https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/backlinks/subdomains/jitbit...
So it's really no surprise that Google's latest Penguin rollout has hurt them.
Sad to see it blamed on authorship.
Hundreds of thousands of paid links? Excuse me? We do NOT pay for links. The only thing I can imagine has initiated Penguin - we sell web-software (forum software, helpdesk software etc) that has a footer link "powered by XXX". We dis see this affected our rankings a year ago and we're still trying to recover (making those links "nofollow" trying to contact the linking webmasters etc).
You're telling me these links don't look paid to you (and this is an example of just the first page):
http://www.webhostingsearch.com/web-tools.php - Spammy footer link
http://jack-fx.com/ - Spammy blog roll links
http://www.helpdesk2000.org/ - More spammy blog links
http://www.chat-software.org/ - Spammy footer links
http://www.cloudcomputing-providers.com/ - Spam network links in blog posts
Guessing you guys will need to whip out the disavow tool to get out of this one. These are exactly the types of links that Penguin is going after - anchor text rich & not editorial.
Also, what makes you think a blog roll is always "spammy"? The second one seem to be a blog about ASP.NET, the author recommending our software... There are plenty of review people post about our software: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVuB3oGr5pw here's a video review of our Jitbit Crm for example...
.. but anyways, I guess you ARE right, we do have to disavow all these links and contact webmasters so they remove it. Not sure if this the seo-guys we hired who screwed us up, or the result of negative seo (unlikely, but who knows)
PS. feels kinda uncomfortable when everyone's investigating my site, my backlinks, you know my name, my blog, even my home address from whois records, but I know nothing about you. Just some "uts_" guy on HN. Justsayin... It's like you're naked on a scene, everyone sees you, but you see nothing because of the lights :((
PS. why can't I just BE A CODER! :(
You can also take a look at Ahrefs, Majestic SEO and Open Site Explorer. All of those require a subscription though. You will most likely be fine just using link data provided from Google itself.
I think, the links we're being penalised for - are mostly the links that come from our software widget. Check out this page, the very-very top of it: http://algonac.thebestcityguides.com/Forum/forum4195-Minneol...
We have HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS links like this (I'mm looking at my WMT right now). I guess this is the main reason. Our site is hit by Penguin...