Link Removal Requests / Link Disavowal

[photon]

Every so often I get a request to remove links from the forum, usually something like "Please remove the link to "oursite.com" on the listed pages as the links are negatively impacting our website ranking / SEO. If not done, we will file a disavow link report with Google."

My understanding is that this is to be used for links from spammy or abusive sites, which in our case isn't the case, most times it's just someone sharing a link to a page they found interesting or referring someone to a business.

Is there any way to see if Google considers us spammy or something? Or to see why they think that a link from us is negatively impacting them? They claim that disavowal can negatively impact our site (not that SEO is something we care much about).

The most recent one I got is rather weird too, it's for a site for a company in Calgary, but the request came from a @gmail.com email address rather than the company's domain, and the request came from an IP in India. The list of links they provided though are accurate, so it doesn't seem like a phishing request or some other kind of spam. Overall very weird.

I'm probably going to contact the Calgary company to see if the person in the email works for them, I'm curious as to how all this came about.

[photon]

I logged into the webmaster tools and don't see any issues. Could this be some kind of reverse attack against the website, trying to get a website down the search results? Just odd for the request to come from India.

[Flabbibulin]

How reliable is PRchecker.info? They claim to have some algorithm in place for ranking your "webutation" (specifically with Google), but I have a hard time believing they would give a website a high rank before they subscribe to their pagerank button service thingy.

[strombad]

From what I can tell (don't have a lot of experience with Google's disavow feature) it doesn't actually affect this site, nor would this site negatively affect another site's SEO. I mean, it MIGHT, but I can't see how (so it may just be housekeeping on their part).

Regardless, they cannot negatively affect this site by disavowing the links to their site that originate from this URL. You can remove the link of you want, but not doing it (and having them disavow this site) appears to have zero impact on Calgary Puck.

[photon]

I could see how this site's reputation might negatively impact theirs if this site was a spam site... if all the links to a website were from spam sites then Google wouldn't want that site to appear high in search results. I just can't see any evidence that this site is rated like that by Google.

I could also see a site being impacted if it had tons of disavowals against it.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by photon

I could see how this site's reputation might negatively impact theirs if this site was a spam site... if all the links to a website were from spam sites then Google wouldn't want that site to appear high in search results. I just can't see any evidence that this site is rated like that by Google.

I could also see a site being impacted if it had tons of disavowals against it.

Sure, but google would look quickly and see if it is or isn't. You should respond and say thanks for the email and you have doubled the number of links to their website.

[photon]

Lol I usually don't respond to the emails at all, this one was just a little different because it was a a) a local company and b) a request from India.

SEO isn't something I'm well versed in so thought someone might have more experience with it.

[Minnie]

A good friend had this happen with her forum. They were counseled to just ignore it, as it has no basis. So that's what they do. She still gets them periodically, but they just treat it as spam and ignore.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by photon

Is there any way to see if Google considers us spammy or something? Or to see why they think that a link from us is negatively impacting them? They claim that disavowal can negatively impact our site (not that SEO is something we care much about).

What? I thought it was a point of pride that we pretty much dominate Google's search results!

[photon]

Yeah that's why I was wondering if there was a way to tell how Google views us, I've had people who aren't members comment to me on how often they see us pop up in their searches.

[AndyL]

I wonder if this is how the SEO companies 'take down' competition?

I can understand the domain vs gmail though - my site forwards to my gmail account for simplicity's sake; it doesn't always keep reply-to the same though.

Andy

[photon]

Originally Posted by AndyL

I wonder if this is how the SEO companies 'take down' competition?

In reading about this I came across the term Negative SEO, using SEO strategies to hurt the competition. Even came across stories of people being blackmailed with links from spam sites (which precipitated the whole disavow thing to begin with).

Certainly could do this to try and remove positive links to competition, though it does seem inefficient at best.

Yeah same with me for gmail, I'm usually pretty disciplined at using the right send from email but sometimes I forget.

[Resolute 14]

Seems like a really weak kneed version of filing a fraudulent DMCA claim. Likely without the whole problem of being overtly illegal.

[Barnes]

Nm.