Can blog rolls cause Google Slap?

[Dean777]

I would appreciate some feedback please.

I'm in a situation where there are over 100 of us participate in a course and it has been suggested that we form a blogroll of all the students and link to their respective blogs from ours.

This appears to me to be just asking for the big Google slap! Others are worried about it as well and some have gone to the extent of placing their student list on a separate page on their blog.

I have the Student list which is my blogroll and I also have my Favorite Resource List where I link to outside websites.

Can anyone suggest the proper way to set up my blog so I don't get into strife?

[Receptional Andy]

I don't think you are going to get a "slap", but it sounds like you are linking to 100 other blogs from every other page of your own site. To my mind, this means:

- Your navigation is unusable
- Your site hierarchy is heavily distorted

These can certainly have undesirable effects. If it was me, I would link sitewide to a page that listed the other student blogs, as it sounds like other students have done. This makes a lot more sense. You don't need that many links on every page a visitor can reach, and a link to a separate page seems easily enough.