There’s a search engine optimization company out there that is requiring that you pay for removal if you want your link removed from their directory. This same SEO company built these web directories several years ago, touting the fact that they would help your search engine rankings if you were to get listed. Now they want payment for removal of your link.
If you have a link on one of these directories, then expect to pay $25 for each link to be removed:
miriblack.com
seocourt.com
urlshack.com
allcg.com
bloblongo.com
gogoteam.com
lambusango.com
londovor.com
lostdirectory.com
niche-listings.com
oswd.us
sdja.net
theshoppings.com
wishdc.org
xewb.com
I recently requested link removal after discovering some of these sites linking to site I am working on. Turns out that it was really convenient that the site owner had put their email address, link-removal-request@ their domain dot com in the whois record. Obviously expecting that a site owner would contact them.
Here’s the email that they send out:
---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: Link Removal Request - Action Required From: "link-removal-request"Date: Wed, February 5, 2014 1:21 pm To: "REDACTED" -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello: You are receiving this email message from us because you have sent us an email requesting that we remove some domain name and/or URL of yours or your clients from our web directory(ies). Please understand and remember that you or someone on your clients behalf had submitted your web site listing into our web directory in the past. With that said however, we are sensitive to your needs to have these links removed, but please understand that this takes our time, energy, and focus to provide you with that desire. Therefore, you need to send $25 to this Paypal address: [email protected] and place ONLY the single root domain name (ie. amazon.com ) in the description / message field of the Paypal payment. The domain name that you entered in the payment form on Paypal will be removed within 48 hours from ALL of these web directories and sites listed below: (If you are submitting anything more than one domain in that form for removal, you need to send $50 in total for up to 10 domains to be removed from all of these sites.) miriblack.com seocourt.com urlshack.com allcg.com bloblongo.com gogoteam.com lambusango.com londovor.com lostdirectory.com niche-listings.com oswd.us sdja.net theshoppings.com wishdc.org xewb.com Thank you for your cooperation and consideration. Panda and Penguin updates have effected thousands of business... including our own sites. We have had to learn a lot of new SEO aspects and we are making many changes too. One of the biggest things that people have not yet become aware of is how "spammy" their web pages may be with links. There are penalties that Google assigns to that problem too. We have free videos here that will help clarify all of this for you - and do it in a hurry - and they are 100% free to view! Check them out here: http://www.majon.com/services/seo-training-videos/ Then go here: http://www.majon.com/services/improving-search-engine-ranking/ ... and get the NEW linking service that we have recently developed in response to all the new search engine knowledge and algorithm changes at Google. This service has been thoroughly tested and is getting terrific results. It WILL BOOST your search engine rankings - Guaranteed! Sincerely, The Web Directory Link Removal Team
Would you trust an SEO company that asks you to pay for a link removal request after they asked you to pay for inclusion? Google has already mentioned that they don’t recommend paying for link removal. However, they did not mention these links or this company when they made the comment. Google recommends that you disavow these links, and you can do that in your disavow file like this:
domain:miriblack.com
domain:seocourt.com
domain:urlshack.com
domain:allcg.com
domain:bloblongo.com
domain:gogoteam.com
domain:lambusango.com
domain:londovor.com
domain:lostdirectory.com
domain:niche-listings.com
domain:oswd.us
domain:sdja.net
domain:theshoppings.com
domain:wishdc.org
domain:xewb.com
If you need further information or help removing links, identifying bad links, or preparing a link disavow file for uploading to Google using their disavow tool, feel free to get in touch with me.