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Hi Tim,

If you are certain they have been buying links then try this https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/paidlinks?pli=1

The reporting tool puts them on Google's radar and if they have been doing this then they won't last for long.

Jonathan

Thanks so much, but without this pain we would never have got the client! We're the good guys, just trying to unravel a tangle of American .edu links and sitewide footers from other American sites for a business based firmly in the UK. What the last guy was thinking we've no idea...

Thanks for taking the time to contribute

Thanks again Irving; we're advising the client to stay away from directories anyway, and concentrating on providing a useful service for end users. Links, if they happen, will be a bonus we hope!

Thanks guys...;-)

Thanks Irving. Just wondering though, the client naturally attracts links anyway so surely that can't harm them? Or can it? There's no way to stop that. They regularly blog and get shared on social as they are an 'authority' and spent years on page one of the results so people in the industry know them and we don't want to diminish this activity which, irrespective of links, is what they are known for. Any further thoughts from anyone welcome here!

Thanks all....

Thanks, good advice. We're slowly trying to undo the harm already done and build good relevant backlinks, hence the question. I think that we will need to take almost everything off and start again with this one.....

I've been intrigued recently by the penalty applied to a site we have just started working with. They were penalised back in summer last year as their previous link builder had built 60,000 links all with the same hard to get keyword anchor text....we're still sorting it out.

My question now is that if the client pays for inclusion on some relevant sites, such as niche directories and those sites automatically produce 'follow' links, would the client be penalised if they link on their own company name? For example if they manufacture blue widgets and the anchor text on the link is 'ABC Manufacturing' rather than 'Blue Widgets' would Google see that as a reasonable link?

I appreciate that if they linked back on the keyword anchor text 'Blue Widgets' it would be wrong but I'm seeking clarification on using the company name. Any thoughts?

Thanks xoffie,

Saw the blog but was wondering if there was actually any value in it as Majestic SEO attribute a decent value to it and it did seem to boost the rankings in the month he took it on.

As to the crystal ball, wish I had one too!

Cheers

Jonathan

We've gained a customer who has a lot of backlinks from www.dmegs.com and I was wondering, given Google's recent deindexing of directories, if anyone had a view on this one, good or bad?