpose of footer links is to game the search engines. Get rid of these links ASAP.
Anchor Text: Too much of the same anchor text is one of the biggest triggers. So your name is Big Blue Company but for some reason, you have more links that say “Cheap iPods” well then you have an anchor text problem. More than likely all these links are paid.
Sitewide Links: Not all blogroll or sitewide links are paid. In fact, it really depends on the blog. A good example is a fashion blogger who links in her blogroll to her favorite stores. Generally, you can spot which ones are paid by their anchor text or the links around them. Are the links related in some way? If so they could have been placed there naturally.
Directories: Web Directories can still help but they should not be overdone. Webmasters get in trouble when they submit to hundreds or thousands of directories. There is nothing wrong with submitting to a dozen of quality directories. Do yourself and the directory a favor and use your business name for the anchor text.
Note: we really like local business directories as they are geographically related to your business.
Advertising: Some websites or blogs openly advertise they sell links or do sponsor posts. If you have a link on a blog like this there is a good chance good may think you have paid for this link.
Step 3: Analyze your backlink portfolio.
Now that you are armed with some knowledge on how to spot your perceived paid links start analyzing. Create an excel spreadsheet with all the websites you feel might be considered paid links in Google’s eyes.
Step 4: Send out removal request.
Reach out to the identified websites and request removal. Be courteous in your request and explain why you are requesting removal.
Step 5: Balance your backlink portfolio
More than likely you don’t have a balanced backlink portfolio. What does this mean? More often than not webmasters are one trick ponies. They often go after the same type of links. A website with natural links will have several types of links including blogroll, blog post, homepage, inner pages, reviews, directories, and social media. It’s important to note that some of these are better than others and we recommend an editorial type of links.
Step 6: Wait
A re-inclusion request may help you get back into Google faster but since Google is algorithmic, if you do the six steps you should be fine.
