Planet13 - 3:29 am on Apr 14, 2011 (gmt 0)

Yes, if it can hurt a site, then why not put a ton of junk articles up pointing to your competitor. :)

I'm only watching a couple of very narrowly focused verticals, but I can tell you from what I have observed since panda is that the top sites have NOT been hurt by having bunches of article directories / paid directory / reciprocal links pointing to them.

The top site for one somewhat competitive keyword phrase has, as far as I can tell, a total of 2 "natural" links. Yes, just 2.

The other 4,500 inbound links they have are from free for all directories, or other sites they own, or paid directories, or paid advertisements that have straight href links (not redirected through javascript).

Their content is decent - not bad, just not great. But it is somehwat duplicated on their other sites.