25 replies to this topic

[Scottie]

Off topic links in or out will confuse Teoma, in particular. The jury is still out on the other engines.

Worse still, off topic links confuse your visitors. Would you personally recommend the sites that you link to? That's what you are doing. If there's not a reason to be linking to them, what must your customers think?

[awall19]

So OBL to unrelevant sites does not confuse engine about topicality? Sorry, I am really confused here.

I don't think it really hurts relevancy in Yahoo! or Google currently, but it could and should have some effect in Teoma.

Generally a few off topic links are not going to kill you. Topics overlap and people link to certain sites to show examples of what they are talking about.

Most search engines still determine relevancy primarily on a page by page basis and not on a sitewide basis. I have random blog post pages in exceptionally competitive fields which prove this (with top 10 or top 20 rankings and no inbound links from topical authorities)

The bad part about outbound links to completely unrelated sites is that if you have is structured poorly it would make for a poor user experience.

[The Beach Bum]

Yes, OK. ... but will that work with the new Y! 

Hi everyone - first poster here.

I would just love what does work with Yahoo - SERP rankings remain the same for us on Google and we went for a couple of weeks with top of page 1 SERPs in Yahoo and then suddenly - overnight on Monday our sites sank out of sight on Yahoo.

Nothing changed on the pages but Yahoo suddenly took a great dislike to them.

[Leann_Pass]

I absolutely agree with outbound links, especially to authority sites, but then I always have.

In my opinion it accomplishes a couple of things...
First, relevant, on-topic links can be of great interest and help to the visitors.

Second, I believe it is possible that it helps establish the "neighborhood" your site lives in.
IMO, Just as linking out to a "bad" neighborhood is bad, linking to a "good" relevant neighborhood is good. If it doesn't help, and I have no proof that it does, it certainly does not hurt.

As for relevance, well, I agree with sticking to relevance. The problem is, as I am sure we all know, is that the search engines do not view relevancy the same way we do. Portfolios with links are a prime example of what IS relevant to the human viewer and what is NOT relevant to the SE.

Of course there are also cases when a designer may place their link on their clients site. I do not believe having these "off-topic" links hurt in any way. I know Teoma was mentioned in this thread as having a real problem with "off-topic" links, but I have seen no evidence of that. They have no problem with mine.

Just my opinion.

[Scottie]

Welcome The Beach Bum!

Sites with good content and relevant inbound links still seem to rank well with Yahoo- although they do seem to be manually removing affiliate sites. Does your site have a lot of affiliate content?

[The Beach Bum]

Welcome The Beach Bum!

Sites with good content and relevant inbound links still seem to rank well with Yahoo- although they do seem to be manually removing affiliate sites. Does your site have a lot of affiliate content?

None - it really got wiped for every keyword phrase where it hit page 1 or 2 of the SERPs - I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens over the coming month or so.

[Scottie]

Of course there are also cases when a designer may place their link on their clients site. I do not believe having these "off-topic" links hurt in any way.  I know Teoma was mentioned in this thread as having a real problem with "off-topic" links, but I have seen no evidence of that. They have no problem with mine.

Off topic links can confuse Teoma, but I wouldn't call it a real problem.

If you design sites and you link to all of them and they link to you, you've created a community or group based around sites built by Company X. That's not a bad thing, IMO. It's possible when you search for your company name, you'll see your client sites appear in the same search because they are relevant to that search.

Linking to and from viagra, mortgage, weight-loss pill, and casino sites may also create a linking group or community that you don't want to be part of. Think about it like this- if you charted out all the sites that linked to you and all the sites you link to, where would they group together? Where would they overlap? What search terms are likely to pull up a grouping of the same sites?

It's not as black-and-white as "I want to rank well for widgets, therefore I will only link to and from widget sites." You might also promote local businesses that are complementary to yours or accessory product sites, etc.

If there is a business reason to link to a site, do it. If you are only doing for the search engines, think twice. My

[ListGuy]

If they are completely irrelevant to your site, you are better off without them.

If it is a reciprical link, yet unrelated, then is it a benefit to keep or should it be discontinued?

[rohgan03]

ListGuy: Asked the right question.

I have a PR5 links page that buried in my site. I dont expect users ( atleast most users)to find it. I have some reciprocal links on that page...some relevant ...most non-relevant PR boosting link exchanges.

If I remove them .... I lose some PR.
If I keep them .... I lose relevancy.

My site is fairly well established now and have a lots of topic specific sites linking to me. Its PR5 right now. Just wondering what all factors I should consider in evaluating the trade off ?

[Jill]

Um no. Removing links from your pages will not make you lose PageRank.

Jill

[torka]

Well, if they're reciprocal, and the folks at the other end notice that you've taken your side of the exchange down, so they remove the links they had to you... I guess removing reciprocal links could affect a page's PR.

Assuming that the inbound links were bringing you measurable PR to begin with...

--Torka