Hundreds of do-follow backlinks from one domain... remove or keep?

[TomSnow]

My employer's site has 5k backlinks from only 55 referring domains :/

Digging deeper I see the backlinks are coming from ads that exist on hundreds of pages. They are aiming at the same page on our site (homepage).

They are do-follow.

I'm wondering if I should ask the site to change them to no-follow?

Or just leave as is?

I don't want to pull the plug if it will lead to drop in rankings. Or if it will show a massive dip in link loss that Google might perceive as fishy.

But I also want a diverse backlink profile with just one or two links per referring domain.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[tangor]

Part of the query is why open can of worms, the other part is thoughtful...

Me? I have never worried about any links to mysite as I didn't ask for them, cultivate or even beg for them. No one can control who links to them. These days the "disavow" tool (which was only a g experiment to check what they needed to do for their mystery algos and really has no teeth.

Others have a different opinion and I respect them and their thoughts in this regard. I will say that if you "links" are from ads you didn't participate in you might want to investigate deeper to find out why your site is so attractive. And then figure out how to make money off of it for yourself!

[Madaboutdm1719]

Changing the backlinks all of a sudden might reduce your Organic Search Results. However, 5K from 55 refferal domains seem to be a question. If you are afraid of the possibilities in the future, make a list of the active DA/PA of the backlinks and create a next version from a Quality Backlink Profile.

I see these days, apart from the backlink which my team does, I see a lot more from which they dont do at all. I dont disavow them, unless its really coming from a potential thread, spam site !

[engine]

Have they been there a long time, or has this just turned up?

I don't think it'll matter whether it's an ad or otherwise, it's a link, so treat it the same.

It is unnatural, but, having said that, there's much more to it than having a link. It's quite possible the sites have zero value, just as much as having good value.
Only Google really knows that stat.
You could look to see how google treats the sites, but do the research carefully.

For the time being, i'd probably spend my time focussing on new, rather than what's already there, especially if it's been there a while.

[TomSnow]

Thanks all.

To clear things up a little more:

The links have been up for awhile. Some are ads while others are links in a paid article that shows up hundreds of times within a preview paragraph in the company's hundreds of article archives.

I'm going to leave them alone for the time being.

We took a dip in traffic after the Aug 1 update. I think it might have been because of these links (but who knows). But we are climbing back a little as of the last couple weeks. Don't want to make a huge change in our PageRank right now.

I will focus on building better content and better links to it.

Thanks again!