Remove Paid Links As Much As Possible For You

In a Google Webmaster Help thread, Google’s John Mueller responded to a webmaster who received one of those unnatural links warnings. John Mueller made some points that I wanted to highlight for SEOs:

Make sure that do not wait out for Penalties: Google has said that not to wait out for penalties as they can easily take a long time to be reserved. Rather than it, submit a reconsideration request to help accelerate it. John also said “If you’re serious about your site’s standing in our search results, then I’d strongly advise not to try to wait for the penalty out. These are generally not issues that expire after a few days; they can affect your site’s standing for quite some time.”

By going back, remove all the paid links as much as you can: Google also said that if you have been paying for links for two years then make sure to go back two years and ensure that you remove all those paid links. This time, Google is serious and want to see a serious attempt of removing all the paid links that you acquired throughout the year!

“Regarding the age of the unnatural links, I’d work to have them all removed, regardless of the age. For instance, in the general case where a site has been buying links for 2 years, it would be a good idea to go back that far” said John.

Getting A warning doesn’t mean that it is a new penalty: Now, Google has stepped up its notification so if you are getting any notification then it is not mean that you got a penalty. For old penalties, Google is sending notifications out. Add to this, John said, “while we have just recently started sending out these messages, they may apply to issues that were already known (and affecting your site’s standing in our search results) for a while.”

So, I hope these points will help you out!