Too many reciprocal links from same site a bad thing?

Could this be viewed as bad by Google?

[newtoseo]

This may be a stupid question, but I'm not a SEO veteran.

Our site has exchanged links with another site that is in the basic same industry as ours. At the bottom of each of their pages they have links (a navigational area, I guess you could say). Most of the links are to other internal pages in their site, but one link goes directly to our site. So, there are probably 300 pages on their site that link to our site. We also have a bottom link area on our site that includes a link to their site.

Our two sites are complimentary to each other, so seemed like a good match. Ours offers a service, theirs offers products to be used with the service.

Anyway, is there any reason that this would be seen as a bad thing by Google?

Just wondering becuase with this newest Google update our site has suffered tremendously in the SERPs. Things still seem very unstable w/ Google so I guess we might return to normal (my fingers are crossed). Even today we were back in the #5 position for one keyword for several hours, but now once again we are not even in the Top 100. But, alas that is another subject.

Just trying to think through any changes that took place on our site and/or reciprocal link sites recently. This exchange of our two sites links actually was implemented on March 5.

Thanks for any responses!

[martinibuster]

Web developers routinely have dozens and hundreds of links back from the individual web sites they create. That in itself is not a problem.

However, 300 links is overkill and not necessary. One link from the homepage suffices, the other 299, as far as I know, won't matter, although some around here can probably argue a good case that the content of the pages linking into you could bestow some kind of positive effect- but I'm not up on that and am not the one to get into that, sorry.

I wouldn't worry, unless you're not telling us the whole truth. If the truth is that you've got several sites all interlinked with the same group of sites, then yeah, you may have a problem.

I would suggest that you read through our links forum. It offers a treasure trove of information, and that forum is moderated by some of the smartest folk around here. Take some time to go through it, you're bound to pick up some great ideas.

[newtoseo]

Thanks for the reply. I'm being totally honest. The other site with all the links to our site is like I said, just a complimentary site that is a good match for similar customers as ours. Our site has no connection at all to that site. Hope Google wouldn't think that we might have a connection.

The reason that the link is on all pages is because it is part of a shared border. That way no matter what page their visitor goes to they can click on the link to get to us (and of course to all of their internal links).

Wish I could understand how we dropped 100+ position on major SERPs!

Another question... what about being involved in link exchange programs. We recently join one that seems perfectly legit, many of our major competitors are involved and the exchange site has a good Google page ranking. Is there anything bad about that? We place banners on our site and get reciprocal banners on other sites based on number of impressions the banners on out site receive.

I'll go check the link forum too.

[darkroom]

Hi,
I belive that having more than one link(with a site) is a good thing for your site. I have seen a few domains that has about 500 pages linked to one particular site. When i check their backlinks, all those 500 pages are counted towards PR. Therefore, i would say that having 300 pages is a benifit to you instead of having just one link.

So the answer to your question is NO! Having too many links from a site is a Good thing.

[mil2k]

newtoseo, you might like to read this thread :-
Second Eigenvalue of google Matrix [webmasterworld.com]

and i would second martinibuster to read the Link Development forum.

[martinibuster]

When i check their backlinks, all those 500 pages are counted towards PR.

I don't quite agree with that. Yes, they'll show up as existing links if you check the backlinks, but no, they don't count toward PR.

There are thousands of graphic designers who place their links on every page of every web site they design- and still have a PR3.

[darkroom]

martinibuster
Most likely you are correct...since i was unsure about this myself.
But, i have seen sites that have PR 8 or 9 and when someone link to say 500 pages of these PR 8 or 9 sites, i have observed the linking site to rank really high in the google SERP's. The backlinks are all counted separately. And their pages PR also goes really high ..say to about 6 rite in the next update. This i am taking about a brand new sites that link(to 500 different pages) of a well established PR 8 or 9 site.
Now what do say to that?

[martinibuster]

Are you talking about sites gaining PR by linking out to high pr sites?

[mil2k]

If there is a PR 6 or above site which has backlinks from various sources other than it's own network of sites and you happen to get one way links from all of their pages then it Definitely helps.

[John_Creed]

Google ranks web-PAGES, not sites. Every individual page has a PR vote.

A link from 300 different pages may be over-kill, but it's a good thing.

[martinibuster]

Sigh...

I think it's less filling... You think it taste's great.

Take a look at this recent thread and come to your own conclusion:
[webmasterworld.com ]

I'm debugging a web site right now and have to go.

But do take a look at that thread, it deals with exactly this topic and features some very knowledgable folks.

:) Y

[darkroom]

Well kind of. But my focus is again on the original question of this thread.
Let me explain the situation again:

There is a brand new site www.widgets.com and there is an established site with 500 pages and all having PR of 8, 7 or 6.

Now the established site contains an a link to widgets.com on all of its 500 pages. In other words widgets.com has 500 inbound links of a single domain(the well established site).

In the next google update, widgets.com starts ranking really high in the SERP's. It also gets a high PR around 5 or 6.

Now if only one link is counted from a site, then why is the widgets.com site ranking really high just in the first update?

What i am trying to show here is that having x(say 500) number of inbound links to ONE site say www.anothersite.com containing x number of pages is benificial than having one single link inbound link with www.anothersite.com

[martinibuster]

All it takes is ONE focused PR 7 link to push widgets.com to PR 5 or 6.

