A question of LINKS

Be wary of just "any old" inbound?

[Shoestring]

To prefrace my question/concern;

We more or less held steady with the Dec. update, but lost 1 point of page rank on many internal pages. These pages are ranking much lower in the serps, now. The only change I see is the new non-recognition by Google of many previously recognized incoming links.

My theory is that most of these "lost" links were of low/marginal PR...

To correct this, I plan to actively seek additional links from our customer base. No doubt, many have web sites and there is likely a few high PR gems to be gained.

My concern is that if we actively seek "and and all" links from customers, what happens if we wind up getting a few from so called "bad neighborhoods" along with the prizes?

Would this harm us? Or, is a penalty only applied if one links OUT to a bad neighborhood? Obviously, we'd rather not have any association, but I don't see a way around the possibility if we sow far and wide for links.

Thanks for any and all comments and help with this!

[Shakil]

My theory is that most of these "lost" links were of low/marginal PR...
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I assume you are referring to PR3 (or around that area)?

Shak

[duckhunter]

I believe the general concensus here is that a link from a "bad neighborhood" does NOT penalize you especially if you don't back link to them.

Here's a few threads
[webmasterworld.com ]
[webmasterworld.com ]

[soapystar]

personally im seeing more weight given to pr this update..anyone else?

[Shoestring]

Shakil,

Yes. These sites seem to bounce up and down slightly in PR value. They appear to be borderline PR 3's, thus are in one month and then out the next in our Google recognized mix of links.

My simple goal is to stabalize this situation with additional, stable, high PR links gained from our customer base as we've more or less maxed out via traditional means.

I appreciate the links, Duckhunter. Still does not seem to be a validated yea or nay on the subject, though... Like most, I'd tent to think a Google penalty would not be applied. But, I'd love to know for certain before moving forward.

[gsmitchell]

I agree with Duckhunter. Make sure that if you have some links from "bad neighborhoods" do not link back to them.

[Dante_Maure]

Still does not seem to be a validated yea or nay on the subject, though...

The only validation that matters...

Taken directly from Google's Information For Webmasters. [google.com]

Fiction: A competitor can ruin a site's ranking somehow or have another site removed from Google's index.

Fact: There is almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. Your rank and your inclusion are dependent on factors under your control as a webmaster, including content choices and site design.

If a link from a "bad neighborhood" could hurt your site... you could turn that around and bury your competitors effortlessly.

Breathe easy. A bad link from an external site isn't going to bring down the wrath of the Google Gods.

[Shoestring]

OK, I'm going to go forward based on the reassurances from you all.

Thanks, everybody.

I'll post any significant results of the test if they seem relevant in the updates to come.

[jaeden]

And another thing shoestring. You may not have really lost links from these sites, they just don't show up when you do a backlink search. Instead of a link from a PR4 site, you may have a link from a PR3 site, which doesn't count as much, but it still counts. Who knows, they may pop back next week.

There is no way a link from another site can ever affect you negatively. If that were true, I've got some competitors I'd love to take out.

[Shoestring]

True, Jaeden. The links are still there. They are just "borderline" in reagrds to the Google backlink results. My guess is that they bounce between PR3 and PR2. One month showing and having more influence, the next dropping in importance and PR.

[europeforvisitors]

I had a big drop in reported backlinks this month, but it doesn't seem to have affected anything. My homepage rankings haven't slipped (in fact, I moved up a notch for my most important keyphrase), so I'm guessing that--as others have suggested--the backlinks just aren't showing up in a link:domain search.

[jaeden]

Honestly, I'd rather the backlinks don't show up at all, except fot those that own the site. The thing is, I'm working really hard to find good sites that can link to me that have good content and a high PR. It's not easy, really. The last thing I want is for my competitors to get a nice pretty list of all the pages I worked so hard to acquire just so they can play cat and mouse with link acquisition. I don't really see any reason why anyone else would care to see who is linking to me. Can anyone without such a narrow mind as I give me good reasons for checking someone elses backlinks.

[Shoestring]

Excellent point, Jaeden. I only know why I check competitors backlinks... ;)

[BigDave]

Other than to check when the dance starts? ;)

I will sometimes play reverse surf. Instead of following links out of a page, I will follow the links in to a page.

This is really only a fun game in areas of the web that still link freely, such as hobby and personal pages.