Buddy Links Pages just surfaced on AV

[tedster]

On Jan 31 about 30 old Buddy Links pages to one of my clients just surfaced on AV - all currently active pages. These links don't currently show on Google.

Should I be concerned about Google picking them up and penalizing for off-topic links?

[startup]

Don't worry about Google. They seem to be targeting the source of the links. I have many off topic links to my site, so far no problem.

I am curious about AV. Have the links helped or hindered the ranking? What I am seeing now is AV seems to be counting all inbound links (no themes).

[tedster]

When the additional links appeared, the ranking dropped. Of course, all the other sites on that kw have probably had more links added at the same time.

Yes, something does seem "off" on the themes area. A lot of sites returned are only marginally relevant, and when the new links were added, it brought back some 404's to the top of the pack.

Now's not the time to do anything much focused on AV rank.

[startup]

At this point I am convinced that AV is PFP. They must be getting something from the Looksmart referrals.

[NFFC]

tedster, does the related pages feature at AV show any changes since the rank drop?

[tedster]

NFFC, are you referring to "related searches"? Yes, that looks very different, with about half as many entries.

[startup]

The "Related Pages" for one of my sites has absolutely nothing to do with the content of the site. This site has very good listings on AV for multiple keywords phrases.
I would like to here from "dogboy" about his LS submitions.

[Brett_Tabke]

Google was very aware of Buddy links and that it has been shut down.

[eljefe3]

I'm just trying to figure out why some sites took such a big drop on the recent update in google. After doing some investigation, it appears that the buddy link pages (dumbly enough named links11, links12 etc) are the reason. Per contrary to Brett's advice, these pages were not pulled off the server at the appropriate time. Just got pulled off today. We'll see what happens in two months after the next spidering cycle.

[Brett_Tabke]

Well, there is zero threat from having bl pages on your server. I've been through it with Google several times top to bottom in miniscule detail with the founders (if light bulbs are going off...then you are the first besides me and them to know the rest of the story).