Do reciprical links hurt weak sites?

LookSmart Inktomi filter system

[Robert]

Does it hurt new weak sites to exchange links? I know it helps traffic, but where before a search for my site by domain name in Inktomi supplied search engines like LookSmart and GoTo would find my site, now the top five or six listings are sites linking to me. It appears search sites like findwhat limit the number of returns or to relevency. I find myself in the position on canada.com of being only 74% relevent to a search for my domain name and those linking to me to be much higher even 99%, what to do? Comments, suggestions, jokes? Thanks. RP

[stcrim]

Robert,

Welcome to the INKTOMI forum of WMW!!! If I am reading you question correctly Incoming and outgoing links are a benefit. The closer to the topic of your site the better with the INKTOMI portals. As you move this question to say Google, it's best for those links to be on topic.

I do not think (just my opinion) ramdom links from just any site are much help. Or, at least not as good as "on topic" links

Steve

[Robert]

Hate it when I can't say what I mean. ;-) Let's say you have a site little-dog.com, you submit it to inktomi and when you search for little-dog on looksmart your site appears at the top or is the only listing found. You exchange links with older established sites like big-dog, fuzzy-dog, etc. Now when you search for little-dog in looksmart, it finds big-dog and fuzzy-dog and four others you exchanged links with but not little-dog itself. Even if people searching for little-dog look in big-dog the links are somewhat hidden. Is it better to avoid the link to big-dog so a search for little-dog can be found, or better to have the link in big-dog and be ignored or filtered out by looksmart?

Also, if one is an onmibus site of several topics, how do you get around being say 33% relevant for each?

[Brett_Tabke]

Hi Robert. What you are seeing on Canada.com, is the fact that those other sites have built up their reputation (even under your own domain name). That can be that way because of:

a) page age. Their pages have been in the system longer and are well established.
b) they have so many links pointing at them, that the site is considered somewhat of an authority or hub by Inktomi.
c) they have killer listings in all the major directories like Yahoo, the ODP, Looksmart, and about.com.

You have done well to get links with them. You haven't decreased your real relevance, you have helped it enourmously by linking with them.

[makemetop]

I have the same thing since the great June 27th hose down! Check the age of the sites linking to you. Are they prior to June 27th? Mine certainly are and are from very obscure sites with my links from dmoz apearing below me - but dated after 27th June.

[Brett_Tabke]

Boy, I don't see how age would affect link pop at all. Or are you saying that they just happen to remain in the db?

[makemetop]

What I was trying to say was that a lot of sites which are reputable have linked to me (without my knowledge) and these sites are in the permanent DB. Prior to June 27th they would show up as links when doing a 'little-dog' search with a lower relevance than 'little-dog' which would be #1. After June 27th the linking sites leapfrogged over 'little-dog' and got relevance ratings of 99% whereas 'little-dog' slipped to only being 95% relevant. This (however) did not effect all linkings - ODP links stay will down in the rankings. So for a while my .com name was at position 10 or lower, until I mentioned it in these forums and it jumped to #1 within 2 hours! However the site that all the links are to and my main site (a .co.uk) is still ranked at #15 in pure Inktomi results like MSN and doesn't appear at all in HotBot - though all the links to it do! Even links from my own sites that I have never submitted to Inktomi show up in HotBot (but not in MSN).

I've given up working out why and echo the sentiment that Inktomi should let us all know what the new deal is going to be so we can pay up and get on with life!