How to Request the Removal of Bad Links?
When you have some bad links pointing at your website and Google has penalized you, recovering from this mishap is very doable. In most cases, other people will mention your website name and add the link. However, if you see anchor texts that are using shady or deceitful keywords, Google will surely penalize your website. You need to make sure that the backlinks you get don’t have questionable anchor texts.
If you notice spammy links mentioning your website, you can choose to contact the webmaster to change the anchor texts or better yet ask the complete removal of any links pertaining to your website.
How to cut ties with suspicious links?
In this blog post, I will teach you the numerous ways to ask for the removal of links. Read more about it below:
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Make sure you have the appropriate email address.
- First and foremost, you better use a company or work email. If don’t have one, better create an email for business purposes. If possible, use an email address that points to your website. For example, hello@yourwebsitelink.com
- Aside from that, you should also follow proper email etiquette:
- There’s no need to go ballistic and be hostile towards the website admin. Always ask nicely and try to be polite at all times.
- Look for the website owner or the web admin in order to personalize the email you will send. Never use to use generic greetings such as “Dear website owner.”
- Make sure to list the links and the details. Specify the requests so that you will not waste their time.
- Lastly, there’s no need to send multiple ones. One email is enough.
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Look for the contact details.
- To contact the websites, try to look at the about page of a specific site. If don’t see anything listed, you can go to WhoIs.com and look for the contact details.
- Just type in the website URL and the information you need is under “Administrative Contact Email.” You can send the personalized email to that address.
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Monitor your email requests.
- In most cases, your request will be ignored. That is why it is important to monitor the emails you sent. One helpful tool is called Signals. It is a Google Chrome extension so there’s no need to worry about the installation process and the space it occupies.
- In an instant, you will know who ignored your emails and who read them. Give them some time to reply to your email.
- Disavow the bad links.
- If they still ignored your email after quite some time, then you can now choose to disavow the website. Create a report and upload the document on Google’s Disavow Tool. Remember, the report takes up to 1 month to be processed.
Conclusion
To avoid penalties in the future, it is best to understand the rules. Don’t just go around applying certain SEO strategies that are outdated or do not comply Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. If your removal requests get ignored, do something before your website’s rankings will suffer because of shady links. Once you know the root cause of the penalty, take action immediately and disavow links if deemed necessary. For more information about Google penalties, read the post on What to Do after Being Penalized by Google?
