Spamy Websites Linking to Me

[UnitedRigo]

I used the site command on MSN today and found a series of hundreds of spamy websites linking to my site. These spamy websites are all .info domains and look like they were built for Adsense. I looked at the whois information and all of these sites are operated by the same outfit in California. I called this outfit and asked them to remove their links to my site but they refused. Could these links be hurting my website on the MSN search engine? If so, I would like to persue this outfit more vigorously.

Thanks for any input.

[edited by: UnitedRigo at 11:55 pm (utc) on July 18, 2006]

[Quadrille]

Why would they wish to do that, I wonder?

But no matter; links to your site will only hurt if your site appears to be part of a complex link exchange scheme.

Just be absolutely sure that you do not link in any way shape or form to them or any of their associates - and be grateful for the links.

Sounds like it's a company in trouble that believes in the reverse of a google bad neighborhood - they think by linking to a good site, google will forgive them their sins.

There's three chances of that; fat, slim and Buckley's :)

[CainIV]

Check the links in a header check. Make sure they are not disguised links that are actually 302's.

[UnitedRigo]

Quadrille:

I think the reason they are linking to my site is that they created hundreds of .info sites made exclusively to show AdSense advertisements. I noticed that they gathered a few legitimate sites including my site and some other very legitimate industry websites and included these sites as part of their "directory". So basically they have legitimate industry sites interspersed with AdSense ads. I believe that by linking to credible websites they believe they will somehow get points for good behaviour. That is the only explanation I can come up with.

CainIV: Thanks for the advice I will check on that.

[netmeg]

I reported a bunch of these .info sites yesterday and was assured they were going to be purged out shortly. Don't know if they were the same as yours.

[msndude]

Just remember that "shortly" is a relative term. "In a week or two" is about the right time scale to expect.

[netmeg]

As long as I know they're on the list, I'm cool.