As a forum admin, lately I've been getting automated messages using the contact form asking me to remove links to their site that had been deemed "bad". Most of the time the link they were talking about didn't even exist. I can only surmise some spammer came through and posted the links, site was indexed, I removed it but it remained in the search engine results. Now the company has seen the light and wants to get rid of any spam links.
So far, once it did turn out to be an actual link posted by a member within the context of a discussion about said field. It was neither promoting nor trashing the business. I felt no obligation to remove the link and hinder the discussion, and replied to the message saying so. I'm still getting automated emails asking me to take the link down. Am I right to ignore them, or should I worry that they'll use Google's disavow tool on me or something? (Will I get a penalty if they do, or should I assume it's too late and my forum is already a "bad site"?)
So far, once it did turn out to be an actual link posted by a member within the context of a discussion about said field. It was neither promoting nor trashing the business. I felt no obligation to remove the link and hinder the discussion, and replied to the message saying so. I'm still getting automated emails asking me to take the link down. Am I right to ignore them, or should I worry that they'll use Google's disavow tool on me or something? (Will I get a penalty if they do, or should I assume it's too late and my forum is already a "bad site"?)