Google and pages named /links

I heard they are being penalized soon - truth?

[jimshu79]

Basically, someone told me that pages with /links.htm or something of the sort will be penalized because of the "links" in google...Is this true?

[metagod]

How could google penalize for having a links page?

the whole reason for a "links page" is so that it's a one stop resource page for your visitors... i can only see a links page as a good thing for visitors...

sure it can easily be minipulated but i'm sure they can find a way around spam/worthless linking, especially if they use theming or something of the like

[Calum]

Steveb - I've read many of your previous posts with interest. Your first in this thread I've read and re-read and re-read with confusion. Cannot make out much of what you are saying. If you have the time, please explain in more simple language, without skipping on to the conclusion and leaving out your thought pattern. What was the fix you applied to get the backlinks and PR passing on working again?

Thx
Calum

[steveb]

"What was the fix you applied to get the backlinks and PR passing on working again?"

Made a new page, deleted the old page. (Formatted the new page differently than the old page was so it never was seen as a duplicate.)

[Calum]

Thx Steveb

So would you say that there is a chance the reason G has not given my new links directories a PR for 7 weeks now is due to their all sitting under a directory called /links/?

Confusing part is that another training page hasn't been given a PR for over 9 weeks now. Is G just being really tardy with it's PR updates?

[Just Guessing]

With Google it's usually more useful to look at what is actually happening than what people believe Google would/would not do.

There have been many previous threads with evidence that Google treats pages named "links.htm" or "links.html" differently (and depending whether the site is a government or education tld):

[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

Pay attention to the posts which quote researched examples, not the posts which say Google could / couldn't / should/ shouldn't / would / wouldn't do it.

From my research, I would guess that backlinks are ignored, but PR is passed. But then PR is probably the least important benefit to your ranking from a backlink.

[rogerd]

Historically, it seems, Google hasn't hesitated to go for the quick fix if it improved SERPs (think "themeindex"). It's entirely plausible that a page named "links" in conjunction with one or two other factors could be a flag for not passing PR or whatever...

In the long run, though, I doubt if it would take even 10% of their PhD staff to develop an algorithmic approach to identifying cheesy links pages. And if a few really good resource pages no longer pass PR, well, does Google really care?

[SyntheticUpper]

If Google engineers believe they can maintain a search engine using algos that have discontinuities (I call them "non-linear" algos for simplicity)

Last time I did my sums, 'non-linear' doesn't imply discontinuity (or a singularity, which is a different case). However, in reverse the inference is generally true.

And of course, algos by their nature generally contain discontinuities (otherwise you could use an equation)

Apart from that though, I agree that

a) your post is full of errors
b) Google is having problems with its algo.

[Herenvardo]

Pay attention to the posts which quote researched examples, not the posts which say Google could / couldn't / should/ shouldn't / would / wouldn't do it.

Here it comes my research:
I keep a database with useful data of my backlinks: URL of sitehome and linkspage, PR of both files, amount of links, etc.
I've used the originall formula to get an aproximation of my PR in the forthcomming update. I used some approximated values, but I tried to keep data as accurate as possible. For both of my sites, I expected an increment from PR4 to PR5, but the next update was Florida and it took away one of the sites. Even so, the PR increased for both sites...
My calculations where based on the formula, an assumption on the base of the Toolbar value and also assumed (as many people here) that files bigger than 100kb could be ignored or crawled only partially. After some weeks, calculations over internal pages have given coherent results, and at Austin both sites where in the top-20 with their expected PR. Now one of my sites is PR5 and it's 12 links below PR6. If I get them, I'l confirm all data ;)
So, as the result of my research, I can take only one rational conclusion:
Google does not ban directly pages named links. But, due to PR formula, their links use to be very low valued.

Herenvardö

[kaled]

The strict definition of a linear system with respect to control theory it not relevant, nevertheless it should be obvious that linear systems do not exhibit discontinuites in their behaviour.

With regard to most algo's having discontinuities, there is some truth in this however, sensible sorting algos do not contain the following

if Relevance > SomeArbitraryValue then Relevance := 0;
{ pascal syntax }

If anyone out there thinks the code above makes sense, please explain.

Kaled
B.Sc. Cybernetics and Control Engineering,
M.Phil. Computer simulation of Control Systems