Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I find this interesting. Most of the time the response is because the sites are not directly related. For example, I might request a link from a car site to my bike site. I often put their link up first, and on PR4-5 pages too.
I don't know, it just confuses me. It seems many people don't know how linking works. Everyone seems to be obsessed with "relevant links" (go ahead, define that for me). They think a "non relevant" link will destroy their rankings. The last thing I would ever do is tell a site to take my link off - so it surprises me when others request it.
Anyone else experiencing this?
So maybe that is why? Or maybe they think its all about relevance? If that were the case, I would say they are making a mistake. I'd take a link from anywhere, but I wouldn't link out everywhere.
The sheer stupidity of some people never ceases to amaze me. Don't be confused by other people's confusion. You are absolutely right. Take a link from anyone (because there's nothing you can really do about it, it's their site and they can do anything they want with it, and incoming links never hurt you), but do be careful who you link to.
If a site uses the following anchor and descriptive text for a link
Widget King has discount widgets: Your one stop shop for thingamajigs, whirlygigs, gadgets, and whatchamacallits.
and this takes you the Widget King website where you can buy widgets, thingamajigs, whirlygigs, gadgets, and whatchamacallits, then it's a relevant link, even if it's on a site that has nothing to do with widgets, thingamajigs, whirlygigs, gadgets, and whatchamacallits. However, if you used the same link to point to a porno or gambling site, even from a porno or gambling site, then it is not a relevent link. Relevance is determined solely by the anchor and surrounding text.
If you think the link will be valuable to your visitors, then by all means continue linking to the idiot's site. If it's of marginal value and you linked to them in hopes of being compensated only, then remove the link to them.
No.
buy them a sitewide link each instead? Some are saying that sitewides for competitors could do just that
I'll put my hands up and admit I'm one of those so called "experts" spreading this (dis/mis)information.
I'm basing this on looking at quite a number of sites that have suffered an "unaccountable" drop in the SERPs in G.
Seems to me they can hurt in two ways; one, they are liable to be discounted, two, if already indulging in a "links scheme", they can put you over the edge.
While many may benefit greatly from them, IMO, they are very much a double-edged weapon.
However, I am also almost certain that some implementations of site wide links *can* hurt a site, especially if both sites are seen as being related.
It is also possible that site wide links may act as a red flag, putting other site elements under greater scrutiny.
I'd tell you to do that too. This flood of emails from automated systems saying they've "put up a link to me and please link back or else"... is getting annoying. I bin them. If the canned email has some deceptive attempt at sincerity like "Your site is an excellent resource, keep up the good work" then you'd actually get an email from me and it'll be rude.
>>It seems many people don't know how linking works
Sometimes they have 10 incoming links per 10,000 that my site has and they attempt to teach me how linking works. I reserve my most vituperative replies for them.
I've now automated the replies to save time dealing with this rubbish.
conroy, I hope that the automated email link requests is not what you are doing. Some also consider it SPAM.
Don't know why you're quite so adamant about this Ogletree, even G only says "There is almost nothing a competitor can do.." ;-)
There's a thread on this over at SEW, one example given is directory listings that use re-directs for click-tracking.
I can personally attest to one set of external factors that hurt us in the past (of our own doing). Happily the infractions we committed were reversable once we isolated the issues, meaning that we came back in the SERP's. Had someone else done these things to us, it's hard to say where things would stand now.
Lately I've been experiencing an increase in responses to link exchange requests which tell me to remove their link from my site. Oftentimes the response is quite angry.
Maybe they don't want to play in the sandbox anymore...
It would seem that quality incoming links to a new site can be counter productive as far as Google SERPS are concerned.
?. Then what IS productive?
This sandbox sure is making people overreact.
Then what IS productive?
Having a site that was not launched recently.
BTW, it’s pretty hard to 'overreact' if you are in the sandbox.
So, let's get focused. Is it good to get links from sites with high PR? Yes.
Is it good to get links from site with low PR? Yes. Less good, but good.
Does anchor text matter? Always, so keep it in mind.
What is risky?
- Site wide links from low quality site that may be or are in bad neighborhoos.
- Site wide links from sites you're affiliated with.
- Single page links from sites in bad neighborhoods (arguable).
But since when did getting links from a single page from a relevant site, or a site with relevant text/content become bad? Never, that I know of.
