One of my competitors has created hundreds of junk pages in their website. All of these pages have been indexed by google -- do these internal links improve the SERPS of their website?
No not at all infact they are taking the risk to get penalized or even get banned for spamming Google. Akash Kumar
What the hell are you lot talking about, since when did junk become a crime? It depends on your definition of junk....... they may have lots of pages internal linking with anchor text works to an extent, more so when its a good/large/old site so yes it may be of benefit. One mans junk is another mans gold. Would they get penalised, well without a url it's hard to say, it's certainly risky to do it on your main domain though so if it goes against google's guidline them be wary.
One mans junk is anothers mans treasure... with out seeing a page we can't really judge wheter is it junk or just poor design implementation
Most don't understand Google completely. If by junk pages, you mean duplicate content or spammy keyword ridden text, then yes at some point google will probably penalize them at some point. However, junk by one mans standards could be gold to another. If you mean the pages are junk as in "not useful to visitors", but contains text related to the site that is not spammy and that just ads to the overall content of the page to beef up overall relevancy, then they may get rewarded. I'd have to see the pages you are talking about to make an actual wager on what I think will happen. But use those guidelines. Do the pages that you call JUNK break any of google's so called rules? If so, then they'll get what's coming to them, maybe.
I'm afraid i'm going to have to follow like a sheep and agree with the majority of you guys. Bad idea to include all that junk. Real high risk of being penalised, its just not worth it.
I have to agree with the people that say it depends on the junk. If the "junk" is an article about whatever and they have followed all the right "rules" for lack of a better word then Google will not see it as junk! I have spent a lot of time trying to add relevant content to my site and my pages have been indexed. I work hard to make it just right and then google puts this crap above me http://www.find.fm/search.php?aid=4423&keyword=seo which kills me because they do not even have the same keywords phrases... at all! Who knows...
Junk Pages! Take a look at this site: http://www.lookingyourbest.com/states/Indiana it ranks number one for the phrase "Breast Augmentation Indiana". It has thousands of links, but all internal. Worst of all, almost all the pages seem to be exactly the same, with very small alterations. Why the heck is it ranked number one? Also, this site is ranked number one for the term "automatic knife" http://nicnac.net. Can you see the invisible text?!?! It's been ranked number one for months now. I just don't get it. Help me see the light DP gang.