How links can harm you - or not

I just want to get this out of my system - please read the entire post
[and everything is google related as we just ignore other search engines from now on]

the question is : "Can links harm you?"

my observations are:
- people think related links are better than non-related ones
- people think links from a 'bad' site can harm you
- people think there is something like a sandbox
- people think you can be banned

For the first 3 I have not seen any evidence. the last one I have read things about : sites being banned, and later being unbanned after e-mail contact with google.

so stick to the first 3.
the worst case would be: a link from an illegal gambling site (something like that). If this can cause any harm to its SERPS, why are we not all starting sites like that and put our competitors on all pages ?

I've thaught long about this, and my simple mind tells me: a link can help you get higher SERPs but it can NEVER harm you. If there would be a way, someone would have figured it out and we all would be using it to destroy the competition.

That leaves the sandbox: personally i have never experienced anything like that: it just takes a few days to get your site indexed - that's all

I would like very much your thaughts on this and if possible, examples on how links can harm serps.

 

I'm not sure. I'd rather be safe than sorry. Every seo book I've read warns against linking to bad sites. Every seo book I've ever read also makes it clear that google gives more credit to related sites that link to you than non related.

It seems to make sense to me. I don't know about SERPs.

tesla

 

I agree completely with this point of view.

Of course there is a difference between being indexed and ranking well. Sure it is simple to get a brand new domain indexed in 24 hours. However it normally takes longer to rank well.

For one site I recently launched (but not the one I blogged about in the link above) I was indexed in 24 hours. Within 48 hours I was ranking in the top 10 for a competitive keyword on Google. But within a week I was nowhere to be seen until a few months later when I came back more or less where I should be ranked. I do believe that Google "dampens" new sites somehow.

 

while most individual links might not hurt you, problems can occur if certain attributes are of what was deemed abnormal percentages. like if all your anchor text matches and you don't have lots of edu links or some other reasons for search engines to really trust you then your site might get filtered.

 

Its generally thought that linking TO a 'bad' site can harm you.

Personally, I dont know.

 

You might want to actually find out what the "sandbox" effect is, becasue it doesn't have to do with indexing at all

 

Let me rephrase it then: I get spidered, indexed and in the serps quickly and do not drop complete from the result pages or climb from 100000 to page 1.

 

related sites that link to you

I keep asking myself, just what is related and what's not.

 

this kind of questions are responded by google, read http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
go to the bottom of the page

 

although their responses may not tell the full story

 

I have seen the sandbox effect but I am clueless as to what causes it.

 

google says:

i think it is very clear. If not, then make a test... or search the forum, this topics have been discussed thousends of times.

As for the sandbox.. it is even part of google's pattent, i made a topic on the subject some while ago. If you haven't seen the sandbox, then maybe you just don't understand what the sandbox is.

Again: search the forums! it is like the most discussed thing around you'll find very interesting threads on the subject

 

that is if you actually trust google to give accurate info

I don't think the SE know what is related to what for the most part, there are so many variables and slang in english language, its kind of hard to program stuff like that on a massive scale

 

@jorge:

if I would put a link to a 'bad neighborhood' in this message, I doubt the entire digitalpoint forum or domain will be 'banned' ,or punnished

but I don't take my chances

 

The SE knows if a linking page is related for a specific keyword by analyzing its title, keywords in description, kws, body...

 

do you think they actually do that?

 

It is probably a matter of "weight"... a website so popular like this one --lots of natural links to it, lots indexed pages, lots of relevant results for searches, lots of visits detected by the toolbar-- could probably not be that hurted by just a couple of bad links... but an appropiate ammount could probably do it eventually. It is an algo, not a person, so all it has it's a weight system.

Anyway, I don't see the point of distrusting their warnings.
Penalization does exists... google says it, their patent says it, SEOs have experience it, and even I have.

 

I don' think that a non related link may cause you harm, but a link to a "bad neighborhood" YES.

 

I do think that links TO the wrong site can harm you as do G

 

funny thing , have you noticed no one is able to actually show a specific bad neighborhood

I mean acutally post a link to one