A Google Webmaster Help thread has a webmaster claiming (and he is 100% correct) that in order for him to get some of the sites linking to him to remove the link, the site owner is requiring him to pay between $20 and $500 to remove the link.

The site owners are calling these “link removal processing fees.”

Now, this is not hiring a third-party company to remove links for you (i.e. link removal companies). This is paying the site that has links to you, to remove those links. Some of them you paid or someone else paid to link to you years ago and now to remove the link, they want money as well.

He wrote:

Again, this is legit. One webmaster sent me an example which is public and I will post on Search Engine Land in about an hour.

Is this ethical? Should you pay someone to remove a link to your site? They claim it takes them time but yet the link is hurting you. I guess you can always sue them?

The other option is to 404 the target page, which is extreme or wait it out for the disavow link tool from Google.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

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