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Arbitrary Link Exchangers Read This

Posted by ModelElaine • 10/20/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: link exchange, linking

Recently there has been a bunch of posts, “Link to me, I’ll link to you!” “What’s your site about? Oh, who cares? Mine is about shoes. Ah, yours is about fish? Close enough, let’s all link to each other!”

For some of you who hasn’t read this post from 2006 courtesy of Matt Cutts www.mattcutts.com/blog/indexing-timeline here is an excerpt:

“This is also a real estate site, this time about a Eastern European country. I see 387 pages indexed currently. Aha, checking out the bottom of the page, I see this: Linking to a free ringtones site, an SEO contest, and an Omega 3 fish oil site? I think I’ve found your problem. I’d think about the quality of your links if you’d prefer to have more pages crawled. As these indexing changes have rolled out, we’ve improving how we handle reciprocal link exchanges and link buying/selling.

- Moving right along, here’s one from May 4th. It’s another real estate site. The owner says that they used to have 10K pages indexed and now they have 80.
I checked out the site. Aha:

This time, I’m seeing links to mortgages sites, credit card sites, and exercise equipment. I think this is covered by the same guidance as above; if you were getting crawled more before and you’re trading a bunch of reciprocal links, don’t be surprised if the new crawler has different crawl priorities and doesn’t crawl as much.”

You can read the article here www.mattcutts.com/blog/indexing-timeline

User Comments

10/20/08

wakish

Good point!

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10/20/08

timethief

@modelelaine
Thanks for posting this. Perhaps those who post these lame link exchange threads will actually read Matt Cutt's advice and understand the value of related links.

[reply]
1. 10/20/08
  
  ModelElaine
  
  thank you timethief,
  
  On a side note, it is sad that no one else has an opinion about this
2. 10/20/08
  
  SweetViolet
  
  @ModelElaine: Maybe this is over some of our heads? I know what a link is...I know what a reciprocal link is. We have now reached the sum total of my knowledge about links.
  
  So, essentially, the majority of what you posted above meant absolutely nothing to me. I don't who the Matt dude is, I don't know what the crawlers are or do, and I don't know why it should be of interest to me.
  
  Maybe I am alone in my ignorance...and then again, maybe I am not.
10/20/08

timethief

@sweetviolet
Matt Cutts works for Google www.mattcutts.com/
This is his blog www.mattcutts.com/blog/

Spiders, Web Pages and Crawling
It may help to define what a crawl and what spiders are. To find and organize information on the web in what has become hundreds of millions of pages, a search engine deploys software typically referred to as a spider [or a crawler or a bot.]

By using spiders [or a crawler or a bot] to crawl web pages on the world wide web [of pages] search engines are able to build lists of keywords and key phrases from what they identify and consume.

Google applies rank consideration to every single web page and not just to a site domain or home page. It’s important to understand this because Google wants to index everything and that means you want to place emphasis on your content as a whole, by making all your important keywords and key phrases obvious and available to those using Google search facilities.

The most valuable links are those that are to other sites that have content that is related to your site's content.

I'd like to post some urls for you that are on linking.
blog.blogcatalog.com/guest-blogger/do-you-link-to-your-sources/
onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/2008/05/31/how-to-select-and-use-ancho...
markstoneman.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/blogging-and-links/
onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/2008/05/18/deep-link-posts-bring-your-...

[reply]
1. 10/21/08
  
  SweetViolet
  
  Thanks much for the info, but if that is the case, the whole concept appears to be useless to me since I do not have a niche blog. I could put up links to three dozen different things and they could all have relevance to my blog.
  
  Outside of "personal blog," my blog does not have a category...although individual posts might. So, as much as ME's information may be of great interest and value to others, it seems that it doesn't apply to me.
  
  But thanks for the enlightenment, just the same!
2. 10/21/08
  
  timethief
  
  I do think the information at the links above is important for every blogger to understand. It addresses good linking practices to use within your blog posts and site.
  
  What modelelaine is addressing here is the lameness of entering arbitrary spontaneous link exchanges on forums like these and elsewhere.
  
  In the context link exchange proposals, whenever any blogger suggests a link exchange I am extremely cautious about entering one.
  The questions I want answers to before I agree to any link exchange include these:
  (1) What's the url of proposed link exchange site?
  (2) What's the page rank on that site?
  (3) Does that site have any paid links on it?
  (4) Are there any Google penalties in effect on that site?
  (5) Which other sites is that site linked to & are they "good neignborhood" links?
  I use a bad neigborhood link checker. onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2008/04/12/bad-neighbourhood-text-link-checker-to... I find this post useful when determining Google penalties www.growler.com/Pro/SEO/aaSEO2/Google-penalty.htm I also use a page rank checker www.googlepagerankchecker.com/ and I use Alexa and the waybackmachine before I agree.
  
  It’s important to understand that Google doesn’t like paid links, if you have them and if your site doesn’t indicate them with “nofollow” or you’re active on the Internet selling links on your site. Likewise, if you have changed your comments to “do-follow” then your PageRank may suffer. The same can be said if you choose to enter a link exchange with a blog where the foregoing applies. Sites are being penalized every day, specifically for selling links - including through well known services like ReviewMe, Text Link Ads, Smorty, and PayPerPost. Therefore, I do not agree to link exchanges with such sites.
  
  Bottom line: It’s Google’s search engine and they have every right to say that if you sell links, they might penalize you. Google is not telling site owners what to do with their sites, which is a popular argument point. Google is telling site owners what to do if they are concerned about doing better in Google. If you don’t want to be harmed in Google then don’t sell links and don't link to blogs and sites that do.
  
  If you don’t care about Google and page rank then get involved with services like ReviewMe, Text Link Ads, Smorty, and PayPerPost and sell all the links you want.
3. 10/23/08
  
  irtiza104
  
  oh...y didnt i read this 3 days earlier....awwwwwwwwwww
4. 10/24/08
  
  ModelElaine
  
  irtiza104
  
  did you exchange bad links?
10/20/08

ModelElaine

Thank you timethief for clarifying. I guess the point I was trying to make is that when we exchange links it should be an educated decision. does the linked blog add value to your readers and enhances their browing experience or are you creating a link farm? I've seen literally hundreds of blogs that all look like link farms. Say, someone has a blog about dogs (off of top of my head), they link to a car blog, they link to an online gaming blog, they link to a photo blog, etc. I am just making up examples. Google doesn't appreciate this. As a result all of those link-farmed blogs get penalized once Google catches on. That's why random "let's exchange links" threads are stupid.

[reply]
1. 10/20/08
  
  wares4life
  
  That's a great catch there Elaine - kudos and karma to you.
10/24/08

IbneAdam

Thanks all contributors for really good information.

Happy I never "invested" any time in link exchanges, though had temptation many time..

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