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I have links pages on 20-30 sites and it has never done me any harm. Anyone got some info?
Another one?
You mention having already had one penalised...
Guess it was not my links page. So let this be and end to it. Do not cross link beccause that is votes for yourself. Get other sites to vote for you:)
One of my more estalished sites (launched in 1999) received over 2000 visitors per day from link partners, regardless of where it appears in any engines serps. Needless to say, the income level of that site stays relatively steady month in, month out without me having to fret over it's position(s) in the serps, etc.
The key is that I ONLY trade links with on-topic, targeted sites whose visitors would be my likely demographic.
I'll take 2000 targeted visitors per day from related sites over search egnine visitors any day. They convert better, they stay on the site longer, AND they don't cost me a dime.
You are spot on Crush : )
Meanwhile...
More interestingly to me is how easily Goolge has caught these schemes
I quite agree. I've seen sites/networks taken down recently with linking schemes that up to now, passed muster, but were certainly artificial.
I raised a point along these lines in another thread. It's almost as if HT style link assessment is taking place. If you have a spammy site/network, and G identifies it as affiliated with other sites/networks...it seems that the whole collection of sites is potentially at risk.
My point being that 3-way linking, as described in this thread, and direct reciprocal linking are unlikely to be penalized, not when they don't meet the criteria to fall under the definitions of FFA and Link Farm sites.
How is it a scheme? The owner of both sites doesn't lie to those he's trading links with and is plainly open as to where the reciprocating link will be. Since the site trading links is typically of a noncommerical nature, they could care about page rank and simply want access to traffic, which they'll get by visiting the link jump-off point on the main site (which leads to the directory).
In fact, if you build this "directory" well enough, it might, in itself, become a valuable resource on it's own and get voluntarily linked to by others, thus building its own page rank over time.
If this is a scheme, I don't see it. And if this somehow violates Google's tos, I don't see it either. I see it as a way to protect one's main site. And with as much link checking as I do, I see plenty of sites that ARE NO LONGER WHAT THEIR ANCHOR TEXT WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE THEY ARE. In other words, the site that was linked to became something else and the webmaster who linked to the site had no clue that the "arthritis site" he referenced as a resource had turned into a "top 10 porn sites" domain.
Scheme? How?
The point is that reciprocal linking and even the 3-way linking as described in this thread are intended as resources for visitors, not merely as methods of acquiring links to manipulate the engines. As long as you keep this as your goal you don't have to worry about penalization.
Please note that the iterative calculation of link popularity does not easily lend itself to negative values. Also note that for every argument that links should be on-topic there are counter arguments against such.
Refering to nepostism. Linking to your own pages shouldn't even be considered. That's an obviously necessary element of any site.
However, linking to your "relatives" (let's remember that we've been using blurred definitional lines, right? So I wasn't necessarily referring to familial relatives) is not A OK by SEs (not to say it's wrong, just that it's suspect of being "contrived"). The point of a link is merit. Is the link useful? Does it make sense to be placed there?
The reason there is so much talk about reciprocal linking being discounted (yesterday, today, in the future, whenever) is that *most of us realize that it cannot be considered to be an on par vote with a one-way link in most cases. Of course that is somewhat of a diservice to those reciprocal links that are 100% on-target great resources for both parties to add. We often see SE's implementing algo tweaks that have a greater good effect.
Can 3-way, or even 10-way linking be bad? Yes, of course. Must it in every scenario? To say so would be absurd.
The creation of a comprehensive directory off-site is no less (or more) useful to web visitors than an on-site one with the same resources. The benefits the site sponsoring the off-site directory receives in terms of ranking boost may or may not be somewhat greater, the benefit the sites listed in the directory receive may or may not also be somewhat greater, but is it really that much different than if they had just done a straight trade? If the link exchanger and link exchangee (whatever, both people) want increased rankings they're going to get it one way or the other. Perhaps they'll need 120% as many reciprocals as they do one-ways. So without the use of off-site directories they'll both have to look for 20% more link partners. That might make there on-site directory 20% more useful or perhaps they'll be so desperate to find the extra link trade opportunities because they're in a small niche that they'll begin adding junk.
