What is the potential reward for keeping the citation?
What is the potential risk for keeping the citation?

If the citations are not driving significant traffic or boosting brand awareness there is probably little or no reward. So go ahead and delete it since there is a real potential risk. Google continues to tighten their quality standards so if those citations on article directories and forum signatures haven't been flagged by Google there is a good chance they will eventually be flagged as spam by Google. I don't like waiting for Google to penalize my, I try to stay one step ahead of Google and thus avoid most of the penalties.

Thank goodroi

Problem is that I don't know, but I'll have to take a gamble and nuke it all, links, signature, citation...

How about deleting the articles completely?

If they aren't driving traffic, personally, I'd nuke 'em.

No traffic nothing, so netmeg, you recommend deleting the whole article better?

If the articles are decent, delete and republish them on your site. If not delete the articles and move on with life.

What he said.

+1 goodroi and netmeg

Mmmm, delete and move on with life? I wish it was that easy, that website has been sustaining me for nearly 15 years.

It's generated well over a million dollars in sales over time.

It's a moving company in Vancouver BC, Canada.

That website has really good authority, seniority ect...I can't really just walk away from it..;(

I wasn't talking about your website, I was talking about what to do with articles that were published on other websites.

It is nice that the website was successful in the past but unfortunately that does not entitle us to future rankings. Hopefully you reinvested in the website to keep it more valuable to users than the competition. If you ignore a website long enough or take enough risks, you can hit a point where it is smarter to walk away. Hopefully that is not the case for you and that you have been reinvesting and improving your website for the last 15 years.

if this is the same website as in your profile, I would have to say that you have been living on "borrowed time."

I don't mean that as an insult. it's just that your site doesn't really offer a whole lot of value to the visitor. if your site has been ranking well over the years based on article link spam, it shows that your competitors haven't really even tried to outrank you.

As for local businesses like yours, I would say your future rests more with social promotion (yelp, Google local, adwords, Facebook, etc) then with just your website. Also, look to creating partnerships with local businesses that have a synergy with your business. can you set up an affiliate program with real estate agents, storage companies, and other types of businesses that people who might need a moving company might also use?

in other words, if it were me, I would make sure that your BUSINESS MODEL was as good as you can make it, and then promote your business in different ways that you can easily track your ROI.

and yes, I would disassociate your web site from all the link spam you have created.

Planet13 brings up some good points about developing a good business model that utilizes multiple opportunities.

If you are a local business do a search for your niche in the biggest cities and see what the local business in NYC, Toronto, London, Chicago etc. offer on their website. Then steal the best ideas and combine them into your website. You want to be the ultimate website in your niche and offer the widest and most useful information so you have the best value proposition. Then reach out to relevant bloggers and local news websites offering interviews to provide free consumer advice on your niche. You remind everyone you are the authority, with the most useful website and develop good citations to help recover from the negative points that came from any old risky seo moves.