More threads by Former Member

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I occasionally monitor our site on Majestic SEO. After this most recent "check-in", noticed a big drop in our Trust Rating. Not good.

I looked into our backlinks and it looks like there's one specific site that's causing the damage. There are about 100 links from eplumbers(dot)org. A shady looking directory.

It's near impossible to contact them. There's no email contact, simply a contact us form.

I suppose I need to go the disavow route? I've never done this before and am reluctant to do it as it seems a bit daunting, but I guess it's time I learned.

I guess I have two questions:

1. Are there any tips to getting this thing removed without disavowing?
2. Where is the best place to learn the process of disavowing these links?

Thanks in advance. This is forum is always my first stop with questions. Love this place!
 
Greeting Ross,

You can try and contact them through their WHOIS information if it's not apparent how to contact them from the site itself. Whois eplumbers.org

The best place to learn about the disavow tool is from the horses mouth IMO: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en

To me the site looks like a scraped-directory that's trying to do some affiliate marketing.

Good luck
 
Thank you! I will try and reach out to the owner first and go from there.

Appreciate the help :)
 
Additionally a heavy handed approach if they won't respond to emails.

Contact their host. There are sites that will tell you where a site is hosted. Don't know the names off hand. Google "who hosts this site" or something.

And then give them a copyright warning through the host.

Someone did that to me once that had never even tried to email me and ask nicely. AND it was links THEY placed on my forum (or had a spammer place.) Royally ticked me off to get a warning from my host about it.
(My other forum, not this one. I've never had a take down request here cuz we don't allow spammers in to begin with.)

Here is the copy they used if you want to save time and just re-use it.

Our site has been penalized by Google because of duplicated content which
is hosted on domains within your control, as result of this we have lost
80% of our Google traffic and we need to get this content taken down ASAP!


HOW THIS AFFECTS YOU?

By knowingly linking to copyright infringing content, you could be liable
for 'contributory copyright infringement' see
Linking to Copyrighted Materials | Digital Media Law Project for more
information!

We have isolated the pages causing our penalty which we need to have
removed,

Where Exactly Are These Links And Content Which Need Removing?

Specifically the following page:

I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described
above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its
agent, or the law and is being hosted by COLO4-BLK7.

I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification
is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on
behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
 
Wow! Thanks, Linda. The WhoIs link from Heckler shows the site is hosted under GoDaddy. I also used the name and address and found the site is run by the owner of a plumbing company in California.

I hope this can be squashed by just being nice, but if not at least I now know what to do and where to send it.
 
That's a good technique to have in the tool belt to deal with unscrupulous characters! (Not that you fall into that category, Linda!)
 
I have not tried this, or had anyone try it on me - but I wonder if what Lynda says doesn't work, a "cease and desist" from a lawyer should probably get the host acting.

You do not have to actually spend money on a lawyer. Just send it yourself.
 
Hello RossP,

I am in the same boat as you. I have my number published on several web sites, though its published for the incorrect reasons, some data aggrigator has mistakenly listed my personal number as a number that belongs to a business, or perhaps the number at one point in time actually did belong to the business but if the business closed shop, moved out, and the number went back to the phone company and was re-issued to me several years later, however the web sites out there still have stale information and are publishing it, however i was monitoring the net closely and Newer sites are popping up and listing this stale info.

i did a good job of contacting most of them to remove my info, ive been doing this for the last 2 years, but some of the offenders who are hard to contact or dont answer email or the email bounces back as invalid or mailbox full are as follows:

"reversecanada.com"
"canada.bizfolders.com"
"
sireh.com"
"ca.soopage.com"
"pagescanada.ca"
and
"www.ontario-classifieds.com"

i tried to reach out to these sites, its like impossible, even tried the whois thingy. what else to do?
 
Hello RossP,

I am in the same boat as you. I have my number published on several web sites, though its published for the incorrect reasons, some data aggrigator has mistakenly listed my personal number as a number that belongs to a business, or perhaps the number at one point in time actually did belong to the business but if the business closed shop, moved out, and the number went back to the phone company and was re-issued to me several years later, however the web sites out there still have stale information and are publishing it, however i was monitoring the net closely and Newer sites are popping up and listing this stale info.

i did a good job of contacting most of them to remove my info, ive been doing this for the last 2 years, but some of the offenders who are hard to contact or dont answer email or the email bounces back as invalid or mailbox full are as follows:

"reversecanada.com"
"canada.bizfolders.com"
"
sireh.com"
"ca.soopage.com"
"pagescanada.ca"
and
"www.ontario-classifieds.com"

i tried to reach out to these sites, its like impossible, even tried the whois thingy. what else to do?

So fast forward to almost 3 years later, most of those sites I posted about were not maintained so they deteriorated, had database errors, or went completely offline, there are still 2 or so offenders which are still collecting data and adding it with no regard or care in the world to see if it is active or accurate. and one of them actually listened to me and removed my info as per my request, who woulda thought
 

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