Hi, i have a site that will link back to me, a pr 7/10 in the same industry. Great. They have footer text like this site does http://webex.com/ Thing is they don't want to link a keyword or phrase (even though noone really clicks on the footer text, so they offered to link a single character (like a period or something) This will still count as a link, but is it worth much if the anchor text is something dumb like a period? Also, would this raise any red flags with google? I know there are a bunch of sites that do stuff like that anyway like pixels. A pr 7 site would be nice (free too) and maybe i can get two links in the footer deep linking. Thanks for your advice guys!
you mean when you see links you dont personally like on someones site you take the time to report it to google? why? noone would really see these, they would be netled between two keyword hyperlinks that are in footer text, maybe once in a very blue moon it would get clicked on by accident. I'm curious as to how search engines treat such a link, i imagine it would be fine - especially if not overdone - it would only be two links like that on their entire site.
If you were Google would you think these links should be counted? I imagine they are aware of such spammy practices.
If the anchor text is only a full stop then its pretty clear the link should be ignored. Google with their thousands of phd's are sure to have thought of this. Pretty sure they have learned to ignore links that are 1x1 pixel gifs as well but you can try that if you want.
Yea, i'm pretty sure google adapted to that already. That could even harm the linking sites ability to rank i would imagine.
Try it out and you will find that Google still lists them as backlinks to your page. I've tried it, left it for a while, then looked in Googles list of backlinks, and the link is there.
I have to agree that it might be tempting to get a PR7 link (heck, i'd like some, too) but the anchor text matters. In this case you would be obviously just getting PR - not providing the visitors to the PR7 site any value - and the G algorithm is likely to pick this up and possibly punish both sites.
Just because Google lists it as a back link doesn't mean it's giving it any weight it all. It could still be a worthless link.
Probably a good reason you need to not listen to so called SEO experts and just plain wannabes (some in this thread) who will tell you something doesn't work. They were obviously WRONG but they sure sounded like they knew what they were talking about didn't they? Just try stuff yourself. Never count on other webmasters for answers. Sometimes they can be right, but why take the chance?
Just because it shows up as a link doesn't mean it counts. Where is the evidence that it passes weight?