martinibuster - 6:17 pm on Dec 17, 2006 (gmt 0)

>>>Google may be targeting irrelevant reciprocal links, but on-topic exhanges between sites are still effective.

I said nothing about efficacy.

Let me restate why this is important: This is the most direct statement to date from Google that Reciprocal Links are being targeted and discounted. It's clear for many that this has been the case for awhile, although there were still some who disputed altogether that Google was focusing on recips at all.

A year and a half ago there was a debate as to whether or not recips were a Google-Friendly approach for link development. I thoroughly debunked the presiding notion that reciprocal link strategies were a Google-approved method of link development. Yet because there was no direct statement from Google that one could point to as to how they really felt, it couldn't be said unequivocally whether or not Google viewed recips as link manipulation.

Today there is no ambiguity: Reciprocal link strategies are viewed by Google as link manipulation on the same order of buying links. There is no ambiguity about how Google views reciprocal link strategies.

Citation-based systems are filled with incestuous linking patterns.

No argument there, I never made one on that point. Regarding efficacy, absolutely there are thresholds. For instance, although Google may focus on devaluing paid links, there are entire classes of paid links that are beyond their reach.

Moving thresholds are why you see innocent sites getting dinged on spam updates (spamdates?), then as the filters are refined they generally bounce back. Any algo attack is going to have limitations to avoid collateral damage and other unintended side-effects on quality. Finding those thresholds and squeezing through is the challenge to any algorithmic focus.

[edited by: martinibuster at 7:37 pm (utc) on Dec. 17, 2006]