Zeus and Google

Does Google penalise Zeus links?

[salmo]

I have recently received enquiries from site owners wishing to exchange links, some of them appear to be excellent resources that I would like to accept as link partners since they offer something of value to my visitors. On closer inspection it becomes apparent that the request has been generated by Zeus which has resulted in my being reluctant to accept them.

I do recall a discussion in these forums some time back about this, the consensus then was that association with Zeus could do a power of no good to a site. The Zeus website appears to have a respectable page rank and I was wondering whether it is now safe to exchange links with useful sites that make use of their software.

[nutsandbolts]

No. Link exchange with quality sites that hand pick links and you will have better luck in Google. Avoid link farms. Mooooo!

[zeus]

I just want to say one more time I have nothing to do with this zeus thing, zeus is a greek God.

Another thing is it possible to change my name in this forum I think alot think I have something to do with this link exchange program.

To you salmo it easy dont use link exchange programs.

zeus

[cwebb]

Not just "a" greek god, in fact it's the father of all gods, equivalent to Jupiter in ancient rome's mythology.

[salmo]

So exchanging links with any site associated with Zeus is out even though the specific site in question might be a worthwhile source of original information and is definitely not a link farm as far as I can see?

Thanks for the advice.

[nutsandbolts]

Salmo it's just too risky with Google. 0 Penalty Pageranks can sometimes spread like fire across lots of linked sites - so why risk everything? You can search out for 5-7 Pagerank sites that compliment your Web page and ask for a link exchange with them directly. Anyway, most Web site owners just laugh off those appalling cookie-cutter "I saw your site and thought..." E-mails from linkfarm owners.

Sure, it takes more time. But Google is a wisebot and will appreciate your efforts ;)

[MeditationMan]

When people using Zeus approach me asking for links, I sometimes explain to them my reasons for not wanting to exchange links. On one occasion I had a woman drop Zeus and approach me a second time, which I think it a great outcome.

I think it's a good policy to educate Zeus users on the disadvantages of their system. I'm sure a lot of them don't know that their links pages have PR0.

Bodhipaksa

[thunderpaste]

More often than not when looking for link partners do I find zeus directories that seem to have lower PR than would otherwise be expected. A few have had PR0s and alot of PR1s I have seen some sloppy hand made links pages that had decent PR and some appealing customized zeus directories that had PR1 or worse.

Despite this I don't think I have seen enough to be sure if they are penalizing zeus pages specificly or if it is because the program makes it easy to go after a lot of spammy links, resulting in a natural penalty.

I never link to sites using zeus. Just to be sure.

BUT The zeus bot will do a good job of crawling the web and finding sites for your review. You can publish the directory in a folder and exclude Googlebot with a robots.txt. Then you can click through the sites and decide if you want to contact them for a serious link exchange. The bot will find thousands of sites if you just let it go in the background. The free version will give you the capability to do this.

For our member zues I feel for you. Maybe Brett can change your name to "The webmaster formerly known as Zeus"

[zeus]

well I hope brett maybe can do something about the name is great, but not in a conection with the internet.

zeus (maybe not for long)

[Phil_S]

Try changing your the default url and title in the link directory from to something different.

I think the default main url is "themeindex.html"

Try it, it worked for some others and I "think" the zeus website tells you this also.

I Google has taged this default url.

[Marcia]

Those were hit back at the time of the big PR0 penalties, then it loosened up. I'm still leery of them, just in case.

>themeindex

A lot of people have changed the name to something else, but I've seen a few still out there that still have problems.