I was doing some research on a local Utah company’s backlink profile, and I noticed an interesting thing. Despite the fact that they had 20,000 inbound links, five of the links on the first page were from several interlinked sites that were of a very bigoted nature. I was quite surprised because this company is well established in the high-tech industry, and I knew they didn’t represent that. After doing some research into this, I figurured out that this company was hosting these websites, and that’s how they received these links.

I think it is important to track who is linking to your business. Websites that are bigots spouting off are one thing (they do leave a bad and unprofessional opinion), but if there were other more unsavory websites linking to you, that would be something to consider. In other words, make sure you don’t have porno sites linking to yours. Although inbound links are important, it’s more important to be choosy about who links to you. You want your business to be reflected in a professional manner.

As far as getting a link removed, I’m sure a simple request would do the trick. Or, if you’re a business in the hosting or web design industry, don’t put a link on every client’s website. Control as best as you can who is linking to you.