Frankly, I don't really know how people compete in SEO contests. I'd imagine they create a page on a trusted site and try it to rank for something?

I don't think it makes sense to delete a page, though I understand removing links to this page from sites that you control. However, in some cases, removing links from other sites to the optimized page isn't possible, so the page and the contest site still get some link love, if the page isn't deleted.

I wonder if you explain to people that deleting pages with incoming links from other sites actually hurts them. They have spent time on participating in the contest and should use the effort on the contest page to slightly boost their own site.

Thanks for stopping by.