About a year ago, I wrote about getting daily requests/demands/threats to remove links to random sites on Wopular. I didn’t add those external links myself. They’re all done automatically through RSS feeds. If another site’s content is related to a headline on Wopular, then a link to it is generated.
Most of the webmasters requesting/demanding/threatening me to remove their links tend to own sites with domains like buy-iphone-android-smartphone-electronics.com. Yeah, keyword stuffed domains SEO-ed to death and created just to sell a particular item.
I stated that I won’t remove their links because they’re generated automatically, and I just don’t have the time. Some companies even offered to pay me to remove their links, but I can’t and won’t because my website can get delisted if Google finds out. I tell these companies that they can do it themselves by just “disavow”-ing my site with Google’s Webmaster Tools. I don’t mind.
Since putting up that article, I’ve been getting even more link removal requests/demands/threats. This is probably because Google’s Panda algorithm has created a new business opportunity for SEO companies.
Companies are hiring those specialists to go out and pester other sites that are deemed low-quality to remove links to their clients’ sites.
Some companies do it internally. There’s actually a company title specifically for that task now. Those guys should thank Google for their jobs. It’s great how Google’s able to get others to clean up the web for them and have other companies pay for it. Damn they’re smart!
I’ve since learned that I can just add a “nofollow” attribute to these random external links, and that would be just as good as removing them. Let’s see if this will lessen the number of requests/demands/threats I get in my inbox daily.
(In case you’re wondering, the only threats I get are lawsuits. They go like this: “Because you link to my site, my rankings are tanking on Google’s search results, which causes my traffic to go down. I’m losing business because of you. If you don’t remove your link to my site, I will sue you for lost revenue.” I just laugh.)
