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I talked about this phenomenon recently on This Week in Google with Leo Laporte and Gina Trapani: http://twit.tv/show/this-week-in-google/248 http://twit.tv/sho

I talked about this phenomenon recently on This Week in Google with Leo Laporte and Gina Trapani: http://twit.tv/show/this-week-in-google/248 http://twit.tv/show/this-week-in-google/248 Skip to 4:15 in to listen to the discussion. Note that there are two different things to keep in mind when someone writes in and says "Hey, can you remove this link from your site?" Situation #1 is by far the most common. If a site gets dinged for linkspam and works to clean up their links, a lot of them send out a bunch of link removal requests on their own prerogative. Situation #2 is when Google actually sends a notice to a site for spamming links and gives a concrete link that we believe is part of the problem. For example, we might say "we believe site-a.com has a problem with spam or inorganic links. An example link is site-b.com/spammy-link.html." The vast majority of the link removal requests that a typical site gets are for the first type, where a site got tagged for spamming links and now it's trying hard to clean up any links that could be considered spammy. If you read the original post closely, it's clear that this is a site asking for a link to be removed--the quoted email isn't from Google.

ForHackernews 12y ago
> If you read the original post closely, it's clear that this is a site asking for a link to be removed--the quoted email isn't from Google. Did you read the article? The reason that site is asking for the links to be taken down is that they believe (apparently based on feedback from the Webmaster Tools) that it will please the Google Gods. Spammy links and irrational fear of spammy links are both unnatural linking behaviors that result when sites are more concerned with pleasing search engine algorithms than with pleasing human users. That's what the article is talking about.
- Matt_Cutts 12y ago
  "Spammy links ... are both unnatural linking behaviors that result when sites are more concerned with pleasing search engine algorithms" ForHackernews, we say in our quality guidelines to "Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines." If the SEO whose email was quoted in the article had followed that advice, they wouldn't be in the position of trying to clean up spammy links after getting caught spamming.
  - anon1385 12y ago
    >ForHackernews, we say in our quality guidelines to "Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines." The problem with that is that it's not true (in my admittedly very limited experience). I used to believe that until I created a small website and found it wasn't getting listed in Google and I had to try and guess why and carefully read the rules. Making pages primarily for users means you unthinkingly do things like having duplicate content on multiple pages/subdomains/sites or linking to a site that reviewed your product after you gave them a free sample (a paid link). I'm sure to any even vaguely experienced webdev they know not to do these kinds of things (use canonical links, nofollow and all that jazz). Somebody just throwing a few pages together who has no experience in this stuff easily falls foul of the rules. The rules may seem obvious to people who understand how search engines work. If you have never heard of pagerank and don't have an understanding of how search engines work and how people try to game and spam search engines, the rules are not obvious at all and certainly the rules are not the same as the natural behaviour of somebody creating a legitimate site with the users in mind.
    - eevee 12y ago
      How is duplicate content made "for users"? Why would I want to find exactly the same prose in multiple places?
      - ForHackernews 12y ago
        Maybe you run a store where you sell Widget and Deluxe Widget. The only difference is Deluxe Widget has a higher max RPM, but the operating instructions for Widget and Deluxe Widget are identical. As a consumer, if I came to the website looking for instructions on how to use my [Deluxe] Widget, I would reasonably expect to find the same operating guide on both product pages.
        eevee 12y ago
        Maybe you should collapse these admittedly identical items into variations of the same product, which will reduce the useless duplicated clutter I'd experience when searching your catalogue.
lingben 12y ago
Matt, this does not address whatsoever the point being brought up. And in case you missed it, I will try to cite it as clearly as possible here: This is a case where google wants people to mold the internet according to what their current incarnation of their algorithm says the way it should be. Rather than google trying to mold its algorithm to understand the internet, natural links vs. spams, and their respective authority and value. Google here is saying that all links from this site are suspect, even when the link in question is 100% valid, quality and relevant. Instead of going back to the drawing board and trying to fix the algorithm, google has discovered that since they are so big now, it is easier to play the "benevolent" dictator and dictate to the whole internet, how and what they should be doing. And to mete out knuckle raps when they get out of line. Do you see the point now? The model (google's algo) should fit reality. Rather than forcing reality to fit the model. I believe this is what the author is trying to communicate by saying "google is breaking the internet" - what he means is that the internet is becoming a 'google' version of itself, rather than what it would naturally be.
- jonknee 12y ago
