What does google penalize ... crosslinking

Crosslinking and google penaties

[stinkfoot]

Hi Folks,

New to this forum but looks as though someone here may weel be able to give me an idea about what google sees as crosslinking and what it penalizes sites for.

OK if i have a well linked network of sites ..
If i were to place links on all of my pages to the main index of all my other pages or should i say every page on each site offers a link to the front page of the other domains.

Will google penalize me for this.

Any thoughts on the subject appreciated

[greenfrog]

I think that you need to be careful with crosslinking, becuase you don't want to get penalized. However, linking to an from one site to another is common and will not get you penalized.

Sounds contradictory....well it is.

A limited amount of crosslinking is o.k., just be careful. I would suggest to do it sparingly and from pages that have both solid content and good pr.

[stinkfoot]

Thanks for that .. seems that things are going that way atm.

Yet why i ask about the penalties is ..

although good inbound links are found on every other search engine google took all mine away ... in fact a pr ranked 5 site had all pages off of it pr3, thus all inbound links were lost aswell. <NIGHTMARE OR WHAT!>
a few are pr4 now .. but i was just wondering if this is what you would call a penalty... or is a penalty when you just get slam dunked out of google all together?

Confused? Imagine how I feel =)

[claus]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld stinkfoot :)

There's been a lot of reports on this in the last few months. It seems that Google does find all your incoming links, but it chooses to display only a fraction of them when you use the "link:" command.

The current assumption in the threads is that Google displays only links from pages PR4 or higher. Personally i've seen a few (very few) links to one of my pages that were from PR3 pages as well, but PR4+ seems to be the rule.

In addition to this a recent thread ( Datacentres Almost All Different [webmasterworld.com] ) mentions that Google is currently doing some kind of update, and it seems that even more backlinks are hidden now. I use the term "hidden" as we really don't know if they are not counted anymore - they might still be counted but not visible.

/claus

[plasma]

Personally i've seen a few (very few) links to one of my pages that were from PR3 pages as well, but PR4+ seems to be the rule.

My observeration:
In the past it has been PR4+
Since about 3-4 Months it's PR3+ (for me)

[gibbon]

i dont see loads of inbounds from many PR4 sites

it seems to be quite random regarding what links they will show

we tend to see x5 more inbounds from alltheweb than G

is that unusual?

[plasma]

it seems to be quite random regarding what links they will show

The problem is, that backlinks are updated only once a month or so. Same with PR.

[gibbon]

will have to wait ... as usual in this game :)

[claus]

>> we tend to see x5 more inbounds from alltheweb than G
>> is that unusual?

No, that's quite typical. Perhaps not five times as many, but definitely loads more. Double is not unusual at all. I don't think it means that there's something wrong, it's just Google that displays only 1/5. Google displays a lot less than the true number for all sites, and ATW comes closest to the real number.

/claus

[2_much]

If you have links coming in from other sites you should be okay. If the inbound links to your sites are coming only from your sites, that would set off the filter.

[Marcia]

With one of the sites I work with, they handle their own links and with AlltheWeb showing over 200 from off the site, over 300 altogether, Google's only showing 33 including only a few pages in the site. In this case they've got a load of links, it looks like Google doesn't like how they're linking.

It's not only what they're not showing, but the PR dropped from PR5 pretty much on all pages to PR4 on the homepage and PR3 on the interior pages.

[ogletree]

There does not seem to be any crosslinking penalty. I could give a huge list of sites that crosslink big time and not only are they not penalized they benefit from it. I know people that do this and have cloaked pages. They have cold fusion pages that have had a differnt spammy cache than what the viewer sees for some time. They have done this for at least 7 months probably longer than that. They rank well consistantly.

[twilight47]

It's not only what they're not showing, but the PR dropped from PR5 pretty much on all pages to PR4 on the homepage and PR3 on the interior pages.

Same exact for me.

