Finding Guestbook Links

Someone joining saying they are with my domain

[Dumpy]

I was shocked to find guestbook links saying they worked for my domain. With friends like this I need no enemies!

I hope that doesn't account for my drop in PR rating.

[djgreg]

I think only if there ver very much entries at guestbooks Google will give away a penalty

[thunderpaste]

GG has stated on WW forum that they do not penalize for guestbook entries for precisely that reason. Other unscrupulous webmasters could fill bad guestbooks with your URL.

[conquer7]

Hi Thunderpaste,

Can u pls pass on that link where GG has stated that they do not penalize guesbook link.

[tigger]

conquer7

hope this helps

[webmasterworld.com...]

[rfgdxm1]

Actually, GG said the exact reverse: "At that time, signing guestbooks was a less-discussed technique. That could have been a factor for your domain." All GG stated was that while this wasn't used in the automatic scoring, he suggests that in fact this could have been used as a basis to penalize a site in a manual spam complaint. Of course a competitor or enemy who signed another site's URL to a lot of guestbooks to Joe job them would be *expected* to send in a manual complaint to sabotage them. I'd expect that to the extent that Googlebot could recognize guestbooks by automation, rather than penalize for such entries it would make sense to just not count them. That way neither could the competition use them to hose a competitor, nor the site owner try to use them to get a rankings boost.

Considering that guestbooks typically have low PR and tons of links, I'd have to think it would be a waste of time if anyone thought signing a lot could get them anywhere. One ODP link is likely worth more than a couple hundred guestbook ones. Also, Google would be way off base assuming that anyone who ended up signing a lot of guestbooks did so with search engines in mind. I know one bored woman who enjoys surfing around to just various personal sites, and always signs guestbooks when she finds them. She has no interest in search engines at all. She just likes signing guestbooks. Google also fails to consider that those who place URLs in guestbooks hoping for traffic are doing so for reasons totally other than to boost SE rankings. What if Jane who sells widgets at widgetworld.com signs all guestbooks she finds on the theory people will follow that link and maybe buy some widgets from her? She isn't even considering spiders, but is aiming at the human surfers. She just figures if someone wants to put up a guestbook where she can advertise for free, why the heck not? Ain't no law against signing website guestbooks.

[europeforvisitors]

GoogleGuy has said there's nothing a competitor can do to mess up your PageRank (including the signing of guestbooks in your name).

Months ago, somebody put my URL--with phony e-mail addresses from my domain--in a large number of guestbooks that were completely unrelated to my topic. It doesn't seem to have hurt me at all in Google. (I've even had a few referrals from those guestbooks. One Webmaster even wrote me to compliment me on my site, amazingly enough!)