  > Google here is saying that all links from this site are suspect, even when the link in question is 100% valid, quality and relevant. I read the article and didn't see any mention of what site the link was on or even what site it was linking to. It's impossible to say if it was legitimately spammy or not, but either way Google never asked him to do anything. Someone who didn't know about the Link Disavow Tool decided on their own to email him about taking the link down. You would have a good point prior to the Link Disavow Tool, but it has solved this (very tricky) problem.
  - jamesbritt 12y ago
    Someone who didn't know about the Link Disavow Tool decided on their own to email him about taking the link down. FTFA: "In short, the email was a request to remove links from our site to their site. We linked to this company on our own accord, with no prior solicitation, because we felt it would be useful to our site visitors, which is generally why people link to things on the Internet." "Apparently Google convinced them, via their Webmaster Tools portal, that the link looked 'unnatural', and that they should use the Link Disavow Tool to discredit the link. Furthermore, they thought it necessary to contact us to manually remove the link, which is something I’m not going to do (out of principle)."
richbradshaw 12y ago
Situation #1 happens fairly regularly - do you have/can you do a video that can be sent to the company asking for links to be removed which clearly explains what is happening? We have had clients such as a small bathroom fitting company where the company that made the showers that they fit demanded that our client remove all links to them. There was a degree of bad feeling, as our client fit a lot of showers from that company - the links were because they genuinely were endorsing them. A video from Google would be useful to help explain what is happening here for all parties involved.
- Matt_Cutts 12y ago
  We have made a video for sites that received a notice for unnatural links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UFHCw4Q_FQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UFHCw4Q_FQ I thought I'd made at least one video for sites that have been getting link removal requests. I'll check, and if we haven't made one then I'd agree that would be useful. Thanks for the suggestion.
- makomk 12y ago
  I guess that's kind of beneficial for Google though - now if people want to find out more about the showers your client fits, they have to Google for them, and Google can sell lots of profitable advertising space on those searches to competing bathroom fitting companies. I wonder how often it's in Google's financial interest to break hyperlinking on the web?
buro9 12y ago
I have been complaining of this problem for a few years now and it's getting worse. I now receive several new "link removal" requests per day (I receive many more repeats of old removal requests). Yes, Google isn't sending these so you could argue that Google are not directly to blame. But, the merchants in question who are sending them are doing so because Google has made them believe they are (or will be) subject to some penalty if these links are not cleaned up. I run forums and all of our links are natural links. For the first year I would look at every link that was asking to be removed and found that, without a single exception, every link was created by a trusted person in the community helping to answer a question by someone else. Every link I checked was natural and high quality, none... literally none... were suspicious or spam. It may be that these merchants did involve SEO crews who did create a lot of spam links, but those are not on our site. What's more worrying is that merchants feel so overwhelmed (numerically there are a lot of links to deal with) and in such a state of panic about this (they fear a bad placement could have significant effect on their business) that now they're hiring people to clean up SEO mess, and those people create 4 problems: 1) They have no clue which links were the result of SEO, so they just request every link they can to be removed. 2) They send these removal requests from emails like someone@web-marketing-group.org.uk when the links point at www.watches2u.com so it is impossible to verify as a publisher that the person requesting link removal represents the merchant to be de-linked (and #1 means that they don't enter into dialog as they can't, they're sending tens of thousands of requests). 3) The removal notices seldom have enough info to be acted on. One forum I run has several million posts, and the removal request may simply be "You've linked to blah.com, please remove it". OK, more verbose and almost identical to the OP's example, but not a useful pointer to the page or comment that contained the link. 4) If, as a publisher, one fails to remove a link, then their automated removal request scripts will now spam the publisher routinely with the same request. If you can finally get a conversation that says "Do you represent the merchant, have you got a full URL to where the link exists on our site, and are you sure this isn't a natural and good link?", then every merchant has so far agreed that the link should stay. But... for all of that, the effect is very real for the publisher: We get spammed evermore, from unaccountable sources that we don't know has a link to the merchant, asking for links to be removed that are actually very good quality and with good context and content. It's a mess. A mess for which the merchants may be to blame (for originally doing SEO, and now for handling removals so badly), but this mess is definitely due to Google creating the situation. My policy now: I put link removal requests in my spam folder. That is