Another great post from Aaron on this topic : http://www.seobook.com/archives/001892.shtml Read this .
I read it, but still don't agree with it. Hey - if I can find all the guys ahead of me in the SEPRs and start buying crappy links pointing to them and it moves me up in the SERPs - that means the system is broken. And it maybe broken...
Hey, I have thousands of crappy links pointing to my sites. You know what? I would have a lot more luck picking up toothpicks with my butt cheeks than doing something about it. So, I just forget about it. Why worry about it when it is out of your control. Col
Col - I should mod you down for this unfortunate mental picture you have thrust upon us! But - it is almost Halloween, so I will let it go this time!
Yeah, i agree with some of the others. As long as your not linking back to them, you should be fine. You cannot control what how others link to you if it looks like its only a one way linking.
I've gotten a little behind in this thread but Aaron made a post Oct 28th, 2006 which brought my attention to his post on TrustRank: http://www.seobook.com/archives/001892.shtml. The thing is, if you wanted to knock your competitors out, you would have to do it for all of them and there is no guarantee that it would work especially if it is an established site. Aaron mentions that he has seen this happen so it seems like it isn't just what COULD be done. I know that it sounds like a crazy idea but, based on my experiences with penalties, I'm not surprised that they are considering backlinks in some way.
Fair enough. I think we can agree to disagree. I think we can agree that there are plenty of more important things to worry about.