Will The Closing Of Geocities Affect Sites with Links In From Them?

[engine]

[webmasterworld.com...]

I remember getting some links way back in time, and i've all but forgotten about them, until I heard about Geocities closing. [webmasterworld.com]
I wonder how many links will drop out of the web?

[Jane_Doe]

I wonder how many links will drop out of the web?

I wondered this, too. Geocities sites will also be dropping out of the serps, so that will free up slots for other sites to rank higher.

[Shaddows]

Don't suppose a mod/admin could grab an exchange from the other thread (otherwise reposted below)

Kufu
This is a much bigger deal that this thread would let one to believe. Not only does Geocities contain some of the oldest content, but that very content houses some of the oldest links on the web.

This could have huge ranking consequences for sites that have a strong link profile due to Geocities links.

Or am I way off?

Shaddows
Now I think about it...

You could see fundamental shifts in ranking patterns as vintage links die, unleashing unpredictable downstream effects. Trust and Authority will be affected, venerable sites (or pages thereof) might see large portions of their inbound value wiped off, with 2nd, 3rd and Nth generation iterative revisions to WebSpace.

Good call Kufu, good call.

LifeinAsia
I'm not sure how much link juice Geocities links have. But it certainly could have an effect on some sites.

[edited by: Shaddows at 4:31 pm (utc) on April 24, 2009]

[nealrodriguez]

here's the thread to which shaddows' quotes allude:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[JS_Harris]

So many of the geocities sites have great articles and images, this will be a loss on a large scale. Many of the sites are old and though not many ranked well they definitely had the material to do so if their owners knew a bit of SEO.

I'd like to see Google "grandfather" the articles somehow else we'll see a lot of scrapers simply steal and republish the stuff. It's not often that so many articles are set to expire at the same time.

[tangor]

Or that the scrapers are told when the content will expire. You can bet they're grabbing now then waiting for Geocities to close... then look out!