how I regard it, this is just a new type of spam that Google has created. We never engaged in SEO or supported anyone doing so, we took an aggressive stance against spam, but as we have content that links elsewhere we are being spammed constantly with these requests and we carry the burden of the problem. PS: The example cited above was just the top one in my spam folder, the link can be found on this post in the form of an img tag: http://www.lfgss.com/thread17604-52.html#post2119173 http://www.lfgss.com/thread17604-52.html#post2119173 , it's the photo of a watch posted on a horology thread within a cycling forum by a long-standing member of the community with high karma. The request for link removal did come from an @web-marketing-group.org.uk address. The request will be ignored. We don't do "nofollow", but it's irrelevant as that isn't valid on img tags.
unfunco 12y ago
Matt, what's to stop people creating a website (or multiple websites) filled with spammy links pointing to their competitors websites, thereby reducing the weighting of a competitor in Google's pagerank algorithm. Is there protection against that sort of activity?
- buro9 12y ago
  There is no protection against this from a publisher perspective. The vast majority of link removal requests I've received do not come from an email address that matches the destination of the link for which the removal is requested.
  - liveoneggs 12y ago
    they just re-hire the same SEO guy who bought all of the spam links in the first place. :)
    - buro9 12y ago
      Not the case. I do speak to a lot of the smaller merchants who email as I feel for them. They still don't really understand the web, and they hired someone who appeared professional to them (and probably cold called them). Only after a while do they realise they're paying a lot of money for something unquantifiable and with no guarantee of hitting the front-page of Google, and so they end that relationship (in fear, as they're told that whatever placement they now have may be in jeopardy). So starts the merry-go-round, where the smaller merchants constantly jump from one bad SEO company to another. Each one creating mess, whilst claiming they'll clean up the mess before. I do feel for the smaller merchants. Their business is being eaten by the internet, and they're missing out and have ambition but are being fleeced by sharks every step of the way.
- Matt_Cutts 12y ago
  Yes, we work to avoid this sort of attack when designing our ranking algorithms.
selmnoo 12y ago
Hey Matt_Cutts, sorry that this is a little off-topic, I don't really know what would be the correct medium for this... so here I go: could you please kill mypdfmanuals.com from Google hits? I was searching for some instruction manuals (my exactly query was: <pax wardrobe manual filetype:pdf>), and again and again the top hits were unhelpful mypdfmanuals.com links, which don't even have manuals, they just tell you to go a site where you can get the "full version" of instruction manuals that are otherwise publicly available for free.
- magicalist 12y ago
  This doesn't help solve the problem itself (and is an annoying extra step), but as a user you can append '-site:annoyingsite.com' to your query to get rid of results from the offender.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Google web search has a feedback page. As you can imagine the process is opaque. I have reported some sub-optimal websites and seen a difference a few weeks later. I have no idea if my comment was read by a human let alone whether any action was taken as a result.
- jobu 12y ago
  If you use Chrome try the Personal Blocklist extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist-by-goo/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist...
davemel37 12y ago
"If you’ve done as much work as you can to remove spammy or low-quality links from the web, and are unable to make further progress on getting the links taken down, you can disavow the remaining links. In other words, you can ask Google not to take certain links into account when assessing your site." That's taken straight from Google's webmaster support forums... https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en Even in situation number #1, Google clearly encourages webmasters to "do as much work as you can to remove spammy and low quality links..." I happen to disagree with the article, but it's kinds disingenuous to claim that Google had nothing to do with that link removal request.
- Matt_Cutts 12y ago
  The original article dropped all the specific details like the link and the company that requested it. I'll certainly dig into this specific situation more soon, but I didn't want to pull engineers to look into this specific situation over the weekend.
  - davemel37 12y ago
    I don't really see any reason to know the specifics or to investigate further. The authors point was simply that lots of organic links are requested to be removed to play it safe. I don't think Google needs to spend resources to turn around and tell this guy, "got'ya"... Personally, I don't see the harm in having organic links being asked to be removed. I would never remove a link that sends referral traffic, and I see no reason to keep a link that doesn't send me visitors. I have no problem having someone no follow a link that sends me traffic, because it will send me the same traffic... so I think the issue here is less about actually breaking the internet and more about how it makes people feel when they thought they were helping you by linking, and then they get accused of destroying your rankings by asking for the link to be removed....
  - jeremypalmer 12y ago
