Link Removal Requests

Since the late 90's search engines have used links as votes representing the web's opinion about what pages are important and popular.

Accurate Results

There are nearly 150 billion active websites on the Internet today. The task of sifting through all those sites to find helpful information is immense. That's why search engines use complex algorithms -- mathematical instructions that tell computers how to complete assigned tasks.

Google’s on an uncompromising mission. It wants to give its users access to accurate information, unique content and the finest writers. It continually tweaks and improves its algorithms so that the best of the web gets the exposure it deserves. So that’s were penalties come in.

Google Penalty refers to a negative impact on a website's search ranking based on updates to Google's search algorithms. Backlinks (inbound links to your site) aren't the single determining factor for search rank, but ensuring relevant links is crucial. Penalties result in a downgrading of the website, leading to the loss of positions in the Search Engine Results Page! 

Find Irrelevant Links

Google’s PageRank is a link analysis algorithm which determines where each result appears on the search engine return page. This looks at more than just the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives. Google also analyses the page that casts the vote using a weighting system. Votes cast by pages that are themselves relevant weigh more heavily and help to make other pages important. So aspects of the page’s content and similarity of the content of another page that is linked to it determine if it’s a good match for your query. Therefore if relevant links are established, users find accurate information from their Google search. Removing irrelevant links is an important process to ensure a website meets Google’s standards and remains high up the rankings.

Since the latest algorithm update Penguin 2.0 hit in May 2013, many have claimed their search rankings have been impacted as a result. Link removal isn’t a small undertaking, there are a number of steps including:

• Performing backlink analysis to find potentially thousands of links and categorising these to ensure only the most relevant remain.
• Find contact information for site owners and get in touch to ask them to take down irrelevant links.
• To complicate this further there will be sites that are abandoned, some with no contact information and even webmasters that refuse to remove links.
• The final step in this instance is Google’s link Disavow Tool, which allows publishers to tell Google that they don’t want certain links from external sites. Meaning they will not be considered as part of Google’s system of counting links to rank websites. Disavowing links is a last resort, not a quick-fix or an easy way out, as incorrect use can have an even worse impact on your rankings.

The consequences of rank loss can be enormous for a web enterprise. We’d be interested to know your thoughts on link removal and if Google’s latest algorithm had an effect on your rankings, leave your comments below...