Inbound Link Effect

I know Linkfarms are bad....

[carfac]

Hi:

I have a site that seems to have done rather well at Google.... a decent PR (5 or 6, I can't tell), good placement, lots of spidering. All done with good content, honest content, lots of content, variable content and fairly well respected by users (read linkbacks!)

One of the things I have on my site is a 120x120 banner to a "Best Of" or "Top 100" sites- you know, a "Vote For Me" kind of thing. (Sticky me if you do not understand, I'll sticky back a URL for this type of site...)

Anyway, is that sort of place a Link Farm? Will it hurt me, or take away a PR point I might gret without it? This specific Top 100 is pretty legit, but I do not know what the great "G" thinks of these things...

dave

[Grumpus]

I have a couple of those on my site that are completley on theme and they haven't been a problem. 1st, I always make sure that the page I'll be on (and therefore link to) has some sort of PR (PR0 is bad, but so long as it's PR3 or above, I wouldn't worry about it. PR2 might even be okay if there are only a few sites in the index).

Don't link back to something off topic and don't link to stuff with PR0. You'll also want to keep an eye on it in case it suddenly gets penalized. If it does, you should still have time to pull the link before the penalty hits you.

G.

[carfac]

Grumpus:

Thanks! The page THEY link to on my site is PR5 or 6. Their top 100 site is DEAD ON my subject, however, a lot of the links from there site are a bit weak.

I have not checked the PR of their top 100 site- I guess I should!

dave

PS... just checked, they DEFINITELY have a lower PR, a 4 or so... do I drop them?

[Grumpus]

In inbound link from a PR 4 won't hurt you. Linking to a PR6 won't hurt you. I'd go for it if the theme is truly on target. (Links from PR4's will show in your google "link to" listing).

G.