    Matt - I would be happy to share any details about this specific situation. I removed the links from my post because I find it poor taste to reprint details from personal emails for public consumption. I'm on Twitter @jeremypalmer.
whoismua 12y ago
Sure you did Matt, we're also seeing how the only good link as far as Google is concerned is an Adwords one. Can you stop insulting our intelligence, we see how every quarter your Adwords is increasing by double digits as web publishers are going broke. All Google roads and products lead to ad clicks and Adwords. Enjoy it while it lasts.
jroseattle 12y ago
"If you read the original post closely, it's clear that this is a site asking for a link to be removed--the quoted email isn't from Google." Matt, this is beyond disingenuous. If Bing or Yahoo responded in the same way, I doubt we would hear a ringing endorsement from Google on the subject. You've indicated in other comments that basically your algorithm is everyone else's problem to deal with. You can use whatever words you like, but the actions are what matter. At this point, it sounds more as if Google is concerned with "being right" more so than "doing right".
- mike_hearn 12y ago
  Now now, I think you're the one being disingenuous. Google's algorithm is not "everyone elses problem". If someone doesn't care about what appears on search result pages, they can just ignore everything search engines say: all their guidelines, all their advice, just chuck it out the window. Your website will still work fine. This blog does not indicate some fundamental breaking of the web. It indicates a guy got a random email from a random website, that he is free to ignore if he wants (and in fact should ignore, because the webmasters in question don't even need to contact him, they can use the disavow tool). No work to do? No problem!
  - aaronwall 12y ago
    Your thesis would be true if Google didn't have monopoly marketshare & continue buying default (search / browser) placements in other software.
  - jroseattle 12y ago
    > It indicates a guy got a random email from a random website, that he is free to ignore if he wants It's reasonably clear to me this email was anything but random. Take Google out of the picture and this communication never happens. Both the sender and receiver are taking actions with consideration of one single point -- how does this affect my Google search ranking? If Google weren't the literal default entryway into the Internet, your argument would be valid. There is precedence in this scenario as well. Back in the 90s, many people said the same thing regarding Microsoft and attaining placement on the Windows desktop for new shipping PCs. This was a key element of the DOJ trial. The argument that a powerful intermediary has no effect on the conduct of others is simply choosing to ignore certain facts.
invisible 12y ago
I have a particularly odd case where neither situation 1 nor situation 2 seemed to happen. Webmaster tools doesn't indicate that there is anything amiss and the pagerank >= 7. We do almost no promotion of our site and have never done link sharing of any sort. How am I as an outsider of Google able to discern any information about what's going on in this situation? I assume this isn't a unique case but there is literally 0 information. I'd like to clear this up - not just for me but for the community. I know this may be the wrong place to ask (I'm not sure where the "right" place would be), but would you be willing to contact me? caudill m at gmail
borat4prez 12y ago
Matt, I am the webmaster of http://TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles.com http://TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles.com -- before I took the site over, the forum was hacked (~2010) and we were hit with a ton of bad links (posted on our forum and lots of underage adult websites linking to us). I've been working the past two years, from contacting all the webmasters via WhoIs information, creating unique content on a weekly basis, having a good social media following, and still for the life of us, we cannot get ranked well organically on Google. Could you personally look into this or give me any advice on resolving this issue because I feel like I've done everything possible and we put a lot of work into the website over the years. I would really appreciate it.
mariehaynes 12y ago
I think that a lot of people are missing the point that sites that are being penalized or demoted in the Google search results because of unnatural linking received that penalty because they were cheating. When webmasters are writing to ask for a link to be removed it's because they believe that that link could possibly be one that was made with the intention of increasing their PageRank and manipulating Google. BUT...sometimes it's hard to tell whether a link was naturally placed or whether it was one that a former SEO made on their behalf. As such, it's certainly possible that an email requesting link removal could be sent out in error. If that's the case, then ignoring the request is fine...or even better, writing back to inform them that the link was not purchased, solicited or self made would be really helpful.
discardorama 12y ago
> For example, we might say "we believe site-a.com has a problem with spam or inorganic links. An example link is site-b.com/spammy-link.html." If you are able to identify problem links, you can just ignore them. Or am I missing something?
davidgerard 12y ago
IME, this sort of letter is pretty much always a spammer trying to get their past comment spam removed. You're penalising spammers, and it's being effective. GOOD.
davidgerard 12y ago
IME, this sort of letter is pretty much always a spammer trying to get their past comment spam removed. You're penalising spammers, and it's being effective. GOOD.

