How to create a Link Directory?

How to create a link directory and hide it from people

[sweetu]

I'm in the process of creating a link directory, I want that users shd not be able to find links to my directory for e.g. it is www.abc.com/links-directory.htm, now search engine can come to this page and index it but human visitors shd not be able to track my reciprocal link listing

any help would be thankful...

[mack]

Why do you want search engines to see your directory but not users?

Mack.

[too much information]

I have to agree, I have a very large number of out going links on my sites and in most cases I rank above those actual sites because my pages are better targeted. It gives me a chance to get additional business from people who are searching for services related to mine.

When you build your link directory, try linking to services that your customers would also be interested in. Then your directory becomes a resource for your visitors, not a useless list of junk links for PR. Don't just take links for reciprocals, create links for your users and then ask for links back from those sites.

In my opinion I like a site with more outgoing links than incoming. To me it shows more a more useful intent to the site.

Not only do you start to build a more useful site but it may actually help you do well on SERPs that you didn't think of targeting before.

[sweetu]

Hi Mack,

You gave me a good piece of advice, now one more thing, do i need to create a link of directory to all pages as www.abc.com/links.html to for e.g. I faq.aspx, contactus.aspx or is it not necessary.

Also the reason to hide the link directory was to not let the competitors know who all are my link partners...

[caveman]

If the SE's can see them, your competitors can find them. ;-)

[vabtz]

No one checks for link partners like that.

You use a link analysis tool. Which would make it obvious, without even seeing your site.

On Yahoo and MSN you do this
"linkdomain:YOURSITE.COM -site:YOURSITE.COM"

[too much information]

I set mine up as "sites we would like to recommend" and then by category, each on it's own static page. It is amaizing how many hits I get for searches on my recommended sites.

Even better is to have a few listings that are for local shops that don't have web sites. You give their phone number and say (no site) or something like that. I pick up a few contacts every week from those searches because I am the only site that fits the search.

What is really good is that one of my "no site" listings is a national chain that has no web site. Lucky for me they have a good reputation and plenty of interest online!

[profitpuppy]

If you do have a ‘miscellaneous links’ page for links you don’t really want on your site (i.e. they might be completey off topic), you can try to *hide* the outbound links to search engines… you can do this a couple of ways, (one way is to call the links through Java script), here’s another way that may or may not work:

<?php
if (strstr($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], "Googlebot"))
{
include 'nobusiness14.txt';
}
else if ( strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm') )
{
include 'nobusiness14.txt';
}
else if ( strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'Yahoo! Slurp') )
{
include 'nobusiness14.txt';
}
else
{
include 'business14.txt';
}
?>

With this simple include, you can keep your ‘miscellaneous links’ in a txt file (business.txt), and a different lot of links in another file (nobusiness.txt).

Seems to work on a few of our sites (well it's not doing any harm anyway).

[Eltiti]

User agent cloaking is an excellent way...

...to get banned by the SE.

[topr8]

>>No one checks for link partners like that.

i do

[incrediBILL]

When people ask me to exchange links I refuse if their links page isn't available to the site visitors via navigation, just not happening.

[mjtaylor]

>>No one checks for link partners like that.

i do

I do, too.

I can't imagine hiding my links directory from anyone ... the point of the directory is far greater than the impact on link popularity. That's important, yes, very, but so is providing a resource to my site's visitors.

I have never worried about losing a potential client to a competitor (there is enough business for everyone!) and I certainly don't mind if anyone else links to any site I have linked.

If I can't sell you in the first screen you see when you come to my site, you will leave and go back the search engine where you came from anyway, so why not keep you on my site for a moment longer.

In that one more moment, I might be able to convince you to stay ... to that end, I have begun putting strong content on my links pages.

And if my resources area is strong enough, perhaps you will bookmark it to return another day ... and maybe on that return visit you will become a customer.

[sweetu]

Can I do something like I create a visible link of links directory on all my web pages but block the search engines to go to that page through robots.txt

Also for the time being I'm collecting all links and buidling the directory alphabetically.

[sugarrae]

Which is worse - having your competitors be able to see your backlinks or having a competitor see you are cloaking your backlink pages and report you to the engines and get you banned?

That's bull about you not wanting competition to see your backlinks - anyone worth their salt uses a tool and those tools can pick up everything the search engines list. You want to cloak it not to lose traffic to your competition or "ugly" up your site with a links page.

If you truly want to hide your links from competitors - good competitors - there is only one thing you can do ... pull down your site and give up life on the web.