Dumped My Recip Links - Page Count Sky Rockets

[kidder]

I have a PR3 domain with a database driven content "thin" backend. I set it up about 18 months ago and we did heaps of recips. Nothing happend - it went to 11k of pages in Google and then tanked around June 27th.

I decided to play around with some paid traffic so we dumped maybe 20 or maore pages of recips - they were not driving traffic and many were not on topic.

Within about 2 weeks of dumping the recips the pages started coming back into the index - more pages than we ever had in, I just wonder if this is due to what we did or just a matter of timing....

For the record I went cash flow positve on the paid traffic within 24 hours so there are other options to search.

[vincevincevince]

Maybe your recip links are now one-way links..?

[kidder]

Yeah I am sure they are - But I wonder if off topic out bound links can kill off your site so easily these days. Imagine if everyone just started dumping recips... What was it Mr Cutts said in his blog about this subject...

[rytis]

Expect to watch your site gradually slide back into oblivion, as your ex-linkpartners remove non-reciprocating links to your site. It will not happen overnight, more like 2-3 months.

Bad reciprocals are no good, no links at all - either...

[ramachandra]

Within about 2 weeks of dumping the recips the pages started coming back into the index - more pages than we ever had in, I just wonder if this is due to what we did or just a matter of timing....

Google is showing more number of pages in index as compared to normal when searched using site: command, this might be a reason why your pages are showing more. You can read more comments on this topic here

[webmasterworld.com ]

[texasville]

Yeah, my page count tripled and I haven't done anything. It actually equals the amount of pages I have ever had including dead 404's.

[Reno]

Based on the initial success of dropping the reciprocal links page, and assuming that eventually your partners will drop you (so you'll be back where you started), I have a question:

Suppose you left your reciprocal links page in place but added to your meta's on that page:

<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX,NOARCHIVE">

AND added to your robots.txt:

User-agent: googlebot
Disallow: /links.html

So your link partners still have a link on your site but Google is told to ignore the page, and thus does not hold it against you (assuming the googlebot pays attention to the meta and to the robots.txt).

Would that essentially work just as well as removing all the links?

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[simonmc]

If your partners check their link partners as many do then your trick will not work as your ex-link partners will see what you have done and will remove you anyway.

[plasma]

AND added to your robots.txt:
User-agent: googlebot
Disallow: /links.html

Of course you present that robots.txt only to IPs coming from google ;-)

[Reno]

Of course you present that robots.txt only to IPs coming from google

I am admittedly not an SEO expert, so may be wrong in my assumption that only Google feels it necessary to "punish" a siteowner because of links they have added to one of their own pages. If I'm wrong, then I stand corrected and would consider adding the disallow for MSNBOT and Slurp as well-- whatever it took to get my pages restored.

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[PCSceo]

"Of course you present that robots.txt only to IPs coming from google"

Wonder if G would detect that as cloaking?

[webdude]

To those who want to know concerning robots.txt...

[webmasterworld.com...]

[Reno]

Thanks webdude. Unless I misunderstand jdMorgan's explanation, it seems the combination of "disallow" in robots.txt AND "no index, no archive" in the meta might in fact take care of the problem that kidder expressed in the original post.

I would of course add the caveat that simonmc posted in the thread, which is that any link partner that checks may very well remove his/her listing from their own site. The question is how many partners really do that sort of checking? I don't know if that sort of data is even available, and since kidder has no where to go but up (if as Rytis says, the site will "slide back into oblivion), it may be worth the risk. Assuming, that is, that Google does not figure out some other sort of penalty to impose -- at this point it's hard to keep track of all of the reasons they seem to have to penalize a siteowner!

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[edited by: Reno at 9:08 pm (utc) on Aug. 29, 2006]

[nippi]

Biggest task for a SEO is close analysis of cause and effect.

IN this case, did removal of the recips cause massive jump in indexed pages?

No, it didn't.

Across my 30 sites, I've added 2million pages to googles index in the last 2 weeks, with no recips removed.

[kidder]

Yeah thats what I am trying to determine. Another point is that many of the links I checked at random had been taken down. My idea now is to focus on links that work for my users and or generate traffic to the site - just like the old days.