Multiple domains; one link page

shared links pages

[Kieron]

Hi all,
I have previously received requests asking me to swap links with up to 20 unique domains at one time. There’s no problem with the quality of the sites or the relevance of their links, but all of the domains share the same single links page.

Is sharing the same links page like this “legal”?

Secondly, is there any disadvantages in exchanging links with sites that place their link pages in a directory rather than the root e.g. www.domain.com/links.htm or www.domain.com/directory/links.htm?
Thanks
Kieron

[korkus2000]

Are there multiple pages that all look the same across multiple domains or is it one link page that all the domains use? Both would be bad. The first will soon be seen as a link farm and will be killed. The second doesn't help you like it will help their network. I would turn them down either way.

Secondly, is there any disadvantages in exchanging links with sites that place their link pages in a directory rather than the root e.g. www.domain.com/links.htm or www.domain.com/directory/links.htm?

Google will usually take off a PR point for each directory it goes down. I don't really think it a disadvantage though. I really don't think other engines care.

[Kieron]

Hi Korkus2000,
The multiple pages are fine -- they all have a boring template "look", but the content of each is unique to particular world-city. So no problem there.

The links page, for each of these city-focused-sites however, is exactly the same.

As I see it, there are 2 conflicting issues:

1. The links on their one, shared links page ARE relevant to visitors browsing any of their 20+ sites so I can't see why SEngs would hit them (or their linkpartners) with heavy penalties and...

2. This is NOT a genuine referal (vote) coming from each of the 20+ sites? I guess SEng would do best to divide the vote by the number of sites that share the links page?

Re the second question I had: Placing link pages in a directory rather than the root, I have found that most times this is used, is when the webmaster wants to share one single links page amoung many domains (as above).

Thanks KorKus2000, you are begining to confirm my suspicions: the benefits of linkinig to these types of shared link pages are likely to be heavily discounted and not worth the trouble.
Kieron

[Marcia]

Note about the directory structure and PR. Toolbar guesswork PR temporarily assumes a decrease of 1 for each directory level down when actual PR hasn't been calculated yet. It's not real, it's a guess.

In actuality, it's not the directory structure that determines the PR transmitted, but the linking structure - how many clicks away from the page that's linking.

example.com/dir1/dir2/dir3/page1.htm

example.com/dir1/page1.html

In both instances, if page1.html is linked to from the homepage, each will receive the same PR benefit, regardless of which directory it resides in. If either page1.html then links to another page - page2.html - that second page will have less PR transmitted regardless of its location, simply because it's 2 clicks away rather than 1. If page2.html is linked from the homepage directly it's not less.

It doesn't go down by directories, it's the number of links/clicks away that causes the descending PR.

Incidentally, when checking the PR of pages of sites that do a lot of link exchanging, check the source code to make sure the PR of the page the links actually are on is real, that the actual links page isn't being hidden within a frameset.

[Kieron]

Thanks Marcia,
Some good info there which I'll investigate... Its always more fun when you know what your doing... and why :)