ForHackernews 12y ago

> If you read the original post closely, it's clear that this is a site asking for a link to be removed--the quoted email isn't from Google. Did you read the article? The reason that site is asking for the links to be taken down is that they believe (apparently based on feedback from the Webmaster Tools) that it will please the Google Gods. Spammy links and irrational fear of spammy links are both unnatural linking behaviors that result when sites are more concerned with pleasing search engine algorithms than with pleasing human users. That's what the article is talking about.

Matt_Cutts 12y ago
"Spammy links ... are both unnatural linking behaviors that result when sites are more concerned with pleasing search engine algorithms" ForHackernews, we say in our quality guidelines to "Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines." If the SEO whose email was quoted in the article had followed that advice, they wouldn't be in the position of trying to clean up spammy links after getting caught spamming.
- anon1385 12y ago
  >ForHackernews, we say in our quality guidelines to "Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines." The problem with that is that it's not true (in my admittedly very limited experience). I used to believe that until I created a small website and found it wasn't getting listed in Google and I had to try and guess why and carefully read the rules. Making pages primarily for users means you unthinkingly do things like having duplicate content on multiple pages/subdomains/sites or linking to a site that reviewed your product after you gave them a free sample (a paid link). I'm sure to any even vaguely experienced webdev they know not to do these kinds of things (use canonical links, nofollow and all that jazz). Somebody just throwing a few pages together who has no experience in this stuff easily falls foul of the rules. The rules may seem obvious to people who understand how search engines work. If you have never heard of pagerank and don't have an understanding of how search engines work and how people try to game and spam search engines, the rules are not obvious at all and certainly the rules are not the same as the natural behaviour of somebody creating a legitimate site with the users in mind.
  - eevee 12y ago
    How is duplicate content made "for users"? Why would I want to find exactly the same prose in multiple places?
    - ForHackernews 12y ago
      Maybe you run a store where you sell Widget and Deluxe Widget. The only difference is Deluxe Widget has a higher max RPM, but the operating instructions for Widget and Deluxe Widget are identical. As a consumer, if I came to the website looking for instructions on how to use my [Deluxe] Widget, I would reasonably expect to find the same operating guide on both product pages.
      - eevee 12y ago
        Maybe you should collapse these admittedly identical items into variations of the same product, which will reduce the useless duplicated clutter I'd experience when searching your catalogue.

lingben 12y ago

Matt, this does not address whatsoever the point being brought up. And in case you missed it, I will try to cite it as clearly as possible here: This is a case where google wants people to mold the internet according to what their current incarnation of their algorithm says the way it should be. Rather than google trying to mold its algorithm to understand the internet, natural links vs. spams, and their respective authority and value. Google here is saying that all links from this site are suspect, even when the link in question is 100% valid, quality and relevant. Instead of going back to the drawing board and trying to fix the algorithm, google has discovered that since they are so big now, it is easier to play the "benevolent" dictator and dictate to the whole internet, how and what they should be doing. And to mete out knuckle raps when they get out of line. Do you see the point now? The model (google's algo) should fit reality. Rather than forcing reality to fit the model. I believe this is what the author is trying to communicate by saying "google is breaking the internet" - what he means is that the internet is becoming a 'google' version of itself, rather than what it would naturally be.

