Thread

I just received an email from a site owner claiming they had been warned by Google about “unnatural links” and requesting that I delete a link to their site from http://www.4sonline.org/member/5090.

However, that url produces no member profile, and in the control panel I find no evidence of bogus members and no members in that number range.

What could be the explanation? I can’t think of any ulterior motive to the message, and we all know Google can’t be wrong.

Not sure…

Does anything but a 404 page come up at that url?

Maybe just .htaccess it and be done with it..

I just got the same request…because of Google’s ongoing Penguin and unnatural links update they have done an audit of their backlink profile and are asking us to remove our link.  The link that comes up for them is: http://www.r______e.org/index.php/member/44729/  -  Our website doesn’t get many updates…a few years ago we had something similar and I went in and deleted a bunch of links but I can’t find where I did that.  We don’t have 44 thousand members either… We are using Express Engine 1.6.7 we don’t have anyone actively managing the website but I hobble my way through it when things come up.  I didn’t include our address because I don’t need to publisize we have very little idea what we are doing.

The person who contacted me works on behalf of an english gambling site and the linkback is to a page that is their webpage but no content.
Google isn’t any help i have watched their videos and they say most of these unnatural links are paid…which is not what we are doing…i just need some direction where to go to turn off the switch or to go and clean it up.

If you don’t need member accounts then you can turn off allowing registration, it’s also worth using an obscure word for the “member” trigger word.