1000's of backlinks from one site

[tama]

I just noticed one of my competitors has 6000+ backlinks, the majority of which come from one site. It's the typical bottom-of-page links at the bottom of each page of a megasite. The site publishing all the links doesn't mention selling links. In fact there's not advertising section or links at all. My competitor has a PR6. I thought Google was trying to filter this but it doesn't seem right to punish the site publishing the links because sites have to make money to stay in business.

What's Google's position on receiving massive amounts of backlinks from one site? Thanks in advance.

[Powdork]

oops! my bad for not doing the research. The (7000) links I alluded to earlier in the thread were deeplinks like those to imdb.com, etc. Those wouldn't have been pertinent to the new turns in this thread. The ones you mentioned obviously are.

[internetheaven]

Knowing Google has no position would be useful because it would be an important factor for someone considering a transaction invloving this.

Not really! And if any newbies are listening to that I suggest they scribble it out on their "what to do next" notepad!

What Google has no opinion on today, it may have an opinion on tomorrow. Google may have an opinion on something that is currently a "non-ranking" factor that will suddenly become a huge ranking factor the following week.

Always cover all bases to cover all possible changes and any investment should be based NOT on what is currently popular but what is best should Google suddenly change its stance sometime in the future.

What "Google may/may not be thinking" should never enter into a technique that will cost you money in my opinion. The links I have bought have always had the upside of sending through enough customers to cover the cost of it. Any Google ranking boost is considered a bonus!

[Powdork]

What "Google may/may not be thinking" should never enter into a technique that will cost you money in my opinion. The links I have bought have always had the upside of sending through enough customers to cover the cost of it. Any Google ranking boost is considered a bonus!

Thats an excellent point. If you get links for traffic and treat pr as a bonus your going to do well in the long run. However, knowing google's position could be important even if it only means you now know that it won't get you in trouble. While traffic should be the goal of links, would you still pay for one if you knew it was going to give you direct traffic, but potentially cost you se traffic?

added-more information is almost always better than less.

[tama]

All filters were born from a position by Google.