martinibuster - 10:47 pm on Jun 28, 2004 (gmt 0)

want to put my hand up here and take credit for introducing this tactic to WW members about 10 months ago.

Well cabbie... I'm not saying you're wrong. But with great respect for you...

The concept of linking out to a competitor, or to related sites, in order to gain a boost in ranking has been around a long time. The previous moderator of the Link Development forum had a theory about this years ago. The roots of this technique are found in discussions about Hubs [webmasterworld.com] going as far back as at least four years ago.

This thread [webmasterworld.com] featuring a notable GoogleGuy post received a lot of attention and various amounts of interpretation related to hubs, the importance of linking outside of a site, etc.

Thank you GG. So I’ve not been so far off with my theory about ‘participating in the web’. I could tell even two years ago that Google appeared to ‘reward’ ...sites that let information flow in and flow out.

Here's a post [webmasterworld.com] from January 2003 where someone is alarmed because a competitor is linking to him.

It wouldn't surprise me if experienced hands like Robert_Charlton were discussing these issues way before WebmasterWorld existed. ;)