bad tips from google themselves

pr at link directory drops step by step

[baron13]

Google says that a webmaster should nit place more than "100" reciprocal links on a website. I have done so and splitet my reciprocal websites into 40 links/site. So I have got about 30 single websites with my trade partners on it. On the first 5 sites I have a pr of 4 on the sites 5-10 I have a pr from 3 and on the rest I have a pr from 0!
Whats that? I think thats really not very fair. My older business partners receive a link from a website with a pr of 0! Sorry but that really sucks and I don't understand why google handles link directorys like that. All the link sites are pure .html sites and they are not stored in subfolders!

:-(

[chiyo]

HI Baron,
>>Google says that a webmaster should nit place more than "100" reciprocal links on a website.<<

Ive not seen that. Can you let is know where you found it?

It surprised me as 100 recip links on a 20 page website is probably a different animal than 100 on a 20,000 page website.

[allanp73]

The 100 link limit is true, but I think it means that Google will stop indexing once it hits this number. I don't believe it will directly penalize for it. If you have a large links page, the best things to do is to break it down into multiple page. This will not negatively affectly you pr. It will reduce the amount of pr you give to the sites listed the deeper pages.

[trillianjedi]

I think you guys are getting mixed up between "...100 reciprocal links on a website" (I haven't heard that either) and "no more than 100 links on a *page*".

TJ

[Dolemite]

The 100 link limit is a myth [webmasterworld.com].

[mack]

My site links out, to in exess of 4000 sites. There doesnt appear to be any limit on the amount of links you can place on a site. When I do a backling check on most of the sites, I link to, my link is displayed as a back link so it was spidered. I assum most.. I just done a randon check of about 30.

If this rule was true what would happen to sites like yahoo and ODP?

I think the 100 per page rule sounds a bit more realistic, although hard to prove. A page with 100 links would be a very large page and perhaps usability would be an issue.

Mack.

[chiyo]

for what it's worth, that "100 link a page rule" for what its worth, does not stipulate recip or not. It will be pretty hard for google to define and count recip links as opposed to general links anyway.

[coconutz]

Google Information for Webmasters [google.com]:

Design and Content Guidelines:

Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.

Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).

These are the only instances where I see Google suggesting that links on a page be kept under 100.

As pointed out in the discussion referenced above there are a number of web sites that have more than 100 links on a page. Checking some of the links near to or at the bottom of those pages shows that the links are indexed as backlinks for the pages they link to.

Is this suggestion for new web sites/pages? Googlebot seems limited on how deep it'll crawl on new websites. Do smaller pages with fewer links increase the chances of a deeper crawl?

[allanp73]

This is taken straight from the Google site:
"- Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.

- Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100). "

It is not a myth. Whether Google is acting on these guidelines is another question.

added: coconutz you beat me to it.

[doc_z]

The 100 link limit is a myth.

I would still keep the number of links on a page to not more than 100. (See msg 11 on that thread.)

[superstar]

Baron, you may study Pagerank distribution through INTERNAL linking which could be the reason for your observations.

[europeforvisitors]

Google's attitude is that you should design your site for users, not for search engines. Their suggestion that you limit links to 100 is just that: a helpful hint or guideline. Webmasters would be wise to listen to Google's advice--not because a page with more than 100 links will incur a penalty (there's absolutely no reason to believe that it will), but because:

1) A page with more than 100 links isn't likely to be a good pages for users, and...

2) Google may not crawl more than 100 links on a page. (They aren't saying, but why take a chance?)

[hutcheson]

europeforvisitors is surely right on all counts.

[DerekH]

europeforvisitors wrote
===
"Google's attitude is that you should design your site for users, not for search engines. Their suggestion that you limit links to 100 is just that: a helpful hint or guideline. Webmasters would be wise to listen to Google's advice--not because a page with more than 100 links will incur a penalty (there's absolutely no reason to believe that it will), but because:

1) A page with more than 100 links isn't likely to be a good pages for users, and...

2) Google may not crawl more than 100 links on a page. (They aren't saying, but why take a chance?) "
===
Spot on.
Although...
One of my sites is listed in a reputable catalogue, in a single page containing about 300 links.
1) The links have anchors and so are easy to navigate
2) Google definitely crawls at least 180 links, coz that's where I am.

Nonetheless, Google's advice is sound - a monolithic dollop of link stuff is, in most cases, an unstructured monolithic dollop.
But this seems to be a style guide hint, not a raking hint.

Regards
DerekH
PS - europeforvisitors - let's keep europeforus - it's better that way <grin>

[Dolemite]

I would still keep the number of links on a page to not more than 100. (See msg 11 on that thread.)

I agree, as a general rule, but its clear that links beyond #100 are still spidered, and still count.

While the PR passed is undoubtedly diminished by being divided among so many links, it seems PR is still passed for such long links lists to count as PR4+ backlinks. OTOH, that PR4 backlink rule could be applied to linking page itself regardless of the level (if any) of PR being passed to the linked page, but I tend to believe that Google wouldn't show backlinks that had no value.

[GoogleGuy]

The "100 links" guidelines is just a good rule of thumb. Keeping pages below 100K is always a very good idea too. But it's not anything that would cause a penalty.

[doc_z]

I agree, as a general rule, but its clear that links beyond #100 are still spidered, and still count.

... but I tend to believe that Google wouldn't show backlinks that had no value.

Just because a link appears as a backlink, this doesn't mean that PR is passed. I think GoogleGuy confirmed this in the context of guestbook links. (Presumably BestBBs is another example for such a behaviour.)

While the PR passed is undoubtedly diminished by being divided among so many links ...

Of course, this effect was taken into account. (and it was already discussed in that thread.)

[peewhy]

I think it is the actual penalties of placing 100+ links on a page that is the Cyber Myth. These rumours abound from getting banned ... to dropping so far down the rankings that we drown!

I'm pretty sure Google's guide relating to 100+ is for cosmetic reasons and at the very worse, googlebot screeches to a stop and reverses home at #100.

Has anyone any examples of a directory with over 100 links on one page that have been crawled?