Best way to mass remove wordpress footer referral links?

Before some time I used bad way to get some backlinks, wordpress footer links in sponsored themes, but some time google don`t like it and now I`m in problem because I must ask many website owners to remove links to my website...do you know some good way to do it?

Thanks.

if its sites not in your control, the only (legal) way is to ask them to remove it.

If you have control over the files, make a child theme (of the theme in question. Google for more). Then, activate the child theme and override the footer.php by copying the parent's footer.php and placing it in the child theme folder, and modifying it to not include the link.