jonknee 12y ago
> Google here is saying that all links from this site are suspect, even when the link in question is 100% valid, quality and relevant. I read the article and didn't see any mention of what site the link was on or even what site it was linking to. It's impossible to say if it was legitimately spammy or not, but either way Google never asked him to do anything. Someone who didn't know about the Link Disavow Tool decided on their own to email him about taking the link down. You would have a good point prior to the Link Disavow Tool, but it has solved this (very tricky) problem.
- jamesbritt 12y ago
  Someone who didn't know about the Link Disavow Tool decided on their own to email him about taking the link down. FTFA: "In short, the email was a request to remove links from our site to their site. We linked to this company on our own accord, with no prior solicitation, because we felt it would be useful to our site visitors, which is generally why people link to things on the Internet." "Apparently Google convinced them, via their Webmaster Tools portal, that the link looked 'unnatural', and that they should use the Link Disavow Tool to discredit the link. Furthermore, they thought it necessary to contact us to manually remove the link, which is something I’m not going to do (out of principle)."

richbradshaw 12y ago

Situation #1 happens fairly regularly - do you have/can you do a video that can be sent to the company asking for links to be removed which clearly explains what is happening? We have had clients such as a small bathroom fitting company where the company that made the showers that they fit demanded that our client remove all links to them. There was a degree of bad feeling, as our client fit a lot of showers from that company - the links were because they genuinely were endorsing them. A video from Google would be useful to help explain what is happening here for all parties involved.

Matt_Cutts 12y ago
We have made a video for sites that received a notice for unnatural links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UFHCw4Q_FQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UFHCw4Q_FQ I thought I'd made at least one video for sites that have been getting link removal requests. I'll check, and if we haven't made one then I'd agree that would be useful. Thanks for the suggestion.
makomk 12y ago
I guess that's kind of beneficial for Google though - now if people want to find out more about the showers your client fits, they have to Google for them, and Google can sell lots of profitable advertising space on those searches to competing bathroom fitting companies. I wonder how often it's in Google's financial interest to break hyperlinking on the web?

buro9 12y ago

I have been complaining of this problem for a few years now and it's getting worse. I now receive several new "link removal" requests per day (I receive many more repeats of old removal requests). Yes, Google isn't sending these so you could argue that Google are not directly to blame. But, the merchants in question who are sending them are doing so because Google has made them believe they are (or will be) subject to some penalty if these links are not cleaned up. I run forums and all of our links are natural links. For the first year I would look at every link that was asking to be removed and found that, without a single exception, every link was created by a trusted person in the community helping to answer a question by someone else. Every link I checked was natural and high quality, none... literally none... were suspicious or spam. It may be that these merchants did involve SEO crews who did create a lot of spam links, but those are not on our site. What's more worrying is that merchants feel so overwhelmed (numerically there are a lot of links to deal with) and in such a state of panic about this (they fear a bad placement could have significant effect on their business) that now they're hiring people to clean up SEO mess, and those people create 4 problems: 1) They have no clue which links were the result of SEO, so they just request every link they can to be removed. 2) They send these removal requests from emails like someone@web-marketing-group.org.uk when the links point at www.watches2u.com so it is impossible to verify as a publisher that the person requesting link removal represents the merchant to be de-linked (and #1 means that they don't enter into dialog as they can't, they're sending tens of thousands of requests). 3) The removal notices seldom have enough info to be acted on. One forum I run has several million posts, and the removal request may simply be "You've linked to blah.com, please remove it". OK, more verbose and almost identical to the OP's example, but not a useful pointer to the page or comment that contained the link. 4) If, as a publisher, one fails to remove a link, then their automated removal request scripts will now spam the publisher routinely with the same request. If you can finally get a conversation that says "Do you represent the merchant, have you got a full URL to where the link exists on our site, and are you sure this isn't a natural and good link?", then every merchant has so far agreed that the link should stay. But... for all of that, the effect is very real for the publisher: We get spammed evermore, from unaccountable sources that we don't know has a link to the merchant, asking for links to be removed that are actually very good quality and with good context and content. It's a mess. A mess for which the merchants may be to blame (for originally doing SEO, and now for handling removals so badly), but this mess is definitely due to Google creating the situation. My policy now: I put link removal requests in my spam folder. That is how I regard it, this is just a new type of spam that Google has created. We never engaged in SEO or supported anyone doing so, we took an aggressive stance against spam, but as we have content that links elsewhere we are being spammed constantly with these requests and we carry the burden of the problem. PS: The example cited above was just the top one in my spam folder, the link can be found on this post in the form of an img tag: http://www.lfgss.com/thread17604-52.html#post2119173 http://www.lfgss.com/thread17604-52.html#post2119173 , it's the photo of a watch posted on a horology thread within a cycling forum by a long-standing member of the community with high karma. The request for link removal did come from an @web-marketing-group.org.uk address. The request will be ignored. We don't do "nofollow", but it's irrelevant as that isn't valid on img tags.

