Forum Moderators: martinibuster

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Should I notify ex link partners of "divorcing" them?

         

vivalasvegas

4:20 pm on Apr 28, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I'm trying to clean up my links pages and finding that many of my partners have built pure black hat websites with tons of pages displaying a mix of websites totally unrelated to their few pages of real content. I'm going to remove links to bad websites. Do you think that I should notify these link partners?

martinibuster

5:40 pm on Apr 28, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



In your case, imo, it doesn't matter. Unlink them and forget about them.

sugarrae

7:38 pm on Apr 28, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



>>>Unlink them and forget about them.

Ditto.

vivalasvegas

9:55 pm on Apr 28, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Thanks, I was hoping for this answer.

treeline

10:26 pm on Apr 28, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



If they're all blackhat, why risk alienating them with a note saying how unloved they are? Just drop the link.

Rosalind

1:47 pm on Apr 29, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



It's quite possible that your blackhat ex-partners are on domains that have changed hands. On the other hand, they may have intended to shaft you by starting out with clean-looking sites that they deliberately turned into blackhat ones just after they thought you wouldn't notice. Either way, a reciprocal link implies no kind of obligation on your part.

Liane

1:57 pm on Apr 29, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



vivalasvegas, I am doing the exact same thing today. Got rid of a couple of really old dogs who haven't updated in quite some time and one or two leopars which have changed their spots as well.

I'm not notifying any of them. Firstly, the old sites who haven't updated could clearly care less about their sites and the ones who have changed their stripes should be able to figure out why their links were dropped on their own.

If they ever did link to me, I could care less if I lose their links ... or their affection.

The only time I notify people that I am dropping a link is if by doing so, I can have some influence on their sites. Let's say somebody puts up an article which I find to be inaccurate or just plain misleading. I'll write to the website owner and let them know that this was the reason I deleted their link.

Sometimes, I get a nice note back thanking me for bringing it to their attention and stating that they have fixed it. Sometimes its worth informing them. Other times ... not so much.

surfin2u

2:49 pm on Apr 30, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I did a total cleanup of my site's link page a couple of months ago. I got rid of it!

I did continue to link to some of the sites that I used to link to from that deleted page, by placing links to them on other pages. I also eliminated some of my old links entirely.

I contacted the ones that I continued to link to in order to inform them of the new location of my link to them.

I did not contact the ones that lost their link from me. I didn't see any point in doing that. I don't recall a site that dropped its link to my site ever notifying me.

Rani

2:22 pm on May 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



The following is an imaginary letter from one of Vivalasvegas' old link partners to Vivalasvegas :

Dear Viva,
My name is John Blackhat. Maybe you don't remember me but I remember you very well. Let me refresh your memory. We exchanged links back in the summer of 2004. The deal was simple. You put my link on your webpage and I put your link on my webpage. We both hoped to gain traffic and PR from this exchange.
Last night, one of my boys found out that you have deleted our link from your webpage. You probably have your reasons for doing this.
Yes, since the summer of 2004 we have made some changes to our website. In spite of those changes your link is intact. Maybe the fact that the link is on a page which is 10 clicks away from the homepage bothers you. Maybe you don't get any traffic through that link.
The link is on a page which is indexed by Google. Our website is not banned by Google. This means that you get a fraction of PR, however small it is, through that link. This creates a situation where i am giving you something which you are not paying for. This puts you in a situation where you are in debt to me.
Debts have to be paid. If they are not payed in this life, they will be eventually paid in the next life.

Sincerely
John Blackhat

vivalasvegas

6:45 pm on May 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



My name is John Blackhat. Maybe you don't remember me but I remember you very well. Let me refresh your memory. We exchanged links back in the summer of 2004. The deal was simple. You put my link on your webpage and I put your link on my webpage. We both hoped to gain traffic and PR from this exchange.
Last night, one of my boys found out that you have deleted our link from your webpage. You probably have your reasons for doing this.
Yes, since the summer of 2004 we have made some changes to our website. In spite of those changes your link is intact. Maybe the fact that the link is on a page which is 10 clicks away from the homepage bothers you. Maybe you don't get any traffic through that link.
The link is on a page which is indexed by Google. Our website is not banned by Google. This means that you get a fraction of PR, however small it is, through that link. This creates a situation where i am giving you something which you are not paying for. This puts you in a situation where you are in debt to me.
Debts have to be paid. If they are not payed in this life, they will be eventually paid in the next life.

Rani,
Have we exchanged links before? :)

Rani

3:41 am on May 7, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



"Rani, Have we exchanged links before?"

I don't know if we did or not because i don't know what is your URL.

JuniorOptimizer

11:36 am on May 7, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I've experimented with sending emails to pinheads containing "bad news" about their link. It seems to really trigger a flash point with some of them. Better off quietly dropping them like everyone does.