Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Some off these are have some dodgy content (Drugs, Porn, Gambling etc) and link to other dodgy websites.
Should I be worried if I don't link back. I can't control who links to me.
Donal
Not if you had nothing to do with them. You could get into trouble if you cross link your own sites and this is spotted. Having said that, they may be just ignored but who knows.
I'm pretty suspicious of the various algorithm's ability to deal with inbounds.
Scenario: Competitor goes out and purchases run of site links from known websites which sell links for SEO purposes.
Scenario: Competitor goes out and purchases links from bad networks ( adult sites ).
Scenario: Competitor adds a link through a 302 redirect (yes, I know this might be off topic and discussed elsewhere).
At the end of the day, a lot of the algorithms use inbounds to detect the themes of the sites.
I challenge anyone who says inbounds do not affect sites (and truly belives it) to give me the URL of their best performing site to experiment with. :)
I challenge anyone who says inbounds do not affect sites (and truly belives it) to give me the URL of their best performing site to experiment with. :)
I've said this before, do a keyword search for the word "leave" the #1 SERP is Yahoo, #2 Disney, #3 Google. Why? Half of the porn sites on the planet link to them using the keyword "leave". So the large number of "bad neighborhood" sites linking to them hasn't hurt them.
It does count to your site's PR.
but if IBLs are from relevant theme based sites, then what else you can ask for....
So the large number of "bad neighborhood" sites linking to them hasn't hurt them.
That is usually do to thresholds in my opinion.
Most members here who are in this forum are not likely to have a solid base of organic / clean links which could survive a vicious linking campaign from FFAs, 302s and other bad neighbourhood.
I could be wrong, but then I have seen certain sites drop off on various searches after their competitors have err .. had links added to them.
Like I said .. give me your best site to experiment with. I'd love to prove myself wrong. ;)
I know Google likes to say it won't hurt you, but they've proven to be liars in the past, and in this case as well.
If you could read up the black hat seo techniques. Google identifies these sites. If these sites link to you, it would not harm your site in any way. But if you link to those sites, then it is a bit of a concern.
Picture this: If one of those sites linked to some of the bigger sites, and if incoming links do hurt the site they link to, then may be by now, we could have had some big issues on the Internet.
You do not have control of who is linking to you.. No SE will blame you for that. Just be sure that the % of quality, similar links that link to you outweigh the junk.
But you could end up as being placed in the wrong subject pigeonhole. If you have 1000 IBLs from adult sites and 10 from others, it is possible that an algo could decide that your site is in the adult neighbourhood (and not necessarily a "bad" one).
I can't see this hurting ranking for your primary terms, but I can see the "related:" searches being misleading to searchers.
The "leave" example is difficult to analyse because tens of thousands of random sites link to Disney and Yahoo and their own authoritativeness carries them through any possible confusion with an adult neighbourhood. A relatively minor site might not have this gravitational pull, if we can imagine such a concept.
