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:
How have you been handling requests for processing fees in response to your link removal requests?Some webmasters are now requesting processing fees from $20 to $500 to remove links from their web sites.
I don't like paying those fees, as I did not ask them to place the links in the first place. On the other hand, they see it as a reasonable fee for the time and effort required to remove links. Nobody likes to work for free.
The web site I am currently working on has over half a million inbound links and the link removal processing fees are starting to add up to quite considerable numbers.
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.
Image credit to ShutterStock for tied up mannequin
