networkliquidators - 9:34 pm on Jan 21, 2013 (gmt 0)

Thanks Robert

I have tried the disavow process, however, there are too many URLs to dig through in a reasonable amount of time. Reaching out to webmasters to remove links is practically non-existent for the sample I attempted. When we are talking over 50,000+ backlinks in Google, it's also very difficult to label which ones you think are bad links. Google doesn't tell you which links are bad, so therefore, making assumptions leaves room for error.

I then have to ask myself, "is it even worth gambling with our clean domain?".

For a resolution, I did receive a recommendation of noindexing the entire site and adding links to related content with rel='nofollow'. Basically, a message tells the customer we have re-branded allowing them the option to go to the corresponding page. Since we can't force the 301s, this seems to make the most sense.

The most important driver is to ensure customers are aware the domain is not the catalog, we are now a new brand and the SEO integrity of the new domain is not put at risk.