Are they trying to cheat me? Please advise!

[ady1973]

Hi

I recently got an email from one of my competitors asking me for a link exchange. Knowing that their page is bigger than mine I was suspicious. Today they notified me that my link has been added. I checked the page where they put my link with a backlink checker tool. Turns out their links page has no page rank and is not even indexed by Google. My links page is indexed by Google and has a pagerank 2.

I don't know much about these things but this exchange gives me a bad feeling. I haven't add their link yet. So I need advice on what to do and what to say to them. Help please!

[buckworks]

How old is their page? It might simply be a new page.

Check how they have linked to it from within their site. If they have created reasonable links to it from elsewhere in their site, they're probably not trying to cheat.

Also, what else is on the page? If they're collecting links that are tightly on theme, that would send useful "signals of relevance".

[cnvi]

Why are you so concerned that their links page doesn't have pagerank? its well know that G doesn't always assign/calculate PR for "utility" pages such as "contact us", "links", etc.

It's also well known that search engines do not always index all pages of a website.

Do not make linking decisions based on page rank or related metrics. Make linking decisions based on what benefits your end user.

Does the link benefit your end user? if so, get the link.

[ady1973]

Thanks for the replies :)

Their site is at least 3 years old and that particular category in their directory where my link is, is at least one year old. They do link to their directory within their site but not to the page where my link is which is deep in the categories.

I totally understand I should link with my users needs in mind primarily. I always link to pages I find could help my users without even asking those sites for a link in return. But I would also like to SEO my site, and I've read that for SEO purposes, the links should be in pages that are indexed.

[Jane_Doe]

If the page isn't even indexed I'd just drop their link and not even think twice about it.

[ady1973]

Thanks Jane!
I've followed your advice :)

[Shaddows]

I could be wrong here, but they could rel=noindex the page to keep it out of SERPS (what value to having a outbound link page in SERPS?), but as long as it is not "nofollow", it will show up in the link graph and will pass link juice.

see:
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

[ZydoSEO]

If the use a <meta name="robots" content="nofollow"> on the link page then it will not pass you juice.

If they use a <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> on the link page then it will pass juice to outbound links but will never get indexed at the SEs.

If they use a <meta name="robots" content="nofollow,noindex"> on the link page then it will not pass juice to outbound links and will not get indexed.