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This general attitude stinks and creates a bit of a catch 22. I know that one should not cry if you don’t get a particular link, build content and they will link to you eventually etc etc. It just makes the job of promoting a new site a little bit more difficult.
I know a lot of people advocate totally removing the toolbar, but that does not stop the people who don’t really know any better.
I look forward to the days of linking to content and not green.
Go on people you know it makes sense, start linking not thinking about green. We all know that low tbpr sites can hammer high tbpr sites, so lets start behaving properly.
DaveN
I sent out a dozen (as a test) emails with the title 'how to link to your <category> site?
In the email I invited them to drop by the forums and introduce themselves and their site. I got 2 replies and 3 links I didn't even request.
I suspect they know little of PR given the cat I'm working on but I didn't mention it. Actually, when chosing who to link out too I deliberately avoid the toolbar. Linking to good sites is what I want.
Early days of course but, encouraging I think...
Nick
Most webmasters don't use the Google toolbar. You exaggerate.
true enough, but... The higher PR a site has, the higher the chance its webmaster knows of the toolbar.
certainly not an infallible theorem, but it probably follows a fairly normal curve.
I think most people here know by now that I'm hyper about selecting on-topic link partners- but one of the advantages is that potential link partners will agree that the traffic is complimentary, of benefit to their readers, and thus an easier sell.
Perhaps I'm being arrogant, but those who decline a link based upon PR just blew an opportunity to join forces with someone who will soon be pulling in a lot of traffic, or may already be pulling in a lot of traffic.
By ONLY checking PR you are missing opportunities to grow with someone else, you are missing opportunities to share traffic, you are missing opportunities to increase the value of your neighborhood.
Screening by PR is not only short sighted but the hallmark of someone with a limited understanding of what link partnerships are all about.
But if in such a market place I'd question the survival skills of any webmaster who didn't know how to quickly get a site up to a decent PR, such as PR4+. Easy to do if you have some sites with PR5 or better that you control which you can add links to new domains that you are developing. By the time you get them in shape to start exchanging links, they'll show enough PR in the toolbar that webmasters who refuse to exchange links with low PR sites won't be turned off.
I dont even understand the premise stated in the heading, "Toolbar Creates Anti Linking Sentiment"
let alone the replies. Please explain?
If not the tool bar how can one easily determine PR?
Lee Clark
This general attitude stinks and creates a bit of a catch 22
I disagree, if you are linking to gain pr, it's logical for webmasters to check.
This won't happen when you put links for another reasons.
Anyway there are lots of places to get links.
Gus
I dont even understand the premise stated in the heading, "Toolbar Creates Anti Linking Sentiment" let alone the replies. Please explain?
If not the tool bar how can one easily determine PR?
Those demaning PR5 and up or similar, though, can be safely assumed to be PR snobs... if you compete with them, you'll be secure in the knowledge that they'll be overlooking some great linking opportunities. :)
Basically this is a Seinfeld topic, it's about nothing. A good webmaster will always investigate people who ask about links. I sure am glad that the toolbar exists because it makes part of the examination much easier. People who complain about it are just complaining that some webmasters do their homework.
Of course, content has nothing to do with any of this either way. Content is irrelevant when comparing manual investigation to simplified toolbar investigation.
More to the point, those goofball "only PR5+" link pages are run by doofus webmasters. Getting an anchor text link these days is more important than bleeding off a tiny bit of PR. If a 100 page site has one links page that links to 75 sites, all with lower PR, and gets back 75 instances of good anchor text, that exchange is enormously desirable.
Having given up on the toolbar I've been using AllTheWeb to check backlinks. Also tried AltaVista again (hadn't used it for ages) - it seems to have improved somewhat. It does a good job on backlinks, indeed, it seems to do a pretty good job period.
Kaled.
These threads pop up when people don't consider that the toolbar is just a representation of reality. The toolbar simply makes it easier to know what you can find out on your own.
Have to disagree there...
Firstly, a logrithmical representation of Google's admittedly biased (e.g., dupe filter), non-cognizant (i.e., mechanical, non-human), application of a statistical distribution across all the links in their database...can be (and must in the nature of the case sometimes must be) a great deal abstracted from "reality" (where reality means the actual value of a site's content according to Google's measure of value).
A few reasons why (others could probably be added as well):
1. Not all sites are listed in Google's index.
2. Some sites may trigger false positives for the filters.
3. Some (live) links may appear dead (e.g., due to DNS problems at the time of indexing).
4. Sabbotage (e.g., 'bad neighborhoods' intentionally linking to you).
Then the have the matter of the nature of a logrithmic scale; it is such that you never know how close (or far) you are from the next number -- you may be one decimal point away from the next number according to actual PR, but you'd never know it by looking at the log output displayed in the toolbar (i.e., PR3 still says PR3, both for a site that just hit 3 and for a site that is the word "a" in some link text away from PR4).
Then last, it seems that Google sometimes breaks the PR feature of the toolbar (I read where someone indicated they were getting a 'gray-bar' for /. about two or three weeks back).
Jordan
I wrote this and buggered off home. It looks like I have some comments to add. First off, I am not moaning about in terms of “he is doing better than me, what is the url for the spam report, he must be cloaking” crap. I am simply mentioning what I see.
My boss sends out an email to sites he would like to link
That’s another strange one. Why do we need to email people to say we are going to link to them, if you put it up on the web and it is not password protected you should not moan when people link to you. I don’t care about whether your advertisers have a link on the index. I want my visitors to go direct to the content, not the homepage. Imagine if G informed you of a page within WebmasterWorld then Brett simply sent you to the root. I digress.
rfgdxm1
Most webmasters don't use the Google toolbar. You exaggerate
rf, I don’t exaggerate. How many posts do you see around here where tbpr is discussed to the n’th degree when it simply means nothing. As you know low tbpr pages can trounce high tbpr ones in the serps. My problem is due to the nature of what I do, with most sites being new and have the pr0 through newness/lack of links and not a penalty. OK I can get a few DIR listings but that takes time and in some cases a possible eon (odp)
martinibuster
That sounds like a good approach that could well pay off in the early stages of a site and I agree with the points you made. People are missing out, due to the toolbar.
Rf….
Easy to do if you have some sites with PR5 or better that you control which you can add links to new domains that you are developing.
Not always that easy, as mentioned due to the type of sites being promoted. I do need to work on creating a more robust network though to do just what you say :) .
Leeclark
If not the tool bar how can one easily determine PR?
Rogerd
I think you may have nailed it. There is so much outdated information out in the wild that the of PR0 and bad neighbourhood thing is an issue.
SteveB
Basically this is a Seinfeld topic, it's about nothing….
I disagree. :) But them I would have to, I made the post lol. It is about the fact that people place more in the toolbar than they should and make snap decisions based on it. What I have taken from this thread is the idea that it is their loss and I believe Brett even mentions that in his 26 point plan (they will link etc, eventually)
MonkeeSage makes some good points in that there can be other reasons why the toolbar does not show the correct value due to other external factors. I seem to remember the toolbar crazyness being discussed recently with respect to it not working. So as a webmaster if I base my decision to link or not to link on the toolbar I am not considering all the facts. That is the problem, mis-education.
