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Link Spamming - Advise Needed

by Paul Tovey
2 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hello All,

Random question, but I tried to hire an SEO full time for the past few months.

I had an interview with the worst candidate ever, arrived an hour late, smelt awful but worst of all turns out knew nothing about SEO and outsources all of his work to poland.

Anyway, long story short, he sent me an abusive email when I turned him down and since then I have gained about 500 - 1,000 spammy links from Fiverr. This has done nothing to my website rankings, but I would like some advice on what I can actually do. Legal action or should I just remove them? It would not be hard to prove and I know for a fact these are from Fiverr as the guy doing it asked if I need anymore work done for my website.

Note: Sorry, that should be 'Advice'.
#advise #link #needed #spamming
  • Profile picture of the author sudo rank
    Originally Posted by Paul Tovey View Post

    Hello All,

    Random question, but I tried to hire an SEO full time for the past few months.

    I had an interview with the worst candidate ever, arrived an hour late, smelt awful but worst of all turns out knew nothing about SEO and outsources all of his work to poland.

    Anyway, long story short, he sent me an abusive email when I turned him down and since then I have gained about 500 - 1,000 spammy links from Fiverr. This has done nothing to my website rankings, but I would like some advice on what I can actually do. Legal action or should I just remove them? It would not be hard to prove and I know for a fact these are from Fiverr as the guy doing it asked if I need anymore work done for my website.

    Note: Sorry, that should be 'Advice'.
    First of all, i'm really sorry mate (HUGS)

    It sucks when you come across people like this, i've met many throughout my career but thankfully i've kinda learned how to handle them.

    Actually, as an aside I should write this as a guide on my blog ha ha!

    Tips for you right now

    1. Don't antagonise or make contact with him, it almost always makes things worse! Remember, you have a decent business to lose and this guy probably has nothing. People with nothing to lose are dangerous!

    2. Hop over to Webmaster tools and disavow all the links, there is a great tutorial on Black Hat World on recovering / protecting yourself from negative SEO, worth a read IMHO.

    Tips for the future

    1. Be very careful who you work with, vet everyone before you give them sensitive info about how you earn your money.

    2. Operate a system where different employees only have access to the functions / info they need to do their job. The less your employees knows the less damage they can do.

    3. Always be nice to people, even if they are being complete tossers always remain friendly.

    4. I try to gauge my outsources early on to see what their personality is like. If I see warning signals I will let them complete the job, tell them they did great and then never contact them again, i'd rather lose a good worker than possibly end up with a crazy dude destroying my websites!

    Hope that helps!
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    • Profile picture of the author Paul Tovey
      Haha, thanks for the awesome mail Sudo.
      Be sure to send me the link to your blog post and i'll give it a share

      The Fiverr guy sent me the list of links and i'm disavowing as we speak!
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