It appears that SEO Inc. (www.seoinc.com - dare I link to them) is sending out link removal requests.
A Cre8asite Forum thread discusses it and I also received the request. A two-year old web developer at SEO Inc, prior to that, a bartender, has emailed me that I need to remove a link to SEO Inc from 2005.
The email reads:
I am [redacted] with www.seoinc.com. I wanted to thank you for linking to our site from https://www.seroundtable.com/archives/001880.html . However, it has come to our attention that this link may have been acquired against Google's Webmaster Guidelines. It is important for us to bring our site into compliance. Could you please remove our link from this page and any other page on your site.
Kim Krause Berg received a similar request, but she was nicer, she was going to remove it:
To which I say, you HAVE to be kidding! First, did they even guidelines in 2005? And second, my reputation has been staked on the fact that I never do anything knowingly to upset the Google gods. And third, what the freaking frog? So, I figure ok, I'm not be-utch and I'll remove the link, which by the way is from an earlier and shall I say, gawd awful design of Cre8pc. Only to find that I can't edit past 2006 (I have archives going back to 2002 for my blog).
Deal is, Chuck Finley said Kim should remove it. Why? "If you don't, they'll do it with the disavow tool and that could affect the site."
Seriously?! Go ahead, use the disavow. I am not removing a link to your site because the link was relevant to the story.
Even worse, you do not email popular SEO blogs or forums asking them to remove links to your site. That will back fire and inform the world that you obviously have some sort of link penalty and an SEO company with a link penalty is not the best SEO company. Unless of course, you are stubborn and stupid.
Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.
Update: I spoke with the CEO of SEO Inc and he explained the context. In short, they were going through their link profile and assigned the task to one of the newer people in the company after a few weeks of doing this job himself. That person didn't do his research and sent the link removal request to sites he should not have (not saying I don't deserve to receive it).
The reason I wrote this story was not to laugh at how dumb a specific person is. Heck, I probably deserve the request.
The reason I wrote this story was because there is now so much fear over who links to who that it is sickening. Fear someone might use the disavow tool against me? Fear I have some bad links pointing to my site. Fear I link to someone without using the nofollow.
Look at where we have come, just look.
