Receiving a Link from a "Bad Neighborhood"

Does this hurt me?

[mbush27]

Hello everyone,

I run a site and am gaining in popularity. Recently someone that works with an adult site noticed my site and asked me if it would be okay for them to link to me. They have a page where they try to offer suggestions for help to their visitors and felt my resource to be a very credible one. They do not wish for a link in return, they are totally doing this out of the interest of their consumers.

I am flattered that he thinks that, and welcome all people to come use my material. He wanted me to okay this first, because he was concerned that a link from them to me could hurt me in the search engines. My understanding is that it would not. Can I be certain of this? I will not be linking to them.

Thank you for your input.
Matt

[edited by: martinibuster at 6:37 pm (utc) on Oct. 22, 2004]
[edit reason] edited for specifics [/edit]

[graywolf]

I have links from two porn and one casino website that link to a page about Christmas, the page still ranks. One way links are great even better if they are related even indirectly.

[martinibuster]

I have a ton of unrelated one-way inbounds and they don't hurt me. At worst, the value of the link might be deprecated.

The general idea is that who you link to says something about what you are relevant for.

Conversely, what people are saying about you in their links to you (anchor text) is what is ranked. Not the topic of the page or site that is linking to you.

[girish]

"Conversely, what people are saying about you in their links to you (anchor text) is what is ranked. Not the topic of the page or site that is linking to you. "

Aren't the (1) surrounding text, i.e., links above and below yours on the link directory page (2) the overall theme of the page and (3) title of the link directory page...

considered in Google's algorithm for determining the "value" of an incoming link to you?

IN the above example, if the link coming from the porn site to the "widget" has anchor text "widget" is that sufficiennt to overcome the "theme" of the outbound page?

[buckworks]

If a link from a porn page was your only inbound link it might confuse the spiders, but as long as you have enough "real" links to support your "real" theme you should not have any problems.

[martinibuster]

Aren't the (1) surrounding text...

I don't believe you can "dilute" the meaning of what your website is about through incoming links. A web page can rank for a multiplicity of phrases and concepts, but afaik one ranking based on inbound links doesn't dilute another ranking.

Google bombing is a good demonstration that you can rank for something totally unrelated to your website yet still keep ranking for whatever it is you have always ranked for.

Those are my opinions but they are based on my experience with unrelated backlinks. My opinions are not the definitive word on the topic and there may be others with a different experience who may want to chime in on this topic.

[mbush27]

Thank you very much for your feedback, I really appreciate it.

I thought this would be okay, but I really wanted to check it out with "the pros" first before proceeding.

I said it before and I'll say it again, what a helpful forum this is!

Matt