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"To say that about webmasters, already victims of years of abusive SEO spamming" I suspect this comment was aimed at webmasters not who were the victims of spa

"To say that about webmasters, already victims of years of abusive SEO spamming" I suspect this comment was aimed at webmasters not who were the victims of spam, but those that profited from it. It's those who run directory sites and article farms that would accept cash to add your link, and now that people want the links removed, they're double dipping. And these people are indeed scummy.

Isofarro 14y ago
If they paid to get listed there in the first place (paid link for the purpose of better rankings), then it's fair game to pay to remove the ranking disadvantage now. I call it an ethics tax. Paid links were frowned on but not generally penalised. So sites took the risk they wouldn't get caught or penalised. Now they got penalised. So if it was okay to pay for a linkback, equally it should be okay to pay for the removal of a linkback.
- SquareWheel 14y ago
  Perhaps. I don't have much of an opinion one way or the other on if it's moral to charge for something like that. But the Disavow Link Tool exists for a reason, and webmasters can use it to manually remove those bad links. Though they are encouraged to make an honest effort to contact webmasters first.
  - bradleyjg 14y ago
    That google 'suggestion' is directly leading to the deluge of crap in the OP's inbox.
a5seo 14y ago
This is absolutely correct. This guy's forum is the .01% case. The OP should simply delete these messages and move on. But I guess doing that doesn't drive traffic from HN. What Google has said is that they just want evidence a reformed spammy site has /attempted/ to remove offending links manually. See Slide 16: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pubcon-2012-slides/ http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pubcon-2012-slides/ Note how Google wants to see evidence in the Link Disavow file that sites have TRIED to remove links manually: Here's a sample of a valid file: #example.com removed most links, but missed these http://spam.example.com/stuff/comments.html http://spam.example.com/stuff/paid-links.html # Contacted owner of shadyseo.com on 7/1/2012 to # ask for link removal but got no response domain:shadyseo.com So this whole post seems like sort of a hissy fit from the edge case of a site that a) failed to protect itself by linking out with followed links from untrusted posters and then got spammed to hell, and then b) gets offended when he reads a comment directed at sites who are trying to profit by removing links when all he really needs to do is hit delete when he gets emailed with link removal requests. I agree with the comment that this is fair play or an "ethics tax" on people who bought links... f-em I say, since they cheated to begin with and hurt sites who played by the rules and whose content should have enjoyed better rankings and traffic than it did due to the spammers. So whatever hell they're in now is fine by me. But I also think the OP brought his problems on himself. I ran a huge UGC site for 10 years before I sold it and sorry to say, but if you want to play forum master, you're responsible for defending your site from whatever nastiness is out there. We expect UGC sites to have porn filters, profanity filters, troll filters, and a DMCA takedown procedure, do I don't think it's too much to think that smart webmasters will nofollow links (which is why this site got on the XRumer radar in the first place).

Isofarro 14y ago

If they paid to get listed there in the first place (paid link for the purpose of better rankings), then it's fair game to pay to remove the ranking disadvantage now. I call it an ethics tax. Paid links were frowned on but not generally penalised. So sites took the risk they wouldn't get caught or penalised. Now they got penalised. So if it was okay to pay for a linkback, equally it should be okay to pay for the removal of a linkback.

SquareWheel 14y ago
Perhaps. I don't have much of an opinion one way or the other on if it's moral to charge for something like that. But the Disavow Link Tool exists for a reason, and webmasters can use it to manually remove those bad links. Though they are encouraged to make an honest effort to contact webmasters first.
- bradleyjg 14y ago
  That google 'suggestion' is directly leading to the deluge of crap in the OP's inbox.

a5seo 14y ago

This is absolutely correct. This guy's forum is the .01% case. The OP should simply delete these messages and move on. But I guess doing that doesn't drive traffic from HN. What Google has said is that they just want evidence a reformed spammy site has /attempted/ to remove offending links manually. See Slide 16: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pubcon-2012-slides/ http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pubcon-2012-slides/ Note how Google wants to see evidence in the Link Disavow file that sites have TRIED to remove links manually: Here's a sample of a valid file: #example.com removed most links, but missed these http://spam.example.com/stuff/comments.html http://spam.example.com/stuff/paid-links.html # Contacted owner of shadyseo.com on 7/1/2012 to # ask for link removal but got no response domain:shadyseo.com So this whole post seems like sort of a hissy fit from the edge case of a site that a) failed to protect itself by linking out with followed links from untrusted posters and then got spammed to hell, and then b) gets offended when he reads a comment directed at sites who are trying to profit by removing links when all he really needs to do is hit delete when he gets emailed with link removal requests. I agree with the comment that this is fair play or an "ethics tax" on people who bought links... f-em I say, since they cheated to begin with and hurt sites who played by the rules and whose content should have enjoyed better rankings and traffic than it did due to the spammers. So whatever hell they're in now is fine by me. But I also think the OP brought his problems on himself. I ran a huge UGC site for 10 years before I sold it and sorry to say, but if you want to play forum master, you're responsible for defending your site from whatever nastiness is out there. We expect UGC sites to have porn filters, profanity filters, troll filters, and a DMCA takedown procedure, do I don't think it's too much to think that smart webmasters will nofollow links (which is why this site got on the XRumer radar in the first place).