I usually click through to their link pages. But what I am really checking for is to see that Google has their link page cached and indexed. Unless, as VS says, they are a brand new site I won't exchange links with anybody who is trying to conceal the link back to me from the SE bots. Back to the original theme, I don't really care what the PR of the page is. What I'm looking for in a link is the anchor text, not the PR. I've never seen a pharmacy health care site that downloads spyware or adware. In my experience that is almost the exclusive domain of Porn sites. But certainly I would never provide a link to anyone who did. No I don't know who owns these sites, but I'll tell you about the great Pizza I had last night, and recommend you try some, without interviewing the owner and getting his name anddress and social security number. Why should I know who owns a web site before I exchange links with it?
most people in the world don't have a clue when it comes down to it Quote above by Shawn, now we have something we can agree on. Shawn, I am quoting "so called SEO Experts" why do you think I call them "so called". I am happy you provided that example, that is the reason you put up the forum, so we can come to understand the issues and cut through the BS. Thank you for the example and the valuable input. I must go into town, see you all later, DP can not keep me locked down forever. LATER
As far as having Clues, some have proof (Shawn's example) of the outgoing links issue, others have second hand information from reading articles from "so called SEO's". I mentioned that I had read that Since Google were trying to fight link farms or link exchange websites because of spamming of the search index, that some SEO's mentioned that any pages with more than 50 outgoing links per page were being dropped by Google. Shawn provided an example in this thread of one of his pages that had 100's of outgoing links on it and it is and will continue to be in the search index. But, I think that we were talking about sites whose whole objective was linking to be linking (link exchange sites). Now what I had mentioned was that to fight these outfits efforts, Google would penalize these sites that had page after page after page of simply outgoing links with more than 50 links per page. Compar, who I would regard as very knowledgable on all of the subjects within this thread mentioned 100 outgoing links per page. So, what I thought last night after thinking about this very hot thread, with very important subject matter was, why are there no guidelines published by the SE's on what is acceptable content on websites and what is not. Do any of you know of such a guideline type of publication published by any of the SE's, I know that there are a few pages on this at a few of the SE's, but are there, or have any of the SE's come out with a publication like this.
Google have this... http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html <edit> Oops, you got there first ; ) </edit>
Thank you for the page Disgust, you are not so Disgusting after all. This page gives an answer on the links question, I have cut and pasted this below. Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100). So this is from Google itself, the subject we were discussing were really link type of sites (whose entire focus is on links), could there be a way to provide thousands of links, breaking them down to be acceptable. Would there be a way to do this that is acceptable to these SE's? Is there a independent publication, that IS NOT published by the SE's that gives guidelines or a website(s), that cover this issue?
Google's guidelines are for end-user usability, not technical limitations. I agree that any page with over 100 links probably isn't all that usable for the end user, but it's not a technical limitation of what Google can/will spider.
anthonycea , sebasic everything will seem more clear as soon as realize that most people involved in running seo resources sites have not interest other then selling their seo services People will mislead and tell you anything Because it suits them, It is is in the best interest of the seo community to keep people misinformed and make seo seem as mysterious and difficult as possible which do think people will pay more for a wonderful ethical seo solution or just a thousand links with their keywords in them
I have always based my 100 link limit on Google's guidelines. I have never ever said or suggested that Google dropped a page for exceeding 100 links. In fact I think all this paranioa and discussion of Google penalizing everybody left right and center and dropping page is exact that -- groundless paranioa. The only thing I have ever said is that based on Google's guidelines I would not be surprised if Google quit reading links beyond 100 on a single page. But I am prepared to except Shawn evidence for the fact that they will read everything up to a size limit of 100 kb. And if that include more than 100 links so be it.
Why is it groundless if Google says to limit it to 100 links or less Bob? That is what THEY say not the "so called SEO Experts". My question again is this, how do we put up a link site that is not penalized by the SE. I have seen sites with thousands of catagories that lead to millions of links, how SHOULD a page be structured so it is not taken down? That is the Million Dollar Question?
