Blog hop

[realmaverick]

I belong to a network of bloggers who all blog about their widgets.

A suggestion has been made for each of us to create a post about things our readers can do with their widgets in our home town and then at the bottom of the post we will say something like: see things to do in: x, y, z which will link to our friends blog posts in the specific areas.

The links should probably be nofollow but what other considerations should I have?

[realmaverick]

Fwiw I have never heard of a blog hop. Is there a more technical term I can use to research this?

[not2easy]

The old fashioned "webring" comes to mind.

[realmaverick]

That's true!

The sad thing here is that these guys don't have a clue about SEO and some don't even know what it is.

I thought this idea was genuinely useful. But it seems Google is going to frown upon it. I guess I best steer clear.

[not2easy]

Yes, I think I recently read something along the lines of avoiding "link schemes". Things that used to work fine just to introduce similar content - like today's blog rolls - are now getting scary to some. I still do link out to useful related content and it is not nofollow, but it is very selective, limited and voluntary (not paid or arranged). Just my opinion, but if it isn't overdone, there is nothing inherently bad about linking to content people can use and might appreciate. Where the webring idea falls apart is that the sites often share nothing in common except membership in the ring, it is automated and it is easily manipulated. Best to do it another way.

[iammeiamfree]

x, y, z which will link to our friends blog posts in the specific areas.

The links should probably be nofollow but what other considerations should I have?

You are thinking of giving your friend a nofollow link?

How about taking your wife out to eat at a fast food restaurant or sending your kids a facebook message instead of a birthday card?

On youtube there are quite a lot of people who send traffic verbally to related channels and they recieve traffic this way too. A no follow link can pass traffic but it says you don't trust your friend. If that's the case then who are you going to trust?

[EditorialGuy]

Just my opinion, but if it isn't overdone, there is nothing inherently bad about linking to content people can use and might appreciate.

Of course there isn't, and Google encourages Web publishers to do exactly that.

[webcentric]

Yes, you're basically suggesting a webring and the concept has always been a good one in theory. Letting just anyone into the ring is probably a bad idea but if you're talking about a small group of bloggers you know and trust and who are writing about essentially the same type of stuff, the concept could be useful. You could also write referrals for each others' sites in the form of articles or trade ad space on each others' sites in the form of advertising. If you're worried about the ramifications from Google, I don't know what to say. If the links make sense because the content is related then my opinion is fast becoming, "Damn the Googles, full speed ahead." Use the web the way it was intended to be used. Fear is getting in the way of plain old common sense these days as well as in the way of a great many perfectly natural business decisions.

[Planet13]

Well...

If the purpose is to tell your users about other sites that they might appreciate, you COULD always nofollow the link so that you wouldn't have to worry WHAT google thought about it.

I am firmly in the camp that believes that creating a nofollow link will not be seen as a negative by google - either toward the target site or the referring site.

Others are not in this camp.

:-]

[iammeiamfree]

If you are going to put a bunch of links one option is to add them to a spreadsheet as well with the date of the entry and the pages you display the link on. Then you can atleast occasionaly test the list with xenu and check some of the oldest entries are still good sites. The spreadsheet could also be useful to import links into some sort of better software for managing related links that could come out in the future.

[Dymero]

I would still add the links, but if you're worried about Google, make them no-follow. If the content really is that good, some of your readers will link to it themselves. That second link is unambiguously editorial.

[iammeiamfree]

I would still add the links, but if you're worried about Google, make them no-follow. If the content really is that good, some of your readers will link to it themselves. That second link is unambiguously editorial.

What happens if the readers are also worried about google? The unambiguously editorial links are now also untrusted. I would go with a simple policy. If the site uses nofollow then give them a nofollow link (or no link at all). If their links are follow then give them a follow link especially if they send you traffic. If you want to get dofollow links then give do follow links and if you want trafficked links then give trafficked links. If a site is too scared to give a proper link it could be because they haven't reviewed the sites properly and are therefore probably not deserving of a link.

[realmaverick]

You are thinking of giving your friend a nofollow link?

No, not a friend. As the post stated there would be many people taking part. Most of which I would not be able to vouch for, hence the reason I said nofollow.

I've looked more in to this and they're called <snip>, even the name stinks! I definitely won't be getting involved.
.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 8:00 pm (utc) on Aug 4, 2014]
[edit reason] removed specifics, per forum Charter [/edit]

[realmaverick]

Where the webring idea falls apart is that the sites often share nothing in common except membership in the ring

All the blogs are on the same topic, except the authors are based in different locations around the world.

The idea is that somebody "hosts" a <group> on a specific subject or concept. All of the hyperlinks actually go to <mission control> except the host of the <group> gets a dofollow link back to their blog.

One of the big sites has a <group> which consists of 150 blogs, the participants have then added this to their homepage, urgh.

It's all literally heading for disaster IMO.

This isn't my niche, but here is an example of somebody using it:

Sorry-no-url-due-to-risk-of-outing.blogspot.co.uk/

.

[edited by: goodroi at 5:25 pm (utc) on Aug 4, 2014]
[edit reason] let's be careful not to expose other people's website [/edit]

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 8:10 pm (utc) on Aug 4, 2014]
[edit reason] additional cleanup [/edit]

[realmaverick]

It appears the "host" of the <group> gets a dofollow link back to their blog with a specific anchor text. You could liken this to companies who produced widgets that included an anchor link back to their website with some keyword rich term.

Some of these link <groups> are up to 300 people, meaning the host would therefore have 300 new links to their blog with the exact same anchor text and all created within a very short period of time.

This is an utterly terrible concept. Perhaps 10 years ago this would have been a good idea, but certainly not today.
.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 8:14 pm (utc) on Aug 4, 2014]
[edit reason] removed specifics, per forum Charter [/edit]