Trying to understand link value

my site just got linked on 1500 pages - what will this mean?

[gpilling]

Greetings All,

I have a niche site, and while I have lots of content, Google has not listed the site in the top 500 for its one word keyword. For keyword1 keyword2 searches I rank in the top five for twenty terms - unfortunately for this niche, almost all the searches are for the main keyword.

This morning I recieved an email from another webmaster who runs a forum on the same niche topic, suggesting that I shut down my forums and link them to his, and he will in turn put a link to my site on every page he has - about 1500 indexed by Google so far.

Since my forums were pretty much dead, I agreed. My question is this - Will Google view these links as 1500 links, or as 1 link? Also, is there a difference between a graphic link to a site and a text link when it comes to SERPs? I had the other webmaster link to me both ways to be sure - but I was wondering if there was a consensus on this issue.

Thanks.

[Pikin_It_Up]

1500 links won't do you any harm.

As long as the pages that the links are on are a PR4+ they will be shown up in a backlink check.

However, If your site goes from having almost no links to 1500 in the space of one backlink update, you might not se all the benefits.

Make sure you use the right anchor text for the links - anchor text for either your 1 word keyphrase or whatever else you can arrange.

1500 links sound's all good to me though...

P

[AmericanBulldog]

I would go for either a single or double kw text link, not graphic link.

You may find that getting 1500 from one site is not as powerful as getting 1500 links from individual sites, but it sounds as if these sites complement each other so you can expect some traffic.

[conroy]

Be careful. In a year when he takes down your link, he is left with the member base and not you - any you don't get the link either.

[BroadProspect]

I would go for it and try to keep good biz. relations with hiom on a constant base
/BP

[gpilling]

Be careful. In a year when he takes down your link, he is left with the member base and not you - any you don't get the link either.

I am not too worried about losing my forums. I put them up as an experiment, and after three months had only 80 posts. While its true that the other site may leave me high and dry in a while, my site is more news oriented for the niche - and his is the normal disorganized forum so common on the net.

I looked at it as the opportunity to save the time moderating the forums (deleting viagra and mortgage ads) and a way to get more links.... and just maybe I will get exposure to people that would not normally see my site.

[the_nerd]

I put them up as an experiment, and after three months had only 80 posts.

Would I give somebody 1500 links in exchange for a forum with 80 posts in it? Let's set up a couple of "dead" forums, guys ;)

[zone]

I totally agree with Conroy.....I think u have made a very wrong decision by agreeing to help someone else link..in the long run that guy is benefitting .. and by the way if google catches one link of u'rs its expected that it will spider all u'r inter/back links at the same time.

<snip>

[edited by: martinibuster at 2:46 pm (utc) on May 8, 2004]
[edit reason] Please- No Promotional URL's [/edit]

[gpilling]

So far his click through rate is less than the traffic I get from him - and his ad is still showing on Google Adsense on my site....

I am recieving 300-400 clickthroughs a month from his site, so I think I am ok. Like I said before, my forums were not doing anything for me and were a pain to moderate.