One trend we've seen in the past year or so is that link builders are now extremely busy with link removals. Getting links to your web site has never been easy, it is a talent to get webmasters to read your link requests. But getting link removed is often harder.
Why is it harder? Well, asking for a link is a positive thing. People like positive things. You tell them they have a great site, you are wonderful, etc etc. But link removal requests are negative and people do not like negative things. You are asking a webmaster to remove a link you have to them because Google thinks it is low quality. How dare you tell a webmaster their site is low quality!
That being said, some webmasters and SEOs are getting creative with link removal requests.
As I covered at Search Engine Land, diamond shop Brilliance, did just that. They sent emails with a pirate theme and hoped the webmaster would take the bait. And some did. Here was the email they sent out:
Shai Barel of Brilliance said it worked well and even shared three email responses from webmasters who complied with the link removal request. Some of those replies were fun as well:
Ahoy Ye Matey website removed.
I appreciate the way you approached bloggers about this so I will waive my typical fee and remove the link.
What a great removal request! Brightened up my day for sure...
Did you do something creative or fun for your link removal requests?
Forum discussion at Google+.
