8 replies to this topic

[neo]

I read in Google Guidelines (or elsewhere) to avoid Run-Of-The-Site-Links. First of all I don't know that it is clear to me what this is. Can someone show me an example of this practice?

[qwerty]

I'd prefer not to show you an example, but run-of-site links are usually text link ads. Basically it's a link on every page of a site, usually in the same place: in the footer of the pages, although they can be anywhere.

Since search engines only want to give sites a benefit based on links that are deemed to be votes for a site, and since ROS links are almost invariably paid ads, the guidelines recommend you stay away from them because they're not likely to help you.

[torka]

Don't have an example to show you right off hand, but I can try to explain.

Run-of-site links are simply links to one site that appear on every page of another site. Usually they're added in to the site footer or a standard block of ads that appear on every page.

A common example would be a web designer who has their client's site include a "designed by" link back to the designer's site at the bottom of every page.

--Torka

[Jill]

I read in Google Guidelines (or elsewhere) to avoid Run-Of-The-Site-Links.

Most likely it was elsewhere. I doubt Google would say that, but I don't read their guidelines so I could certainly be wrong.

As Torka has stated, they are simply links on every page of a site.

[Michael Martinez]

To the best of my knowledge, no one at Google has ever publicly suggested in writing or in any interview that site-wide (run-of-site) links should be avoided. Many large sites use them all the time to point to their home pages and site maps as well as other key areas.

The concerns over site-wide links arose in various SEO forums where people have speculated that such links may not be helping their campaigns or that they may actually have triggered some sort of penalties.

I don't know of anyone who has either proven or disproven that site-wide links are in any way harmful.

Google's algorithm doesn't depend on linkage as much as, say, Yahoo!'s algorithm does, so site-wide links are not going to have as much impact as many people believe they should.

If you can add 50,000 pages of content to a site in a short time, well, there are other concerns about building up your inbound linkage too quickly. It could be that, if there is any meat to this latter belief, then there may be sufficient overlap between its mechanics and the site-wide link issue to explain them both.

That is, maybe the people who concluded publicly that site-wide links are harmful were in fact autogenerating way too much content, and maybe therefore Google penalized them for building up too many links too fast. Most people don't disclose the details of how they get inbound links.

And most people who complain about lost listings in Google also insist they never did anything Google should object to.

So, there is no truly reliable method of proving or disproving either hypothesis.

[Jill]

Google's algorithm doesn't depend on linkage as much as, say, Yahoo!'s algorithm does

Cracks me up every time you say that as I think you're the only one on Earth who thinks that!

[qwerty]

It looks like Jill and Michael are correct in stating that G's guidelines don't say anything specifically against ROS links. The most I could find was on their glossary page:

Run-of-site (ROS). The scheduling of ads across an entire site, often at a lower cost than the purchase of specific pages or sub-sections of the site. A run-of-site ad campaign is rotated on all general, non-featured ad spaces on a site.

The guidelines, in warning about linking strategies, just say

Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

No mention of ROS links there.

[Michael Martinez]

Cracks me up every time you say that as I think you're the only one on Earth who thinks that!

I'll be honest, Jill. Sometimes I go out of my way to say it just because I know it will get a few winks and giggles.

If I ever put that link building campaign together for my commercial site, I should see some good results on Yahoo!

I just have a lot on my plate right now, so my Yahoo! rankings pretty much suck.

[Scottie]

The links at the bottom of this page are a good example- the administrator's names appear on every page of the forum.

When they used to link to our sites, they didn't provide much of a linking boost, that I could tell.

(Now they link to our profiles which are blocked from the spiders anyway. They are simply there for users to be able to contact an administrator quickly.)

There is a theory that links that appear on every page of a site in the same place and format are devalued- there is no penalty for it. They just won't catapult you to the top of the rankings as they once might have.

However, if I had the opportunity to purchase a run-of-site link on a site that is highly relevant and would send lots of customers, I'd do it in the blink of an eye.