I think there are many 3-way linking type of scenarios that would pass manual review. Far less perhaps, than wouldn't but my point is as made as I can make it. So, having said that, to each his own and try to keep your mind open to alternate perspectives.
As for the OP, glad the site came back, good advice hotftuna. Sometimes it's necessary to have a little patience and let things work themselves out. Rushing to change everything around can make analysis difficult and much less accurate.
Crush,
Sounds like you have a healthy amount of link pages on different sites ;-) please let us know of any other issues (hopefully all good) that arise concerning their use.
Is that not a personal interpretation?
*The point is that reciprocal linking and even the 3-way linking as described in this thread are intended as resources for visitors, not merely as methods of acquiring links to manipulate the engines. *
Now that's just funny.
My point being that 3-way linking, as described in this thread, and direct reciprocal linking are unlikely to be penalized...
Well, there's always a webmaster somewhere, sitting at home in his underwear, filling out the Google complaint form and sending it off.
I've seen a marked drop off in requests for three ways. Thank goodness. Those emails were getting on my nerves, big time.
Are three ways wrong to do? I don't think so- as long as you're discrete about it. Like anything else, being wildly effective can put you on the radar screens. So once you're number one for your keyword phrases, expect scrutiny from an army of webmasters sitting at home in their underwear.
Do G's link mapping capabilities not make relying on webmasters sitting at home in their underwear somewhat redundant?
I think there will always be a need for webmasters sitting at home in their underwear. I'm sure that Google has baseline serps for quality control, but they cannot monitor or map everything. In regard to link games, anyone who has had a conversation with a Google rep can attest, Google doesn't know everything that is going on out there. Webmasters sitting at home in their underwear can stir up a lot of grief.
And for the record, I don't fire off those kinds of emails to G!
:-)
webmasters sitting at home in their underwear
lol! and all this time I thought it was just me... but now it makes me just a little bit uncomfortable chatting with y'all
Make sure you're not linking out to any questionable sites. adult, hair loss drug, link farm sites etc.
what's wrong with hair loss drug sites - if they have content and are not spam.... what's the problem?
The reason there is so much talk about reciprocal linking being discounted (yesterday, today, in the future, whenever) is that *most of us realize that it cannot be considered to be an on par vote with a one-way link in most cases. Of course that is somewhat of a diservice to those reciprocal links that are 100% on-target great resources for both parties to add. We often see SE's implementing algo tweaks that have a greater good effect.
Tedster said in another related post:
What Google will continue to pursue are programmatic ways to determine pages that freely and objectively link to other pages - with no sort of tit-for-tat. No collaboration, payment, reciprocal agreements, shared ownerships, etc.
If Google can do this with a high degree of accuracy, then they will. The false positives for affiliation should be rare and ultimately negligible in their effect on the final SERP. But of course, if we are doing SEO, then we don't like this very much because we WANT to influence the SERP in our own favor.
That's pretty much what I see happening and why I stated that reciprocal linking can be seen as much like a "scheme" as steveb suggested 3-way linking could. It's not democratic and objective.
Anyone banned for having a links page?
Do you mean my links page was banned or my entire site?
I've had my links page PR0ed, the rest of my site is PR5-7 but the links page (now six months old) has never received PageRank. I know all the links on my links page as I own all of the sites on it so none of them are 'bad neighbourhoods'. It's just a links page to all the other sites I own from my main site.
So no, I've never had a site/page banned for having a links page. I don't think that would be a rational move by any search engine as there are so many legitimate uses for a links page. I completely agree with Google's method of not giving PR to a links page (if they have actually done that on purpose) as this will prevent PR being passed through excessive reciprocal linking spam.
You could well be treading on some thin ice there, Internetheaven....
So now, what happens if G for whatever reason decides it dislikes *one* of those sites.
