Google not reading links.ex pages

I read this on another site; it sounds interesting

[markis00]

I was link exchanging with another webmaster the other day when he told me to move his link from my links.ex page to another page, stating Google no longer reads links from pages with filenames "links.ext."

I was reading it and must admit it sounds ridiculous, but can anyone confirm or deny this claim.

[Brett_Tabke]

ya, similar was reported here about 1999...
[searchengineworld.com...]

[sit2510]

>> was reading it and must admit it sounds ridiculous, but can anyone confirm or deny this claim.

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Either it sounds ridiculous or not, that is not important anymore. What is more important is the game that people play.

There are people who believe that G ignore links.ext and the number may not be small, so having links.ext pages can drive these believers away and it just impedes your task.

Personally, I don't believe that G ignores links.ext, but this file name has became the "poison words" in the eyes of many Seo and Webmasters who can be the potential link partners. Common sense dictates that it's simply "not wise" to use this filename anymore.

[markis00]

Interesting. Had no idea about such "poison words."

Thanks

[IITian]

If I were you I would create one more links file named vndjf-djeu675-12fj.* but would leave links.* file intact. Contrary to the conventional wisdom of most SEOs I don't think Google is going to penalize one for using a very intuitive file name like links.*, especially one used by the majority of non-SEO types. I tend to be wary of exchanging links with sites with links page named vndjf-djeu675-12fj.* , though.

[valeyard]

People were using links.ext pages long before Google even existed. Most users who have never even heard of "SEO" still use that page name today.

It would be incredibly stupid of Google's PhDs to penalise such a natural, intuitive and widespread choice of filename.

So you'd probably best change the name.