- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
Hi and thanks for your reply in advance.
I like to put my links to my other sites at the bottom of my pages. is that hurting me?
and I’ve heard its better to have one way links to a site than recips; so I’ve been thinking I should link some sites to some, others to others; and as i understand it; make sure there isn’t a loop made in the process.
does that sound like a good plan?
thanks again.
This is a good question and if you ask 100 seo’s for an answer you will likely get a varied response.
Here’s my thoughts:
I like to put my links to my other sites at the bottom of my pages. is that hurting me?
– No, this should not hurt you so long as the se spiders can access the links.
I’ve heard its better to have one way links to a site than recips; so I’ve been thinking I should link some sites to some, others to others; and as i understand it; make sure there isn’t a loop made in the process.
– Links are funny… good themed recip links will likely carry more weight than non-themed crap links (ala blog spam). All things being equal, one ways are better… but, I figure the se’s are looking for a natural looking link pattern. If you only have recips with the exact same anchor text, then it appears un-natural. The same goes with one ways etc. Try and vary your anchor text, and your ratio of one ways and recips too. You can achieve good results ignoring this idea, but it takes a lot more links to get the same results as a varied link plan.
Good luck trying to create a scenrio where the se’s cannot detect a “loop”. I think they can find patterns pretty easy, whether they want to “punish” for link schemes is another story. I’m thinking that planned link schemes are worse than just random link tactics.
Last thoughts – Google seems more aggressive than the others for punishing or not counting crossed linked sites etc. Yahoo seems to be more forgiving of these things.
BTW – This stuff is highly speculative and no one knows for sure. I am telling you this based on my experience, and it may be different from what others have seen.
Good luck!
“I like to put my links to my other sites at the bottom of my pages. is that hurting me?”
Possibly if they are on the same IP. There is a degree involved here. Doing it with dozens of pages has no risk; hundreds of pages is probably fine; tens of thousands of pages is link farming.
“and I’ve heard its better to have one way links to a site than recips;”
No advantage at all. It’s SEO goofballism to think if the New York Times does a story about your site, and links to you, that you would be worse off if you linked back to the story.
“so I’ve been thinking I should link some sites to some, others to others; and as i understand it; make sure there isn’t a loop made in the process.
does that sound like a good plan?”It’s by far the worst thing you can do. This is a link scheme, and you’ve even said so. Search engines can and definitely should penalize such behavior.
thanks guys so much for your input.
LOL, but I’m as confused as ever only now at least I feel I’ve been pointed in the right direction to wander…
to simplify it to terms which are easy for me to understand, it sounds like I should just put in links where they make sense to be; and not worry about whether a site is cross-linked ; or not.
bet my money on the hopes that the SEs will (if not already) be able to spot links that are there for a logical reason and reward accordingly.
and make sure my link text isn’t always the same.
thanks to you both again for taking time out to answer.
and also for keeping me from having to sit down and figure out which sites to link to which etc. I was getting a headache just thinking about it.
You are very welcome :bigsmile:
As you can gather even from the two responses posted, seo is not an exact science. Whether or not I agree with Classics or any other opinion that varies from mine is irrelevant. The point is to do what works for you cause God knows different people get different results from doing different things.
I agree with Classics on the link scheme opinion. Any scheme is in fact a scheme and should be avoided.
Agree on the cross-linking too many sites on the same IP. BTW – I have unique IP’s for sites that cross link. I think that the degree of crosslinking issue may be understated. 100’s of pages may be asking for trouble I.M.H.O.
Regarding which links are worth more, one ways vs. recips.. My view is all things being equal the one ways are better, not to say that you will be punished for recips, but I think the one ways are given a slight weighting advantage. For me, mix up the one ways and recips and give the site a natural link feel. Too many of one or the other and it looks unatural.
For back to basics info on SEO related matters I find the seo-guy.com/forums pretty useful.
Later!
“SEO goofballism” is one of the best things I’ve heard all day! :rollover:
As for the question, I rarely link between my own sites, especially on the same IP. There are plenty of other sites out there…
One way links being perceived as more valuable than recip seems to stem from that wonky theory that you give up some of your PR whenever you link to another site. I don’t buy it…
Everybody has a pet theory or two though, but it really comes down to what Kevin11 said – do what works for you.
Good luck!
that you give up some of your PR whenever you link to another site
The idea is that the more outside sites you link to, the less PR that is passed onto your internal pages. That indirectly reduces your PR because since your internal pages have less PR they don’t pass as much PR onto your home page.
The idea is that the more outside sites you link to, the less PR that is passed onto your internal pages. That indirectly reduces your PR because since your internal pages have less PR they don’t pass as much PR onto your home page.
This may be part of it, but I’m not so sure that PR has the same value it use to and myself am not worried about PR. Generally, a high PR site will likely have some authority, but its not due to the PR it’s due to other factors, and the PR is somewhat of a reflection of these things.