unfunco 12y ago

Matt, what's to stop people creating a website (or multiple websites) filled with spammy links pointing to their competitors websites, thereby reducing the weighting of a competitor in Google's pagerank algorithm. Is there protection against that sort of activity?

buro9 12y ago
There is no protection against this from a publisher perspective. The vast majority of link removal requests I've received do not come from an email address that matches the destination of the link for which the removal is requested.
- liveoneggs 12y ago
  they just re-hire the same SEO guy who bought all of the spam links in the first place. :)
  - buro9 12y ago
    Not the case. I do speak to a lot of the smaller merchants who email as I feel for them. They still don't really understand the web, and they hired someone who appeared professional to them (and probably cold called them). Only after a while do they realise they're paying a lot of money for something unquantifiable and with no guarantee of hitting the front-page of Google, and so they end that relationship (in fear, as they're told that whatever placement they now have may be in jeopardy). So starts the merry-go-round, where the smaller merchants constantly jump from one bad SEO company to another. Each one creating mess, whilst claiming they'll clean up the mess before. I do feel for the smaller merchants. Their business is being eaten by the internet, and they're missing out and have ambition but are being fleeced by sharks every step of the way.
Matt_Cutts 12y ago
Yes, we work to avoid this sort of attack when designing our ranking algorithms.

selmnoo 12y ago

Hey Matt_Cutts, sorry that this is a little off-topic, I don't really know what would be the correct medium for this... so here I go: could you please kill mypdfmanuals.com from Google hits? I was searching for some instruction manuals (my exactly query was: <pax wardrobe manual filetype:pdf>), and again and again the top hits were unhelpful mypdfmanuals.com links, which don't even have manuals, they just tell you to go a site where you can get the "full version" of instruction manuals that are otherwise publicly available for free.

magicalist 12y ago
This doesn't help solve the problem itself (and is an annoying extra step), but as a user you can append '-site:annoyingsite.com' to your query to get rid of results from the offender.
DanBC 12y ago
Google web search has a feedback page. As you can imagine the process is opaque. I have reported some sub-optimal websites and seen a difference a few weeks later. I have no idea if my comment was read by a human let alone whether any action was taken as a result.
jobu 12y ago
If you use Chrome try the Personal Blocklist extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist-by-goo/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist...

davemel37 12y ago

"If you’ve done as much work as you can to remove spammy or low-quality links from the web, and are unable to make further progress on getting the links taken down, you can disavow the remaining links. In other words, you can ask Google not to take certain links into account when assessing your site." That's taken straight from Google's webmaster support forums... https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en Even in situation number #1, Google clearly encourages webmasters to "do as much work as you can to remove spammy and low quality links..." I happen to disagree with the article, but it's kinds disingenuous to claim that Google had nothing to do with that link removal request.

Matt_Cutts 12y ago
The original article dropped all the specific details like the link and the company that requested it. I'll certainly dig into this specific situation more soon, but I didn't want to pull engineers to look into this specific situation over the weekend.
- davemel37 12y ago
  I don't really see any reason to know the specifics or to investigate further. The authors point was simply that lots of organic links are requested to be removed to play it safe. I don't think Google needs to spend resources to turn around and tell this guy, "got'ya"... Personally, I don't see the harm in having organic links being asked to be removed. I would never remove a link that sends referral traffic, and I see no reason to keep a link that doesn't send me visitors. I have no problem having someone no follow a link that sends me traffic, because it will send me the same traffic... so I think the issue here is less about actually breaking the internet and more about how it makes people feel when they thought they were helping you by linking, and then they get accused of destroying your rankings by asking for the link to be removed....
- jeremypalmer 12y ago
  Matt - I would be happy to share any details about this specific situation. I removed the links from my post because I find it poor taste to reprint details from personal emails for public consumption. I'm on Twitter @jeremypalmer.

