link dishonesty

dishonest ways to get one way links

[reprint]

I recently got a reciprocal link request from a major player in my area. My site is only a couple of months old but with a fair amount of original content already and a link from them is relevant and should bring traffic. The email stated where the link would be located and that this page was linked from their homepage. When I checked that page out, there were sites listed. When I checked the homepage, there was no link to this page. I checked the site map etc and realized it was an orphaned page.
I suspect that the goal is that I link to their homepage so they receive a useful link and they provide a link from an orphaned page which is useless. I emailed back asking them to clarify the situation without accusing but I have yet to hear back. I suppose many people would not have checked this out fully and not realize it was an orphaned page.
Is this common? Are there other schemes I should look out for?

[sem4u]

I always check if a link is cached by Google. No cached link means no return link from me.

You can also look out for javascript, no follow and redirected links.

[reprint]

Since this is a major player in the area, I guess this is a measure of how important one way links are and how desperate people are to get them. Thanks for the heads up to the other schemes.

[adamnichols45]

What is an orphaned page?

[youfoundjake]

A page that is only accesible by typing it directly into the address bar, no other pages link to it.

[adamnichols45]

Thanks for the reply - You learn something everyday.

Im wy behind when it comes to link building - seo development - Are there any threads or books I can buy that someone can recommend? Thanks

[sunny_kat]

What if the orphan page is nowhere linked in the website, but is getting cached through the other sources like google sitemaps and other techniques?

[Digimon]

the only way to check if the link is going to be valuable or not in terms of SEO is to verify if the page where it is coming from is in the Google cache. Someone has mentioned it above and it is the only truth.
A page might be linked from the home page but it could be forbidden to robots via robots.txt...
Or it could be done with js in a way that spider won't follow...
Therefore, stick to checking the cache! :)

[norton j radstock]

Suggest you link to the link page, thereby ensuring it gets into the Google results.....

[smilemaker]

how to create a orphan page

[DomainDrivers]

Proper reciprocal linking follows the old Golden Rule. Do unto others...

The company who sent this request probably got a lot of nasty responses to their gambit to hide the link directory.

You should add yours to that mix.

The most successful way to reciprocate is to do it openly, properly, and fairly, and graciously. Anything else yields marginal results.

[Valleycommando]

These people who give useless backlinks often haunt the link exchange websites. This practise is very common. You copy and paste your bit like a good old boy, to find that they did the same, the link website verified they had done their part.... then they deleted the link. Nasty.