Seen lots of posts on the google penalty this month, i think G is coming down hard on basically anything that is un natural. Many sites have a links page/resource page/add url page - are these now cause for a Google penalty?
I have been seeing lots of post on this as well, this reciprical links stuff is very confusing, as I 'am a newbie.
No. A links page will not automatically get you a penalty. Its easy to find sites with solid rankings that use reciprocal links. However, Google has been actively dropping the pages from large link directories from their index - especially those that are either automated or simply very big - for well over a year now. Links you get from those pages are obviously not going to help you, and may be a sign that Google has lowered the site's Trust Rank which would reduce its rankings. Google's Guidelines are a bit contradictory on this subject. One page seems to ban them and another refers specifically to "excessive" reciprocal links. My guess is that they are tacitly acknowledging the common practice of link exchanges and so you won't see them take action against every instance. But you don't want to have thousands of reciprocals - especially with a large percentage from non-related sites.
lets face it any site that has a 'resources' page or a 'links page' is doing it for the serps. Google is now activley saying that trying to manipulate the serps to your advantage is bad, as ever with them its another 'read between the lines' case - i think that many sites are getting away with it because no body has reported them, i have had this theory for a couple of months now but the only way to test it would be to report a site that uses them, i couldn't/wouldn't and shouldn't do that to a website. There are alot of sites out there though that have these exchange pages and the argument that they are for the user does not hold much water - they are to improve serps and G knows it.
A lot of sites have recently had the PR on their links pages disappear and the pages are now 'greyed out' PR. I don't think the sites are being penalised (yet) but I guess this is google telling us that they can identify and ignore links pages if they want to. I think the value of a link on a links page is now pretty small, and the value of a link in a directory of unrelated links pages on the back of a site is pretty much zero.
i dont think it hurts, remember ppl site A cant hurt site B for the issue of farm links linking to your site, for the other issue of having a links directory, I know many major sites whom I compete with having one and it doesnt hurt....
Definetely. If there are more than 20, especially from unrelated sites, expect a penalty. Stay with normal backlinks. Reciprical are over rated.
In my opinion, reciprocal links will not hurt you but are nowhere near as helpful as they used to be. Link pages are ok, infact many SEOs say that it is important to have a links page or a section on your site linking to authority sites. Note that a link page or resource page is different than a link farm. Don't go crazy. For best results, only 3 way link and add text around links so that text can help your trade partners targeting, and help your link page look less like a link farm. Win-win situation.
I Can't see why you would waste your time doing it? well why other webmasters do. Especially when do-follow blog lists are free and a lot easier to use.
Off my experiance actually no, when I have started doing work a on few different successful business websites that already had links pages in place but had never taken part in any internet based site premotion at all and had never done any link exchanges at all. They simpley had the links pages as useful resources for their visitors, When I started doing work on them sites I had to explain to them that having these links pages could actually be having a negative effect on there site and advised the removal of them pages. This is why I think its kind of a joke to be fair on the search engines part, not all links pages are in place as link exchange dumps, if a site owner decideds he wants to link to some relevant sites which could be useful to his visitors he should not have to fear being penalized by search engines for having a links page. Ok sure if you have multiple links pages or an overly full links page and all the sites you link to also link back then yeah ok its blatent link exchanging to do better in serps.
It's a rare thing for me to "trade" a link with someone any longer. Some time back about 2 years ago I deleted all my reciprocal link pages and now just have resource pages that link out to only relevant sites. I only link to a site now if it will benefit my visitors. Alan
I don't want to put my competitors website links on my resources page, rather than i would like to reciprocate with the very good website which is not related from my website content. Like if i am having franchise related website and not want to do link building with the website related franchise, i prefer to build link with website for exa. software industry. Does it good or correct way, This only because i want healthy link partners as well as i don't want to promote my competitors on my own website. Will this helpful for me in getting higher PR? Your comments please.
cool, i think if a site has been using their links page for seo then its time for them to remove them - aspecially if the site has a penalty as this could be the cause.
Google has stated that it views excessive reciprocal link as a link scheme. As long as you don't over do it, there still is some value in exchanging links.