I have a web site that pushes me up one unit every time they go up one unit... And I only have ONE link from them.

I've never considered PR 5 or 6 to be a high PR, it's pretty average.

[darkroom]

martinibuster
I agree with your last post.
But what about them ranking really high on the SERP's?

This could only mean that their site has a good number of backlinks that is helping them to get to high SERP's. And all those 500 backlinks are coming from One single website.

[darkroom]

the thread you posted is definately an important one. i will read it tommorrow.

[mil2k]

All it takes is ONE focused PR 7 link to push widgets.com to PR 5 or 6.

I agree. But martinibuster i would like to say that i have studied a similar example to what darkroom has said the difference being initially there was only one backlink (from homepage) and the ranking improved. Then the next month it was 2000 backlinks from internal pages and the rankings improved again. So although there might be a little cap on multiple links from same domain they do contribute towards the cause of improving your website's performance.

[martinibuster]

they do contribute towards the cause of improving your website's performance.

Ok, as far as SERP position is concerned, if the page is relevant, this is what I was alluding to when I posted this:

...some around here can probably argue a good case that the content of the pages linking into you could bestow some kind of positive effect

This is the domain of page context, the title tags of the pages linking into you, the proximity of keywords to the href, etc. There are others here who are better FOCUSED on these types of MICRO details. I have to say that I'm a bigger fan of MACRO concepts, and I don't have the attention span to focus on this- so it's up to someone like egomaniac to chime in on this.

Can someone please sticky egomaniac on this? He's pretty up on the value of links, anchor text, etc.

[panicbutton]

I had a similar situation - about 1500 incoming links (on distinct pages) from a single domain. It rocked for six months or so but I got slammed eventually. The whole scenario reeks of optimization (rather than benefiting the user) which will eventually trigger an "over-optimised" reaction/filter (or whatever) at the Big G.

[mil2k]

It rocked for six months or so but I got slammed eventually.

This is interesting to say the least. What do you mean by Slammed? . If it's a kind of penalty then i would like to ask you are you sure? If there was such penalty then anyone can hurt their competitors. All they need to do is find a single domain with more than 3000 pages and link to their competetors from all the pages. And BAM you go. Better still they can maintain a website with 5000 pages and then start this mafia service. Whom do you want slammed? Ok those guys. BAM. Anyone else. yeah BAM.

[rfgdxm1]

Excellent point mil2k. I've always assumed that Google just doesn't count, or lowers the value, of too many links from one domain. IOW, there is no penalty, but a cap on how much good this can do a site. Makes sense, because if links are votes, this is stuffing the ballot box.

[h_b_k]

newtoseo:

if it is good for the users, then do it.

in respect of webusablity knowledge, it is better to have links to important ressources at every page, then only have one link from the homepage. this is, because the average amount of pages a users vistits, is between 2 and 4 pages and because the visitors not starting with your homepage in the most cases, if they were send from a search engine.

in respect to the matrix, the only problem you can have is, that google will see your and the other site as ONE site. but I think, this will not be a problem for you.

but, you should have also any links to very other sites. because of the nature of the web and because of the eigenvalue matrix.

[edited by: h_b_k at 8:40 am (utc) on May 23, 2003]

[vitaplease]

If there are k edges from documents on a first host to a single document on a second host we give each edge an authority weight of 1/k. This weight is used when computing the authority score of the document on the second host..

very old 1988, but who knows, Monika Henzinger was involved:
from: [research.compaq.com...]

as posted here: [webmasterworld.com...]

makes some sense IMO.

[newtoseo]

Thanks for all the good feedback. Some of the terminology and suggestions went a bit beyond my knowledge, but I'll try to educate myself more to see if I can understand what such things as k edges are! :)

It sounds like most people agree that the link situation I described is not viewed as negative by Google and could possibly be viewed positively. Yes? Guess I'll have to keep trying to figure out what caused the HUGE decrease in keyword results with this update. Although, still seems like could be a goof up since on a major keyword search now the #2 spot is occupied by a non-English site. That's not normal, is it?

Any feedback on my second question about being involved in a banner exhange program?

[doc_z]

newtoseo,

I agree, too many links doesn't hurt.

Theoretically (according to the original algorithm), your PR should be increased for each incoming link. However, in pratice this doesn't seem to be the case if the links are just coming from one site. The best example is bestbbs.com with PR4. (You will find a link to bestbbs on every page on this forum.)

Independet from the fact that it seems that additional links don't increase your PR, there might be a benefit from the anchor text.

If your page dropped from #5 to >#100 this could caused by some kind of semi-penalty [webmasterworld.com]. The characteristics of a semi-penalty are:
- you dropped for a single keyword significantly (more than 100 positions)
- PR, allinanchor:keyword and backlinks are still good
- the positions for allintitle and allintext dropped significantly
(- inner pages are not affected)

Second Eigenvalue of google Matrix

A comment on this paper:
- it deals with a poor definition of spam
- having no outgoing links doesn't violate Google's TOS. Therefore, it couldn't be considered as spam
- there are a large number of serios websites with no outgoing link
- you could easily avoid such a penalty
- to interpret the underlying equations for d<1 as a calculation of eigen values is neither mathematically nor computationally a good point of view
- there is a computationally less expensive (and mathematically clearer) way to find leaf nodes

-> This is a poor paper. (It is just a technical report. I guess that a referee of a journal would reject this draft.)