20 replies to this topic

[projectphp]

I propose that we ban the word penalty from any and all threads. There are very few penalties, and continuing to allow the word just perpetuates the myth.

All those in favour?

[Vicki]

It's not what you link to that gets you in trouble, it's who you link to. There are sites about gambling and casinos that are perfectly interesting, informative sites. You can pretty much link to them. There are other sites about casinos and gambling that are spammed out (or were until a recent change in U.S. law concerning online gambling) and linking to them made your site appear to be spam-related.

Basically, if a search engine has designated a group of Web sites to be a "bad neighborhood", and if all or most of your outbound links appear to point to one or more bad neighborhoods, you are literally associating your content with bad neighborhoods.

So what would you expect the search engines to assume, except that your site is unworthy as well?

So, how can you tell if sites are a "bad neighboorhood", or spammers? I've had lots of link requests from gambling sites, and accepted those with a PR ranking higher than mine. Should I be concerned?

[qwerty]

If the only criterion you used to decide on whether to link to these sites was toolbar PR, then yes, you should be concerned. You don't want to link to a site that's doing anything to deceive users or search engines, or that is linking out to sites that are doing that, and you don't want to link to a site that's part of a link farm.

I wouldn't rely on sites in the gambling niche to be on the up and up. If you're going to link to such sites, you should be extremely careful.

[Michael Martinez]

The only reason why you should link out to another Web site is that you feel at least some of the visitors to your site would benefit from following that link.

A linking strategy should be part of an SEO strategy -- not the entire SEO strategy nor even a major part of it. And the linking strategy should be robust.

And an SEO strategy should be part of a Web marketing strategy -- not the entire Web marketing strategy nor even a major part of it.

So when you look at your outbound links from that level, every link matters with respect to the impression it makes on visitors (they are far more likely to come back to a resource that is useful to them).

Here is a good rule of thumb: If you suddenly wonder whether you should be concerned about your outbound links, you probably should be.

[qwerty]

A-freakin-men

[projectphp]

Here is a good rule of thumb: If you suddenly wonder whether you should be concerned about your outbound links, you probably should be.

Ain't that the tooth!

Ppl 99/100 know what is wrong, that just try to justify it. Honesty is the key. IF you have doubts, either accept you are doing wrong and it might one day bite you, or don;t do it. Simple