Link Drop Policy

[Brett_Tabke]

Broke off discussion from: [webmasterworld.com...]

>clear link drops
>JoeGFX

> promo link drops to be worthwhile.

Agreed, but there are Google related ip's in the log every single day. I believe they also can read internally in the cache.
But that is but one point of link dropping - the majority are teams of 'spammers' trying to build link pop.

> Being a walled garden not allowed to freely reference the web

Well, it would be different if we had identity here, but the anon nature of the forums mean people are more emboldened to get away with stuff. That, and the fact there are hundreds of forums on the web that are not moderated or poorly moderated.,

> Best general case is not breaking older discussions with broken older links.

Most of those are slowly being weeded out programmatically.

[brotherhood of LAN]

>promo

I meant dropping promotional links to the webmaster community, to promote things to webmasters. Make them pay?

>reporting competitors

I guess Google's tentacles spread well beyond WebmasterWorld now, it was probably a huge deal 15-20 years ago but they're 100x times the size and not so interested in this place, no offence.

>identify

Doesn't even matter, Google still struggle to measure intent, we're in a no better position.

>broken older links.

nice. Definite perennial problem for everyone.

There are all kinds of cute link drops but linking to the rest of the web generally helps discussion.

[tangor]

Finding that balance is like dancing on the edge of a saber. One can get diced up in bare feet!

[martinibuster]

I'm in favor of legitimate link drops. I think it's good to link out and I have supported that for many years on my own sites, putting my money where my mouth is, so to speak.

Not speaking specifically of WebmasterWorld link drops, but as someone with nearly 20 years experience as an admin of a forum as well as moderating here, my experience is that the vast majority of link drops by spammers are ridiculously easy to spot.

There are numerous telltale signals that can be used to determine who is legit and who is a spammer. That makes it easy, like dead-simple easy, to make the determination.

When you're on the outside looking in and haven't seen literally tens of thousands of spam patterns, it might seem like a difficult act of balance.

But when a person has decades of experience moderating one learns to see the telltale signals of who is a spammer and who is highly likely legit.

Spammers consistently send not just one signal but multiple signals, which makes identifying spam posts easy, when you know what to look for.

And there are so many signals that spammers send, a lot, that makes them easy to spot.

It's easy to identify spammers and easy to identify legit link drops.

Today I encountered a spammer who disguised their spam post as a legitimate question. But the multiple telltale signs made it incredibly easy to identify the post as spam.

Identifying legit link drops and spam is not like dancing on the edge of a saber. It's as easy as looking up to view the sky. It really is that obvious to spot spam in the overwhelmingly vast majority of link drops. The level of certainty for identifying MOST spam link drops is 100%.

Nobody is perfect and moderation is not perfect. But the overall level of certainty, with moderating experience, is as close to 100% as one can get and still be able to fit a single atom into the gap between 99% and 100% certainty.

[lucy24]

There's still the question of: Can we rely on some specific link to still be valid in three years, when someone is led to an older thread by a search engine and tries to follow-up on something that has been presented as relevant and useful?

<tangent>
And why Foo rather than Community Center?
</tangent>

[tangor]

There's still the question of: Can we rely on some specific link to still be valid in three years,

That's part of the saber dancing. :)

So many links, including all the legit and valid, do not have permanent shelf lives.

Spam is generally obvious, always has been.