What evidence have you got of any site being "taken down". I have only ever heard of a few sites and these where the most flagrant abusers. I agree with Shawn; Googles guideline are about good site design and user friendliness. Here is exactly what they say: "Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100)." Nowhere are they saying or else we will "take your site down". You say you've seen site with "thousands of catagories that lead to millions of links". Well if you've seen then they can't have been taken down then can they? Any directory such as the original and most famous DMOZ can be describe exactly as a site with "thousands of catagories that lead to millions of links". Google doesn't "penalize" these directories and "take them down". I don't know what point you are trying to get at. I guess I'm waiting for the conspiracy theory to drop in here somewhere, but all this "penalize", "take down" talk is just so much hogwash.
I respect your opinion ferret... I do however understand the concept of selling SEO... I have a resource site online, that as a bi-product occasionly gets some work... It is online for the simple reason that... A I like to use it as a test ground for new techniques B The adsense (not making a lot but it's better than nothing) C I enjoy looking after it... I am sure that a lot of resource sites out there are just there to sell a service... Not all... What point exactly are you trying to make? Could you elaborate... Cheers S
Bob, this link below was posted in the "OPEN SOURCE SEARCH ENGINES" thread here at Digital Point Forums. http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2004_05_28_index.html#108573025728740424 It is an interview with one of the founders of the www.nutch.org open source search software. He talks about link farms in the article, you should read it, it is very informative. You did ask about link farms, well folks that run search engines know all about them. Yes Bob, they do ban sites, they do remove pages from the search index.
SEBASIC, the man is right about some SEO firms, they webmaster 500 or so sites and then get a new customer and sell links from the sites they webmaster and call it SEO. So a lot of that is going on, what he is saying is that it may not be above board.
In a way that makes it useful to your visitors. A laundry list of links is not usually terribly useful when it gets long. But there certainly are lists that can be long--so the thing to do is to break them into logically separated sublists, and put each on a separate page, with a master "index" or "directory" page at the top. For example, on one of my sites, I have a page of "related sites" that has pointers to pages listing links that are from same-theme organizational sites, same-theme personal sites, general sites, and blogs. That way, a several-hundred-link list is spread out fairly smoothly over bite-sized pages that are thematically coherent. The same principle, with an extra level in instances of extreme list length, can be applied to any links list.
Owlcroft, if you could show us in a whitepaper how to structure such a page with code, I am sure many would buy it from you. Let me know when it is available, I will buy the technical paper from you!
Great thread -- PR - plays a part but not as important as most think (or use to be) Links - linking out is fine, but something we learned from the nigritude ultramarine contest is linking out to similar sites is good. The winner of the first part had mostly outgoing links even using the anchor text of nigritude ultramarine Reciprocal links - good, just keep them related when possible for best results and with anchor text of you KWP Natural inbound links - can be best - no worries here if google or ?? starts to diminish trading links for any reason. SEO companies - bad and good - I hate the calls and generic e-mails saying I am not on any search engine and I get a good laugh at the professional seo who thought I was trying to use a keyword of & (amps) as in guitar!!!! Some companies are clueless and will try to sell you the moon.
sebasic when I say most , I don't mean all if it doesn't apply let it fly my point being is that many seo people dress up the job like they are doing brain surgery or something /// compare seo to doing recursive programming , or even n-tierd java applications many seo boards follow suit like seo is some magically art that only the few can do or they use the fear of being kicked out of the index to make people scared to do things that will get them rankings They want people to follow half ass ethical guidelines which ARE JUST MADE UP BY THEM and they know are a handicap for really competitive terms anthonycea , and sebasic its time to take the red pill and realize all this stuff you are talking about was implanted in order to control you there is no morally right or morally wrong in seo , its just a search algorithm this is just my opionion of course, please don't take it too seriously
In all honesty, unworldly as I am, it is unclear to me whether that is genuine or is sarcasm. If it's sarcasm, OK, everybody gets an opinion. If it's genuine, well, dear me, there really isn't very much to it, is there? If you have a laundry list well over 100 long, you look for logical subdivisions and apply them. If it's very long, you use an intermediate level of subcategories, so that the bottom-level pages have 100 or fewer links. Taken either way, it's a, um, perplexing response.