Hi, I'm new to these boards so please excuse me if i'm going over old ground. I'm doing SEO for a number of sites and i've implemented link building programs for them all. I've never been to fussy about the relevance of the sites that i link to as i'd thought it didn't particularly matter. However, i've had an email from one of my customers asking me to remove the non-relevent sites from the links pages because he's been told by a "SEO expert" that they could damage his site rather than help it. I don't think this is true but if it is how can the search engines tell whats relevant and whats not. Any advice would be very welcome.
As far as damage, relenacy IMHO cannot do that. The common theory amongst SEO's is that relevant sites help more than irrelevant ones. I am of the school that links help no matter what and although I will try for a relevant one every time, I will take other ones too. The only "penalty" they can see is one for bad neighborhoods. This is a completely different type of link and its something you should look into so that you can advise them correctly. Another issue is theme. Many SEO's believe Google rewards you with better rankings when the majority of your links are the same theme. Under that theory its further thought that by getting any old link you are dilluting your theme. There is no proof that this is happening today. I would agree though that SEO is moving in that direction. How long it takes to get there is anyones guess. For now all incoming links help and they only that hurt are outbounds to bad neighborhoods
its really a matter of opinion and image that seo expert is probabably full of crap but ..... having random links all over a site can reduce the sites image in some ways There is talk of linking to bad neighborhoods but in 2 or 3 years of doing seo, no one has every actually been able to point one out that I know of. Links similar to your site, would make you site a better resource, off course if you are more concerned with selling stuff then being a "resource" this might not be much of bonus. In my experience trading unrelated links does not hurt your site but recently yahoo has be putting a smash down on a lot of my sites, so maybe, that could be the reason. Although, I still see many sites with massive link directories doing well in yahoo so that doesn't seem the case.
Personally, I'd ask your client who he's paying - you or this so called 'expert'. Linking out from a site is all about providing useful resources to the site users - whether they are relevant to the site content doesn't matter. A site should be designed for the users not the search engines. If the links are part of a reciprocal deal, then explain to your client that they will loose inbound links if they insist on removing the links. My way of approaching this is to calmly point out that the 'seo expert' is talking out of his arse. Let say that you're running a site on some obscure niche topic, and you get approached by yahoo.com or bbc.co.uk and they request a recip link. Do you turn down a PR10 or PR9 IBL just because they're off topic. No F'in way you would. If they are paying you, then point out that it's your job to watch for quality links (regardless of where they are from) and to encourage traffic to their site.
Although I completely agree regarding the links "not hurting" your client's site as far as search engines are concerned, there is one other thing to consider. Inbound links to your client's sites should be there for at least 2 purposes. 1) Improve the search engine ranking of the page(s) 2) Drive traffic from other sites to your client's site Having non-themed links from other sites would generally be much less effective driving traffic from the other sites IMHO. As far as the other SEO's comments, understand that this person has his/her own views and may have had prior success based on those views. That doesn't mean that having non-relevant links on the site would reduce that success (as far as the search engines go). I have personally come across a similar situation with a customer of mine in the past. We determined it best to meet the client's request and adjust the price (at next contract signing) accordingly. This is also a point to remember for future promotions as well to match the pricing of services with client's expectations. Hope this helps
I would suggest keeping them organized. You never know how intelligent these algo's are going to get. As for outbound, non-relevant links being damaging... you should see if that person's site designer has a link to his SEO or web design page. Pretty sure the guy who told him that has a link to his page from a non-relevant website...
In my believe, unrelated inbound links won't hurt your page ranking but outbound links to bad neighbours does. It is simply because we can't control the website links to you.
As true as that is S2U, if you are recipricating that link, I believe SE's can pick up on that. So a medical site linking to a computer site from a medical page *may* trigger something. That is why I suggest organizing your links. Have medical links to medical pages and computer sites to computer pages...
Thanks for all the advice everyone. Most of it backs up what i thought. I'll go back to the client and tell him this but if he insists i will take them off after explaining the effect it could have on his rankings. It is his website afterall and if he doesn't want certain links its his perogative. I always avoid linking to gambling, adult and drug sites and try to look at each site to see if its a good content site which is unlikely to partake in any bad practices but i suppose you can never be sure. Thanks again.
Just had another thought. On my website i link to several of my customers sites in a gallery type layout. How would the search engines ever know that they are related to me. They could be any sites and are not related to SEO or web design.