whoismua 12y ago

Sure you did Matt, we're also seeing how the only good link as far as Google is concerned is an Adwords one. Can you stop insulting our intelligence, we see how every quarter your Adwords is increasing by double digits as web publishers are going broke. All Google roads and products lead to ad clicks and Adwords. Enjoy it while it lasts.

jroseattle 12y ago

"If you read the original post closely, it's clear that this is a site asking for a link to be removed--the quoted email isn't from Google." Matt, this is beyond disingenuous. If Bing or Yahoo responded in the same way, I doubt we would hear a ringing endorsement from Google on the subject. You've indicated in other comments that basically your algorithm is everyone else's problem to deal with. You can use whatever words you like, but the actions are what matter. At this point, it sounds more as if Google is concerned with "being right" more so than "doing right".

mike_hearn 12y ago
Now now, I think you're the one being disingenuous. Google's algorithm is not "everyone elses problem". If someone doesn't care about what appears on search result pages, they can just ignore everything search engines say: all their guidelines, all their advice, just chuck it out the window. Your website will still work fine. This blog does not indicate some fundamental breaking of the web. It indicates a guy got a random email from a random website, that he is free to ignore if he wants (and in fact should ignore, because the webmasters in question don't even need to contact him, they can use the disavow tool). No work to do? No problem!
- aaronwall 12y ago
  Your thesis would be true if Google didn't have monopoly marketshare & continue buying default (search / browser) placements in other software.
- jroseattle 12y ago
  > It indicates a guy got a random email from a random website, that he is free to ignore if he wants It's reasonably clear to me this email was anything but random. Take Google out of the picture and this communication never happens. Both the sender and receiver are taking actions with consideration of one single point -- how does this affect my Google search ranking? If Google weren't the literal default entryway into the Internet, your argument would be valid. There is precedence in this scenario as well. Back in the 90s, many people said the same thing regarding Microsoft and attaining placement on the Windows desktop for new shipping PCs. This was a key element of the DOJ trial. The argument that a powerful intermediary has no effect on the conduct of others is simply choosing to ignore certain facts.

invisible 12y ago

I have a particularly odd case where neither situation 1 nor situation 2 seemed to happen. Webmaster tools doesn't indicate that there is anything amiss and the pagerank >= 7. We do almost no promotion of our site and have never done link sharing of any sort. How am I as an outsider of Google able to discern any information about what's going on in this situation? I assume this isn't a unique case but there is literally 0 information. I'd like to clear this up - not just for me but for the community. I know this may be the wrong place to ask (I'm not sure where the "right" place would be), but would you be willing to contact me? caudill m at gmail

borat4prez 12y ago

Matt, I am the webmaster of http://TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles.com http://TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles.com -- before I took the site over, the forum was hacked (~2010) and we were hit with a ton of bad links (posted on our forum and lots of underage adult websites linking to us). I've been working the past two years, from contacting all the webmasters via WhoIs information, creating unique content on a weekly basis, having a good social media following, and still for the life of us, we cannot get ranked well organically on Google. Could you personally look into this or give me any advice on resolving this issue because I feel like I've done everything possible and we put a lot of work into the website over the years. I would really appreciate it.

mariehaynes 12y ago

I think that a lot of people are missing the point that sites that are being penalized or demoted in the Google search results because of unnatural linking received that penalty because they were cheating. When webmasters are writing to ask for a link to be removed it's because they believe that that link could possibly be one that was made with the intention of increasing their PageRank and manipulating Google. BUT...sometimes it's hard to tell whether a link was naturally placed or whether it was one that a former SEO made on their behalf. As such, it's certainly possible that an email requesting link removal could be sent out in error. If that's the case, then ignoring the request is fine...or even better, writing back to inform them that the link was not purchased, solicited or self made would be really helpful.

discardorama 12y ago

> For example, we might say "we believe site-a.com has a problem with spam or inorganic links. An example link is site-b.com/spammy-link.html." If you are able to identify problem links, you can just ignore them. Or am I missing something?

davidgerard 12y ago

IME, this sort of letter is pretty much always a spammer trying to get their past comment spam removed. You're penalising spammers, and it's being effective. GOOD.

davidgerard 12y ago

IME, this sort of letter is pretty much always a spammer trying to get their past comment spam removed. You're penalising spammers, and it's being effective. GOOD.