As for crosslinking, Google may not penalize for regular visible links, but I've reported a site many a time that gets a big PR boost from hidden crosslinks and Google doesn't seem to care. So it's seems to be hit and miss.

[Marcia]

In this case it isn't cross-linking. I believe it's a lot of reciprocal linking done among a common group of people, an awful lot of them linking to each other within the group with little diversity. With another factor or two added in, otherwise they'd all have been hit.

Among another thing or two I dug up while hunting it all down. That site got dumped by Yahoo big-time about a month and a half or two ago, and that was related to several factors I dug up, including dup content from the site on another site with links back to those same pages and into the shopping cart.

It all adds up to links, but not classical cross-linking the way we usually think of it.

[Kirby]

Marcia, whats your definition of cross-linking?

[caustic]

stinkfoot, I do exactly what you do and don't have a problem. You are probably anxious not to enter into the webring/linkfarm territory but PageRank has effectively dealt to this problem because link farms dilute the attributed pagerank so much that the links have very little value. So don't worry. After all, what is DMOZ but the mother of all link farms.

[stinkfoot]

Wow! I go to bed and you guys come to life!

<claus Senior Member Welcome to WebmasterWorld stinkfoot :)>

=D thanks claus. The updates are happin un understand but howcome some sites, like all of my competitors grrrrr, still have all thier internal links and external still up?

Using a simple link checking program their links have stayed stable and mine just sliced to pieces (puts his hand on his forehead throws his head back) I just cant take it! It's not fair! =P

<twilight47 As for crosslinking, Google may not penalize for regular visible links>

Ive always been true to web the dont play just write good simple stuff with no trick twilight .. none of the hidden stuff goes on all of my link were visable. =(

<caustic stinkfoot, I do exactly what you do and don't have a problem>

Arrgh you see im not paranoid they hate me! (runs away and hides under a balnket faor a while)

No but really it just seems somethings happen to some and not to others .. i guess i will just have to try to figure it all out by listening to a few more stories. Nice to get some further info on it.

Stinkfoot

[claus]

>> howcome some sites, like all of my competitors grrrrr,
>> still have all thier internal links and external still up?

It feels stupid posting "i don't know" but i really don't. Perhaps their links are just from higher PR pages.

/claus

[Stefan]

There does not seem to be any crosslinking penalty.

As far as I can see, you're right, ogletree. Most of us could post many examples of massive link farms, that have hundreds of almost identical index/default pages, using hundreds of domain names that are all variations on the same theme, all heavily crosslinked... and they do well in Google. Sometimes, for a search, you have just 2 or 3 websites that grab the top hundred places by doing this.

Google has excellently fresh results post-Dominic, but it doesn't seem to mind spam as much as it used to.

[stinkfoot]

<claus Senior Member It feels stupid posting "i don't know" but i really don't.>

Claus nothing stupid about your post honesty is always appreciated .. i feel the same for the same as in .. i posted cause .. i dont know .. this game seems to me to be a bit mind bending and all we can do imo is air views on what is happening and then .. hope that no one particular employed by any search engine does have effect on the outcome .. (is showing his inate paranoia again)

Ahh i dunno ... maybe it all just a game and ... the rules need to be perfectly understood ... get into msn / looksmart directory .. no real advantage appart from those given to you so grasiously by the editors .. and can i say it would be better imo if the knew how to write english properly in looksmart descriptions .. my listings are appauling and . its come some wally cant type or write the language properly (disgusting for the money imo) .. get into yahoo and you move up a few places in google.. 600 dollars a year+ and .. well .. nuff said .. a few places

Its a hard life

Anyone here fancy byeing out google? emails to [e-mail]

Stinkfoot =P

P.S. omg .. just discovered .. that was a rant sorry

[DaveN]

I have seen one of the largest crosslinked networks rank any where form #1 to #5 in a competitive market place my vote goes to :

Google can't find it unless someone drops the penny on you.

DaveN

[Brett_Tabke]

Agreed DaveN.

(except in the states, it s 50cents) ;-)