Does this ever happen to you? It happens to me roughly every 15 days, where someone will e-mail me a letter like this:
Dear Sir or Madam,
I hope you’re doing well. I’m writing to you because my domain RedactedDomain.com was struck by an unnatural links penalty from Google. You might be aware of how Google can penalize a site if they think that the site is or was using dishonest link-building techniques.
Well, I’m not an expert on what Google determines to be a harmful link, so I can’t be sure, but I have reason to believe that Google views hyperlinks from your website OneOfRoger’sSites.com to RedactedDomain.com as a violation of Google’s webmaster’s guidelines. That’s why I would like to ask you to remove links from the following pages on your website to the following pages on my website:
SpecificLinkOnOneOfRoger’sSites.com linking to SpecificLinkOnRedactedDomain.com
I must admit that the first couple of times I got these, I ignored them. Then I thought, “It’s not that big a deal,” and deleted the link, occasionally even deleting the whole post – though not on this blog – because the link was the point of the post. But the last time, I go to the link and can’t find the offending part. What a bother.
What I DID find, though, is a BROKEN link. Generally, I don’t go back and check old links, because that’s all I would do. But if someone comments on an old post, or I discover a broken link on something previously published, I will replace it if I can, remove it if I can’t.
Fellow bloggers, what’s your policy on these matters?
