OMFG... Google is going to start banning people for original content? I better write about this in my blog to let others know. Then with luck some of them will blog about it on their blogs, then we'll all get banned as a blog network ____________ Ya know, I got my first web page on geocities back in the mid nineties and thought it was the coolest thing in the world, and linked to all my friends pages and they all linked back to me. I found random sites using the spy feature on MetaCrawler and linked to many of these peoples sites...and they in turn linked back from me. Back then, I found MANY sites via the link pages of the people I met through the link pages of others... IMHO, that's old school organic traffic that is a stepping stone for the little guy. If google is seriously going to start banning the little guy, then I can seriously see a true return to the old school linkage. I look forward to it...bring it on...
Maybe google has lowered the threshold for the number of links that you can exchange with other websites. Or something like that...
Yes. Excessive reciprocal linking can result in a penalty. Reciprocal linking has been devalued since the Jagger and Bigdaddy updates. Reciprocal linking was good while it lasted but has been on the way out since September 2005.
I'm curious how Google would ever 'prove' that sites are exchanging links. The better thing may be to not give juice between two sites, but that also breaks the 'network' part of the internet. They created the monster with PR. Now they're trying to change the behavior of webmasters everywhere with their rules. Many like sites share links naturally. How could they enforce that?
That's what the Bigdaddy infrastructure update gave google the ability to do. Reciprocal linking has already been devalued by Google.
How many friends do you have? If its five thousand you mave have some issues with excessive reciprocal linking.
hhehehh i agree that they need to start being a little more clear about things as every time they seem to throw "little hints" that get all screwed up and make webmasters panic just like the "Paid links" (buying high PR links to manipulate page rank) which managed to hurt those that werent doing anything wrong to begin with and "Ill take your PR box" from you (Nike... just do it, if thats what you want) and NOW we dont want ya doing "Reciprocal Links"...(not enough info) Get a grip and start telling us EXACTLY what ya need from us without the "Guess for yourself" or "figure it out" and hype so that we can better comply with whats needed. thx malcolm
I think they mean excessive reciprocal linking, especially with unrelated sites....I know we all get those auto generated emails of people wanting to exchange links and the topic of your site is not related to theirs at all. If you exchange links with another site and both your visitors will benefit, I find it hard that Google will ban you...
Google has to find ways to keep the index relevant to search keywords. With all the black hat stuff that going on, it isn't easy!
Excessive reciprocal linking with related sites can cause a penalty. "Thousands of websites have recently lost rankings due to participation in egregious manipulation through reciprocal link campaigns." randfish discusses the issue of excessive reciprocal linking with Matt Cutts on seomoz
i think only excessive non related linking will be considered as bad resource : http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/08/server-location-cross-linking-and-web.html
Listen to the Matt Cutts interview. All the sites involved are real estate sites. Reciprocal linking has been dying a slow death since Sept. 2005 Excessive reciprocal linking is what will cause a penalty. It doesn't matter if the sites are related. Google can easily detect reciprocal links. That's why webmasters are trying to get one way links!