Everyone still so worried about PR?

I stand corrected...

But... What about all of the useless non-related link exchanges that you see everywhere...

Should they be punished?

If so, where does the line lay? At what point are "similiar sites" providing useful links to site visitors, or randon links?

Pretty hard to distinguish... For instance - Web Development and Print Design - Fairly similiar in a lot of ways (both involve design and planning etc...) but are they related links?

 

No question, Google knows. I do believe Google would like to eliminate pure link swapping - but it cannot be done in as simple a matter as you suggest. For instance, I have a site on Widgets. You have a site on Blue Widgets. I link to pages on your site because they are very relevant and important to the readers of my site. You link to pages on my site because they are important to readers of your site. If you remove SEO and SERPS and all manner of artificial attempts at popularity, the above scenario is how the internet (according to Google) should work - sites link to pages on other good sites with relevant content. So how could Google consider the links from my site to yours - and your links to my site from yours - as anything other than perfectly pure links? Just because we each think the other's site has something to offer our readers is no reason for any penalty.

Here's my thinking - and I believe Google is making steps in that direction already. Google may be trying to determine which links are purely reciprocal links. I believe they've already taken a major step by considering pages with names like "links.___" or "link.___" as no longer worthy of counting as backlinks. Check your backlinks from Google - are there any pages showing up with names like "links.html" or "links.htm" or "links.asp"? Probably not. If so, certainly no where near the number that actually link to your site. The other important thing is anchor text to the "links" page - if it just says "Links", it's not likely being considered as a back link to the pages listed. They used to be.

So it seems Google is making steps towards considering reciprocal links as less important - but we can still only guess - just because pages like "links.html" aren't showing up as Google backlinks doesn't mean Google is weighting them differently - it seems so, but there's no way to prove it that I'm aware of.

One more thing I think we'll see more of - I think Google will begin showing us that links to specific pages will more positively considered than links to a site's home page. For instance, a link to www.yoursite.com is much more likely to be a reciprocal link than one to www.yoursite.com/interesting-article.html. It will be interesting to see if this comes to fruition, it would certainly change everything - I don't think they'll be able to just discount any links to a site's home page though, it's probably the most common type of link.

I have faith - Google is very good at what they do and I believe they'll continue to grind away at most accurately measuring a website's importance for the search phrase being searched

 

"Should they be punished?"

why should they?

you have totally bought into seo and link dealers hype

hook line and sinker

Professional seo's like to say that reciprocal links don't count because if they didn't their would be more demand for their services

How does having more content , and that is what a linkpage is 'content' every hurt the quality of the site?

If one of my fishing sites has a page on hotels full of hotel links , how does that decrease the value of my site?

Google devalues links* pages , does show that google most likely thinks less of reciprocal links. Does that mean you should just lie down and give the serps over to the big directories. Because without link trading that is what would dominate many of the commercial terms

Maybe that would mean better results for the end user, of course it would also kill lots of little businesses

 

COMPAR, you still have not answered my question in posts # 6 and # 11

 

I am professional SEO... I don't tell clients these things because there would be LESS demand for my services...

It was a question that required answers not retribution...

If the content is off-topic then it will hurt the site...

Agree 100%...

It is off-topic links that are damaging the SERP's not on topic...

Google will not penalise something that is of use to site visitors...

 

"If the content is off-topic then it will hurt the site..."

how and why?

I can see it not helping the site but why would it hurt it?

and in answer to the question you asked

no they should be not punished, maybe not helped but punished doens't make sense

 

Compar, I am about ready to write another, "Where is Compar when you need him" thread, but I will hold off if you will answer my questions in posts #6 and #11

SEBASIC, I have heard that a page with over 50 outgoing links on it will be dropped by G

 

No! That is pure speculation. You haven't got on bit of proof.

If your site has a variety of information and is really a great authority I may link to it ten or twenty times from different pages or areas of my site.

The problem with all you speculators is you only see one narrow view of the world. You near try and see the scenario when some phenomenon is totally natural and legitimate.

For instance I would speculate that if you go to the UCLA and Stanford web sites that you will probably find 1,000s of links back and forth between those sites. So should Google penalize them for spamming?

 

More pure bullshit! Google themselves advise that you not put more than 100 links per page. So they don't drop a page for more than 50. They don't drop a page for more than 100. They may just stop reading links after reaching 100.

 

Still waiting Bob?

 

I did not make up that Bullshit Bob, I read it on a SEO Site, that Google said this, not the SEO Folks, so now you say the number is 100, don't get to excited now Bob, we do not want you to get mad, our monitors might blow up.

Still waiting for answers to posts 6 & 11

 

I am have links in the footer of several sites and forums...

I believe that they are beneficial of course... But I also believe that if those links appear in the same place on a number of pages within the sam e site, then they begin to be weighed less heavily.

You are right, I have no proof...

But if you have any, I would love to see it as it world help me enormously... As I have said all along in this thread... I MAY BE WRONG.

 

Anthony,

I'm not suggesting that anybody should link to a known "Link Farm". But all reciprocal linking schemes do not involve link farms. And BTW how many link farms do you know? Link Farms are more of a myth than a reality.

There is a theory that Google dislikes SEO practitioners. If this is so why does Google go to all the SEO conferences. Why don't they show there disapproval and boycott them?

Now I have an Internet Pharmacy site. I run an active link exchange on that site. I exchange links with 100s of other internet pharmacies, alternative health care, vitamins and supplements sites. Between us we constitute a community of related sites that any person looking for medication, skin care, oral hygene, vitamins or other health or personal care products can use.

Sure we do this because we think it helps us with Goolge, but our records show that visitors do use these links in navigating the Internet and looking for products and information. If Google suddenly penalized my site for this they would deprive my visitors of a viable legitimate resource. Why are my link pages any less a legitmate repository of these types of web sites than say DMOZ or the pharmacy section of some general purpose directory?

It strikes me that many of the naysayer about reciprocal links are either jealous or too lazy to do it themselves. So they hope that if they whine and moan and bitch about it enough, they will stop the people who are willing to work at it and beat them in the SERPs.

 

So Bob, how do you look at the quality of links issue, do you carefully look at the site you link to so you may be sure that they are not affiliated with spyware or adware?

Do you check out who owns these sites that you exchange links with?

 

Next Bob, I do not want to go searching for the old articles by "SEO EXPERTS" that were written about recip. linking being dead, I am sure that you have them also.

Why were these articles published and why has this issue been discussed so much on all of the forums without any conclusion.

Is it because of ever changing and unknown ALGO's that seem to drive every webmaster to the NUT HOUSE (coo coo coo coo), will we all be driven in sane by the SE's and by each other?

 

Shawn, that is what I read before, Bob says the number is 100 per page, do you think I come on your forum to write fiction?

 

I too have read the first 100 links are the only ones that are looked at. This may have been the case back with the original years of Altavista, but it probably is no longer.