Forum Moderators: martinibuster
But as these dozens of companies, all in the same industry are friendly, all have web sites, and manage their own wensites (i.e. control the links pages) the potential for swapping links is huge.
I came up with an idea of a links co-op -- I design a form with company information, website info, including space to ad 3-4 different blurbs, a couple of options for anchor text... it then gets emailed to my girl who can put it in a database which we can then email to back to the members of the co-op.
Then we can contact other companies in our industry (suppliers, magazine, hobby) requesting reciprocal links, but not as individuals, but as the co-op.
The problem is that I'm worried that *g* will see this as a link farm if we are all inter linked, even though we all have very closely themed websites... maybe they are two closely themed? And the other problem is that so many of the sites are built using the same CMS and so are fairly similar.
Does anybody have any ideas on how to mazimize the potential without falling foul of the google commandments?
Incase anybody is interested, I'm going to go ahead with this, but it will not be automated in anyway, which leaves plenty of room for human error... which I hope will help it to look more like 'natural' link building.
Thanks again.
Good luck.
Yup. Just don't do it. I'm pretty sure the whole scheme is in the grey area and may likely be 'falling foul of the google commandments' with an algo roll out next week (around the 27-29th is a good guess) or with the next MAJOR one.
I don't go into 'grey' areas for that simple reason. What is grey today, will likely be black real soon...
IMHO as always....
I appreciate what you are saying. It's always good advice to stay whiter than white. However, I feel that by doing this we will help the search engines rather than hinder them, by pushing legitimate sites above all the spam and the con-men selling over priced franchises and get rich quick schemes - which our industry does suffer from.
Secondly, it actually helps readers of the websites who are shopping for specific kinds of services in their area. For this reason I have been linking out to other companies for years.
So I will lose no sleep over this what-so-ever, I certainly don't feel I'm trying to 'game the engines'.
martinbuster,
I think you have hit the nail on the head with the words 'closed loop'. Thats the thing thats been bothering me that I couldn't quite put my finger on.
This is a real danger as there are so few mature sites with existing links amoung us - most are new sites less than 6 months old.
easy to fix
easy to fix - easy to detect. every nerd can link out, but it's a lot more difficult to get decent links from outside that don't smell.
nerd
easy to detect
Yep, much too true. A bunch of us got hit very hard back in 2001 with a "co-op" program that was very, very similar to what aspect describes. (In fact, I think it was better implemented, with many options to disguise the links pages. It still didn't work.) It took a year and a half and me wearing sackcloth and ashes at the feet of a Google rep to get the ban removed.
And G has only gotten better at sniffing this out. If you've not heard about the bunch of real estate sites that have been hit the past few months you might like to know that much of the problem was a similar linking scheme.
Be very careful -- or very brave.
But they are dying; Google has already stamped on many of the bigger more commercial ones, others have gone since.
There is no doubt that link networks set up to game google are well on the way out - and there is little doubt that some innocent bystanders will get caught in the crossfire.
Before you go too far, I'd strongly recommend you read Matt Cutt's blog - and Google's webmaster guidelines.
Being penalised for something you meant to do is fine - being penalised with no ill intent would be a shame.
Good Luck :)
I'm not suggesting, and didn't say, that the 'problem' was licked, merely that it is now much riskier.
Sure new ones pop up all the time; but many don't last long. Spammers are slow learners, so you'd expect them to kee[p trying. I also have no doubt they'll find another way ... but all the evidence says Google ain't lightening up on iffy link exchanges. Which means even honest ones are at risk.
Yes I saw that. Matt cutts put some drivel out about not linking in footers. The police do the same sort of thing in the Czech Republic. They call a national radio station and say there is a speed trap on a motorway so for the price of a phone call they can effect the actions of 1000's of drivers. Google punished some sites as a warning. But just like the motorways there will always people who speed and get A to B faster than most. They are usually people driving the nice cars too :)
