For some reason, our "simlilar pages" link for our home page shows a number of sites (about 70%) not related to our industry. I can't imagine what Google finds similar about the sites it's displaying. Anybody have any idea what this means?
steveb
8:46 pm on Sep 13, 2004 (gmt 0)
It means you link to or from these sites, or your links appear on the same page as these sites.
I believe this is a sign of a significant problem for a domain. Find why you are associated with these unrelated sites and solve the problem.
franckey9
9:04 pm on Sep 13, 2004 (gmt 0)
I think that these feature is used by spamers. In my case, SimilarPages shows some porn site, which hide links to my services (travel agency). Everything is rubbish...
survivor
9:42 pm on Sep 13, 2004 (gmt 0)
Steveb, you're right, it is a significant problem. I just don't know what to do about it. How can you control who links to you?
webdude
10:06 pm on Sep 13, 2004 (gmt 0)
I don't get this. I looked at the similar pages for one of my sites, and half of them do not have any reference or links to my site. Even if I search the whole site. I did notice, however, that almost all had link to sites that I have links on. Could this be what is "similar?"
abates
10:38 pm on Sep 13, 2004 (gmt 0)
Page A is similar to page B if page C links to both page A and B. Due to the nature of the web, this means that your site can be listed as similar to everything from Disney to porn sites. Especially porn sites as a lot of them tend to spam blogs and message boards and so on.
steveb
1:30 am on Sep 14, 2004 (gmt 0)
The most common way to be "similar" is to be listed in the same google directory category. There are lots of other ways to be similar too, but being linked to on the same page is one. Yes, if your linking overall is so weak that being linked to by one page that also links to a bunch of garbage, that could be a problem. But it is mostly under your control. get links from genuinely related sites. Link to genuinely related sites. Create a large volume of data that delivers the message of what you are genuinely related to. Swamp the "noise" signals with genuine similarity signals.
