Any problems using a database for my link pages?

want to know what to watch out for, plus a question about linking to pr0

[clueless]

My webmaster wants to create a nice little database for me to help manage our reciprocal links, so that he doesn't have to bail me out whenever I get in over my head html-wise.
I would just like to know if there is any reason not to use a database?
or anything that I should avoid doing?
like the spider I want that checks to see if our link is still on their page?
Anything else I should watch out for?

Also, in my reading here, it seems that linking to pr0 and/or gray bar can cause problems, IF they are penalties and not just new sites. Not to mention the toolbar being all in flux right now.
I know this is a matter of opinion, but I would really like to just ignore the pr and link to people 'cause I want to, not 'cause of their pr.
Am I going to get myself into trouble with this attitude?

Thanks in advance for your replies,

Clueless Linkmistress

[jeremy goodrich]

That sounds like a pretty good approach to automation, but I would be careful of just letting 'anybody' that happens to add a link to your site to add a link to themselves on your pages.

At the least, review the links and keep the high quality and or topically related ones. Alternatively, you might keep others, but keep in mind that for a link list to be useful, you don't want to have too many per page. Cheers.

[clueless]

Thanks for the reply. We are planning on making the database so that links have to continue to be approved by me before they show up. I currently have a small directory with a variety of related categories, and mostly just a few links per page. I ignore the many submissions that are off topic, but I am sometimes tempted to use opera so that when I check out a potential link, I don't see that little gray/white bar, and just look at whether the site is useful to my users or not.
Is there any quick way for a first time visitor to tell whether the gray/white pr is from just being new or from a penalty?

Thanks again,

Clueless

[DarkFriend]

I'd also think that you would want to make sure that your links pages are static HTML, and not generated "on the fly" by a database which could result in pages not being found by search engine spiders.

[paynt]

Hi DarkFriend and welcome to Webmasterworld, thanks for posting. I agree no dynamic links - just straightforward static links. Should be a problem to convert if you generate them dynamically.

[Slade]

If you're on a unix platform, you can use mod_rewrite to make the dynamic links from your database appear static. No need to generate the pages manually every time you add a link.

[clueless]

So, my webmaster wants to know why you would want your links pages to be or at least appear static? (Guess I should send him here to webmaster world, huh?) What difference does it make, and to whom? Google? Link partners? Other search engine spiders? Other webmasters who think it looks ugly?
Sorry if I seem frivolous, because I actually do want to know the answer to this one.

Thanks to all you SEO professionals that put up with so many clueless questions from all of us wannabees.

Clueless

[Slade]

In the last few months, I remember seeing a post saying that Google would be indexing more dynamic links than prior to that point. I know some users will tell you they've been spidered fine for years, not all users have that much success. Making them appear static means that the spider doesn't get scared that it will get caught in a web of duplicated pages with slightly different urls.

A little mistake could send the bots on a spree of your site. I just discovered this on one of my sites. Somewhere a link is being passed incorrectly and all urls on that page point to the wrong place!

[seoRank]

Here is what I posted in another thread. If you are working on managing links from a database, the following feature list can be useful. (remember, all links and pages created are static)

To handle the problem of link management, we search and send out emails to webmasters of prospect reciprocal link sites and invite them to fill up a form on our (client) site in order to offer them a reciprocal link. Further, we have developed an online application in-house, which is installed on the client server and it does the following –

1. It has an admin control panel to check all new link requests. The admin can review the link requests data and details.

2. The link request comes in 2 types – people who have made a reciprocal link active before applying (as detailed in the form) or they can choose to activate their link once our side of the link is active.

3. The admin can select the request and ‘Activate’ it or ‘Decline’ it.

4. If the admin selects to activate the link, the application automatically creates a link for the requested party and sends out an email to the partner.

5. If the admin selects to ‘decline’ the request, an email is automatically sent to the link requestor detailing the ‘selected’ reason for decline.

6. The application checks for the live link on the partner site at a frequency set by the admin in the control panel.

7. If the link scan module of the application reports an inactive link on partner site, the application sends an email alert to the admin and the partner requesting the link restoration.

8. If the link is detected to be inactive for consecutive 10 days, the application automatically deletes the partner link from the site and informs the partner.

9. The admin can create multiple template pages and categories from the control panel so that links per page can be limited to desired numbers (this is set from admin control panel) to avoid spammy looking link pages. Each of these categories also automatically appear in the link request submit form.

10. Email alerts and triggers are set on almost all possible events to keep the admin and the partner informed. The system generates periodic reports for admin to give details of new link requests, total live links, total inactive links, category wise listing etc.

11. The admin also has an emailing interface to send customized email to the active or inactive partner members or on partial list selection basis.

Overall, this makes the life of the admin (webmaster) much easier for link management. The major difference of this application with some offline software is that offline software are ‘reactive’ in nature – you need to operate and baby-site them to use them. Whereas, our application is ‘proactive’ which means it does its task 24 hours a day without any ‘running’ required – all from the client server and also keeps the webmaster up to date with the status. He does not need to be online on limited bandwidth to make this work. Also, the features of application are much more powerful than offline software.

We have currently developed this in Windows-ASP-Flat-file system so that it can work even on servers not having SQL2000. Other versions on Linux-PHP-MySQL and ASP-MSSQL are under development.

The above can be a good guide of features for someone who wants to develop this application in-house.

Cheers!

[mutagen]

I've used <snip url and product name> as a link collector, though not for the express purpose of reciprocal links.

Google and AllTheWeb follow the dynamic URLs.

For PHP newbies wishing to further cusomize it for their own purposes, the articles at WebReference.com outline how it was developed.

[edited by: paynt at 1:35 pm (utc) on June 1, 2003]
[edit reason] removed product name and url and removed link to article resource. [/edit]