Has Toolbar Issue Changed Your Link Strategy?

That PR0 may not be a bad neighborhood...

[rogerd]

I've always advocated linking to sites that make sense for your visitors. Sure, I like inbound links from high PR sites, but I'd never deny an outbound link to a low-PR site that my visitors might find useful.

At the same time, I've been mindful of the advice to not link to so-called bad neighborhoods. I've assumed that a few bad links won't sink a site (if that were the case, the whole web would spread PR0 like a virus). But, not wanting to knowingly link to penalized sites, I have always avoided PR0 sites like the plague.

With the latest toolbar oddities, though, I'm finding a fair number of sites that show up as PR0 in the toolbar. The sites don't appear to use obvious spam techniques, although I can't afford the time to check out every square inch of a large site. The sites may even appear prominently in some SERPs, suggesting they aren't suffering from a penalty. Or, they may not.

I'm curious as to how others may have changed their link analysis approach when their crystal ball is decidedly cloudy.

[Gus_R]

Hi, I'm exactly in that situation, my site is PR0 (on line from April, no penalty) and I have a lot of links to exchange waiting for my PR.
I personally won't link a PR0 (because doubt) and I figure others do the same.
I think it's bad for linking development considering traffic from links is very important for small sites.

[rogerd]

Newer sites seem to be the most affected, and I can certainly imagine that getting links would be a bit more challenging. For a site showing toolbar PR0, I guess I'd work on directories and webmasters who don't know what PR is. That's probably more productive than trying to convince skeptical link partners that the site isn't penalized.

For a new site, it's a chicken/egg situation - it takes links to get PR, but links are much tougher to get at PR0.

[Gus_R]

I think it's no more than a temporarily problem and it will be fixed properly (or at least considered by G).
Meanwhile I request links where I can.

[zagood]

I believe it's a temporary problem as well. First thing I do is check for backlinks...with the craziness that's going on, if the site is gray but has backlinks, it's almost a dead giveaway that it'll be back on the next crawl.

If it doesn't I'll just write back and ask, so, is this a new site? What are your SEO plans for it? Etc., etc. If they don't answer they're not worth my links anyway.

;>

-z

[rogerd]

Hi, Zagood, welcome to WebmasterWorld!

My approach differs slightly - I've always assumed that the sites that didn't know what SEO meant were probably safer link partners! ;)

[dougs]

Hello all

Initially on sites we work on we don't link to PR0's but as our links grow past the 100 or so we start linking to anything that has good quality. The idea is that once we are passed 100 we become integrated into the web and it doesn't matter any more.

Most sites who don't understand seo just link to decent sites and that is how we want ou sites to be.

Dougs

[zagood]

haha...no that's not what I meant...I just meant that if they don't answer your email response, they're probably on an automated system or are just too lazy. I just can't deal with someone not getting back to me in oh, say a month when they were the ones who initiated contact.

My favorite though is when you get a link request, they give you a URL where your link is supposed to be and you get a 404.

-z

[rogerd]

they give you a URL where your link is supposed to be and you get a 404

Or an orphaned page not reachable from anywhere on the site... :)

[Gus_R]

or a framed page, or links made with js, or linked dynamically from index ...

[rogerd]

Kind of veering off topic here... On reflecting, I don't think my strategy has changed much, other than not being quite as quick to dismiss a PR0 site as I might have been in the past.

As DougS notes, a sufficient number of links already on the site should serve as some protection against the occasional bad link.