Using the new rel="nofollow" attribute

*you should really research stuff glengara instead of just guessing*

You're a hoot Ferret, shame about the blinkers....

 

umm... ok not s quite sure what you mean

 

Personally . . . I'm starting to think the "bad neighborhood" thing is bunk. Google doesn't take away PageRank from them, they don't take them out of the index and they don't tell you what sites are bad neighborhoods... Yet they tell people to be sure to not link to them.

If there isn't a way to actually tell which sites are bad neighborhoods, can Google really expect people to not link to them?​

For myself, yes, I fear that they can. The point as made implies that Google is both sane and rational, and I have yet to see any clear and convincing evidence of either.

It is, in my view, not at all impossible or even unlikely that Google might put a higher standard up for websites than it does for itself. I can easily see them saying (in effect, not literally site by site), "Well, that one's fairly sleazy--can't quite justify taking it out of the listings, but we can sure penalzie anyone linking to it."

Nuts? Yes. Plausible? I think so. Judge for yourself, based on Google's track record.

 

To be honest, too many paranoid people post stuff in here as fact when they have no personal experience with THEIR OWN SITE to support their claim.

The co op would be better if themed and when the collective data allows, it will be.

Websites can advertise anyway they want. For a search engine to say who people can link to and who they can't is ridiculous.

There are plenty of "non relevant" ads on every huge portal site in the world. How are you gonna write an AI that determines what is an ad and what is a "vote" for lack of a better term. This whole discussion is really pointless. If you don't like the coop, then don't use it. It's REALLY SIMPLE. Personally I don't use webrings, banner exchanges or a number of other popular "schemes" to promote my site. The fact that the coop influences search engines is the SEARCH ENGINES problem. If people are getting traffic from the coop (which they obviously are) then it is an effective advertising medium. If it includes sites you don't like, DON'T USE IT. It's REALLY SIMPLE.

 

I personally believe that the bad neighborhoods effect some and not others. This forum can carry a lot of bad links for example and still be fine due to the overall support from good quality links and content (except general chat, j/k)

I have seen many sites do similar things and being treated differently. normally sites with a lot of power do alright, my main domain seemed to be unbeatable and definitely this forum as well. It depends on the age of a domain as well.
If a high percentage of links is "bad" and not a lot of content on the site, I believe you can get hurt. my advice would not be to get paranoid but rather building good content and looking for good opportunities to get strong, related links in addititon to being in coop for example. That would make the entire network stronger as well.
it is a very big picture ppl don't look at and after seeing patterns for 5 years, I believe that is it in a nutshell.

Just my 2 cents,

Mike