Is this a bad link?

I am currently trying to get a lot of spammy bad links removed for a client who previously employed an SEO ‘expert’ who added them.
There are a lot from sites with names like 24searchengines.com, 300searchengines.com etc who seem to get their info from dmoz. Would Google expect me to remove these as well. I don’t see how I can as there are no contact details usually and when there are they state that they just get their info from dmoz.

Disavow backlinks may be helpful for you in such situation. Detailed info can be found at here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en

As has been said repeatedly in these forums, unless you have received an “unnatural links” notice from Google, then using the disavow tool is simply a waste of time.

In any case, the question is whether or not these links should be regarded as spammy, not how to remove/disavow them.

As it is mention earlier use the Disavow tools when you get unnatural links notification. But it is not necessary that Google inform every webmaster of unnatural links. In that case you have to manually analyse the backlink and remove through disavow tools. I have used disavow tools to remove multiple links from same domain (Wordpress website). I know it takes time but it is useful to deal with such links.

In the link KristinaRoy posted above, Google states:

This is an advanced feature and should only be used with caution. If used incorrectly, this feature can potentially harm your site’s performance in Google’s search results. We recommend that you disavow backlinks only if you believe you have a considerable number of spammy, artificial, or low-quality links pointing to your site, and if you are confident that the links are causing issues for you. In most cases, Google can assess which links to trust without additional guidance, so most normal or typical sites will not need to use this tool.

Given that warning from Google themselves, it is quite beyond my comprehension why so many people are still advocating the use of this tool as a cure for all ills.

Do not use “disavow links” except as a last resort.

And as I said in my previous post, the question is whether or not these links should be regarded as spammy, not how to remove/disavow them. Please keep on-topic, or your post may be removed as fluff.

My problem is that I am trying to remove bad links by contacting each of the sites that the so called ‘SEO expert’ put a link on.

The client has already had a wee notice from Google telling her that she has unnatural links and of course (and rightly so) Google doesn’t say which of the links these are.

I don’t intend using the disavow tool unless I have exhausted all efforts to remove any bad links (as Google suggests)

However, there seem to be a multitude of these sites with names like 24searchengines.com, 34searchengines.com etc which say they automatically take their info from dmoz which I presume is Google safe. So what I need to know is whether Google is also happy with these sites.

Both the sites you mention (which appear to be identical) have contact forms, and you can also find contact information for them with a WhoIs lookup. They look to be yet another search site and I wouldn’t imagine there is any problem about having a link from them. Problem links are those you’ve placed yourself (or somebody has placed on your behalf) purely to manipulate PageRank or SERPs - and often on irrelevant sites. That doesn’t seem to be the case here.

Thanks for your reply. That reinforces what I thought. I had contacted them in the past and their reply just stated that they take their info direct from dmoz. As my high ranking sites are all on there, I couldn’t see how they would be a problem but am just a bit super paranoid with this site I’m trying to clean up. Why oh why do folk trust someone when they say they can promise to get them to the top of Google?