I think the big point here is “are all links created equal?”… I dont beleive so. If this is true, then what values are assigned to certain link types and how will these values be reflected on a site in terms of rankings.
I have done “crude” experiments with sites to test out some of these notions and it seems clear to me that there is a difference between links, even when the same link is received as a recip or one-way.
Maybe its time to do a more robust experiment where two sites (similiar in terms of on-page seo quality) receive identical links in different ways. One site does recips with the links, and the other receives all one-way links.
I’ll keep everyone posted on the results which should take a couple of months to see.
Lastly:
It’s SEO goofballism to think if the New York Times does a story about your site, and links to you, that you would be worse off if you linked back to the story.
In this very simple example point taken. But… in the real world things are not so simple. Patterns begin to emerge, and sites with 100% recips certainly make an easy pattern to spot. This is not a natural occurance and is obviously contrived. Heres a bit from google – “Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank.”
Arent recip link deals all about increasing ranking or PR? If so, then why would it be “goofballism” to beleive that recip deals (obvious schemes) would hold equal value to clean, one way links?
So, as much as I love the term “SEO goofballism” – I dont think the argument of one-ways vs. recips falls into “goofballism” territory.
lol… sorry for the long winded post – I really enjoy hashing out SEO ideas, conversations etc.
Cheers!
Almost forgot – google has announced recently to forget about the PR toolbar… its meaningless…
“One site does recips with the links, and the other receives all one-way links.”
Not a fair test, since the PR of the one-way site will be significantly higher since it will not be linking out. Also, it won’t have the benefit of linking to other sites on the same theme. In other words, there is more going on than just the actual type of linking.
Their is nothing unnatural at all about reciprocal linking. As always, when people who don’t get seo latch onto an idea (oo,oo, getting links is good) they tend to go way overboard and make these monster link compost piles… three pages of content, hundreds of link pages. This is not natural because the linking isn’t the same as what is basically the non-seo dictionary definition of “linking”: you link to something because it has a point of value to a person on that site or that page. Recipricals between related sites is not just normal, it is inevitable and vital. Trash reciprocals are just trash. The point is, do what is normal and sensible and useful, and don’t do the trash.
Reciprocals are just like pages on your website. It’s normal and good to have pages. It’s trash to add hundreds of thousands of doorway/keyword/”click-here” pages. It’s not the idea of a thing that is a problem, it’s what you do with the thing.
Classics – I think its safe to say that the results are all dependent on how things are done etc.
I guess with SEO, blanket all encompassing statements are meaningless because there are hundreds of different scenarios.
I agree that recips are “natural” to a degree, but this has been abused too and then it becomes unatural. Agreed that linking to something is a “vote” for a site because it has value, but again, this is often not the case.
If I was to recommend a link technique to a client (if I took clients) it would be simple: Make it look natural. Combine recip links with one ways. Keep the partners themed and maybe throw in the odd non themed link as well. Randomness is less likely to be contrived as a scheme.
BTW – do you think that PR in itself has any real value? I do not know for sure, but dont think this is the case anymore. I think PR by itself is dead.
We have probably debated this topic enough. Thanks for you input!
“but this has been abused too and then it becomes unatural.”
Which is my point. Don’t focus on the reciprocal part. Focus on the unnatural. Reciprocal links are like bricks. Bricks are not a bad thing. Throwing a brick through a window is a bad thing.
Too often people tend to just mush ideas together, and this is a bad thing to do. Using tools for bad purposes is not the tools fault, and it is a serious mistake to think “that bad brick”.
“Make it look natural.”
I don’t agree. Make it natural. Don’t try and put a dress on a pig. Fix the problems instead of trying to hide them.
“BTW – do you think that PR in itself has any real value?”
Sure, very definitely, and will more so in the future when all three engines get on their feet.
Lets keep this simple – ok?
STOP thinking of links as a way to improve your position in the SERPs !!!
Links should be beneficial to your site(s) visitors – plain and simple!
Too many people have forgotten this and thats where they get into trouble.
What Classics and Arkyt said in the last two posts is the essence of the matter. Though I’m not so sure about the value of PR in the future – having a good PR does not necessarily translate into sales, I can vouch for that.
Focus on creating the things that your customers will enjoy and want to read – make them feel safe – and your income will increase.
Your PR will naturally increase as well over time. But don’t focus on building PR – that’s not what regular visitors focus on when they visit the site.
On a related but parenthetical note, the head of search quality at Google has a background in artificial intelligence. As Google’s algorithms improve, I think they will be able to detect artificial patterns of linking intended to manipulate rankings with an amazing degree of accuracy. (I don’t think they’re quite there yet though.)
Any SEO campaign for Google that’s going to work on a long term basis is probably going to begin with their webmaster guidelines, which are clearly listed here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html.
You can learn a lot from Google’s quality guidelines. Their execution isn’t perfect, but it’s never a bad idea to know what their stated goals and guidelines are.
Cheers everyone! :cheers:
