Clean up Old Link Farm or Leave it?

[afreshup]

Hey All,

I've a 7 year old site, it was one of my first sites. Back in the day when reciprocal links were popular I installed a program called "linkmachine".

Over the years I have aquired 100's of crappy spammy links via this program. I closed the directory to bots via robots.txt a few years ago so I should not appear to be linking back to these websites.

My questions, should I completely get rid of this installation even though I am not reciprocating? Will losing 100's of spammy links hurt my site?

[onlineleben]

Does it mean that when you remove the page the backlinks vanish automatically?
If you are of the opinion, that the links to your site are spammy and that the outbound links on your site go to low quality sites, I would remove them. But in addition of gettingrid of this spammy crap, I would start link campaign to aquire high and medium quality links to my sit.

Hope this helps.

[afreshup]

Not really, basically the program helped you find and police link exchanges. If I remove the directory it will tell other users of the program that I am not reciprocating and that will cause the eventual loss of those links.

The thing is, I have had that entire directory blocked by robots.txt for over a year which is where my reciprocal links back are.

So I guess the REAL question is, with that entire directory blocked from bots, it should not appear as if I am linking back to the spammy sites. So why not just keep it?

[Planet13]

...I would start link campaign to acquire high and medium quality links to my site.

Whatever you do with the spammy links, you should do what onlineleben said and start getting some good links.

A lot of people have mentioned in these forums that a few good links seem to "amplify" the ranking power of a lot of spammy links.

[linkbuildr]

They're not hurting you and they're already most likely devalued quite a bit so leave em and start building some serious link booty!

[afreshup]

Linkbuildr, thanks for your reply, that was what I was thinking. HOWEVER, as a follow up, I started sifting through all of the "spammy links" and found at least 20 websites that were like mine, good sites with good content.

I have contacted these sites, who have done the same thing I have by blocking the directory via robots.txt, and we are talking about real linking possibilities. I will post back if this yields any fruit

[wheel]

afreshup, networking never goes wrong. You've got about 20 people with a similar interest so here's what I do. Don't just email them about that - pick up the phone and give them a call. Chat about the old network, talk about future possibilities, and give them some good ideas they can use on their own. If you've found an awesome spot to get a link, share it freely.

Enough of that and you become the go-to guy in your industry for links.