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Is my links page a bad idea?

links page attached to my site

         

thehittmann

10:05 am on Dec 2, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



my website is a website for a band.
This site is doing very well in most of the search engines.
With almost every page indexed.

I have a links page on this site with about 15 links to other bands.....with an option for other local bands to add their band to the list. Which will be added after the site is reviewed.

This links page is also indexed in the SE's but im wondering if this page will be seen as spam of some sort? Will it also affect me if these sites link back to me?
Around half of the sites link back to mine.

Ive also noticed that since the last google index my PR went from 4 -> 0 While my actual search hits increased, and position in SERPS. I've had an increase on the links comming into my site. Is it these outgoing links that are sucking my PR away? I care very little about PR anyway seeing that it clearly has no meaning to how your site ranks in the SERPS, but it would be good to know.

dmorison

6:37 pm on Dec 2, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Links are what the web is all about; I would hate to see Google wield so much influence on our way of doing things as to be the death knell of link pages.

I think Google are smart enough to differentiate between a blatant link farm; and a perfectly acceptable links page, so I wouldn't worry; just keep it to a sensible number.

In fact, if themes and personal searching become more of a reality then it may well help you, as linking to similar themed sites will reinforce your own position in a search from a user whom Google has already identified as being interested in music.

rogerd

7:06 pm on Dec 2, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member



Outgoing links don't suck your PR away (although the links on a page will share the PR on that page). As Dmorison said, on-topic links shouldn't hurt and may actually help in some cases.

nakulgoyal

1:25 am on Dec 4, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I would always prefer one way links for that reason. Anyways, if you have a nice sitemap for your website and a couple of quality links (don't bother what PR they are), get over 50 links point to that sitemap and I feel your PR will be good and you would always be in the SERPS. It works for me atleast.

DRGather

2:29 pm on Dec 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



get over 50 links point to that sitemap and I feel your PR will be good

You point your inbound links at your sitemap? That's interesting. I never thought of doing that as I really don't want that to be an entry page to my site. But from a PR distribution perspective I suppose it may be smart. Instant distribution to all pages of raw PR. I'll have to think about that one!

ILLstyle

3:10 pm on Dec 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



But isn't your home page just a nice looking sitemap?
Why would you not want your incoming links just go to you home page.

martinibuster

3:13 pm on Dec 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Inbound links to relevant pages is best, deeplinks are a good thing.

DRGather

3:23 pm on Dec 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



But isn't your home page just a nice looking sitemap?

Not necessarily. For instance, my site is up around 250 pages of heavy content, and would be IMPOSSIBLE to layout completely on an index page. For that matter, I haven't even finished a sitemap yet. It hasn't been up that long, and I'm ironing out other bugs right now. But I agree that the index should have most of your hierarchy covered. Maybe just not all of it. Still, I'd rather have the links pointing to the content that said link represents rather than to a sitemap.

thehittmann

3:25 pm on Dec 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



all my links point to my index (home) page then from there theres links to all other 1st level pages and also my sitemap....which i guess makes every single page of my site no deeper than 1 level. So far I have 20 pages, about 12 are indexed, the others have only been up for the last 2 days. Interestingly Fast bot comes for a peek a couple of times a day.....google comes about once or twice a month if im lucky

DRGather

3:31 pm on Dec 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



From what I understand there IS still a fresh and deep crawl contrary to popular belief. It has more to do with your PR than with a schedule though. The lower your PR the less you'll get deep crawled. But you'll get a lot of fresh activity if you change your page even remotely often. I'm in the same boat with you on getting deep crawled once or at most twice a month. I know others that get it everyday. *shrug*

I'm not sure I understand the whole "depth" issue. For instance, all my pages are either in the root or one folder level down. However, you may have to nav through 3 1st level pages before you get to a particular page (that page still being first level, just not linked from the index). How does this factor in to internal linking and "link depth"?

enlightenment welcome.

[edit]I can't attract the Fastbot with live bait... must be still too new... I refuse to pay for any inclusion anymore.[/edit]

thehittmann

3:37 pm on Dec 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



ohhh no ive never paid a cent for any SE

link depth is just as you said....if it takes 3 other pages to find a page it is at least 3 pages link depth deep regardless of what folder the page resides in.

nimlet

4:43 pm on Dec 10, 2003 (gmt 0)



I read somewhere in the google webmaster guide lines (I think), about keeping the number of links to below 100 per page if thats of any help to you and your links page?

thehittmann

4:50 pm on Dec 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



thanks nimlet, ive decided to set myself a limit of 20 links per page. Because I also have a description of what each site is aswell

dirkz

9:46 pm on Dec 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



A couple of months ago, heavy link exchanges alone could take you pretty far. This has now faded I guess.

But links to relevant sites on your pages seem to be more valuable than ever at the moment.

pgsbs

12:29 pm on Dec 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I agree with Dirkz.
It seems to be important that you have relevant outgoing links. So it's time to forget about swapping links with all kinds of websites. It's the quality that counts, instead of the quantity.

dirkz

9:34 am on Jan 2, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Still the king:

[searchengineworld.com...]