How to Eliminate Incoming Spam Links

Post Penguin has seen many sites being de-indexed. In short, the penguin update is targeting spammers. Surprisingly webmasters who had never resorted to black hat too are affected. In such instances, incoming links from spam websites are to be blamed.

Monitoring incoming links
Incoming links should be monitored. I do not emphasize leaving work and tracking every link. However, it should be monitored when time permits especially new blogs and sites. Established sites that are big do not have to be monitored as much as newly built sites.

Newly built sites should be alert. They are in the process of link building, a few spam links will make your site fall like a rock. For instance, I started a Forex site in April 2012. Through guest posting, the site ranked 12th within a month. Unfortunately, I submitted a post to one of my competitors. He started running the post on another blog. At first, I was happy. Soon I realized that the post was published repeatedly on the same blog in different folders. I mailed the webmaster humbly requesting to bring down the posts, if not, at least the links. The next day I was bombed with 20 more spam links.

What should you do?
When spam links point at you, it’s time for serious link building. First, you need to build quality links. Yes, forget commenting and wasting your time with article directories. No longer do links, from directories, carry juice as they did in the past. Get do-follow links from reputable sites, mostly which has high domain authority.

Guest posting is best. Apart from getting juicy links, you end up gaining readers. Though not mandatory, ensuring incoming links from related niche sites are better. Once you start gaining quality links, those spammy links will no longer affect your ranking.

Should you request to bring down the spam links?
Yes, you should write to the webmaster and request to bring down the links. Most webmasters will take off the links upon request. Unfortunately, some people delight in seeing others fail.

Note: While writing a mail, do not mention anything about ranking. Give them any other reason. Say you do not wish to receive links from the particular site or some other stuff.

Report the site
If the site stops spamming you with few links then it is okay. However, if the incoming links does not stop then report them to Google. Google allows webmasters to report link spam. In my case, I had to report as spam incoming links kept pouring. Moreover, I even reported through AdSense as the site was running duplicate, low quality content, which is against AdSense’s policy.

There are always some crazy people ready to bring you down. Do not give up. Keep building excellent content and quality links. Once you have enough high quality links those few spam links will turn negligible.