4 replies to this topic

[zzmac]

A direct competitor to us sent me an email asking for a reciprocal link - they had already put a link to our site on theirs.

 

I know it's very important (good link juice) for links to emanate from within your industry but I thought (at first) that this was crazy? Why would I link to a direct competitor who might clients might see!

 

So I went to their site and found out that the page where they put all their links isn't really visible (or can you get to) from their normal pages. They had a lot of links from competitors so I'm assuming (rightly or wrongly) that other competitors have linked back to them.

 

If I put a page of links from my competitors on my site and it could only be found through one of my three pages of site maps, then none of my clients would ever see it. But it could in turn generate links from competitors sites to mine.

 

Is this a strategy that would work?? Or am I missing something here? :-)

[chrishirst]

Is this a strategy that would work?? Or am I missing something here?

 

Yes, you are.

 

I know it's very important (good link juice) for links to emanate from within your industry

 

The fact that this ^^^^^^^^^^^ isn't really that "important"

[zzmac]

 

Yes, you are.

 

 

The fact that this ^^^^^^^^^^^ isn't really that "important"

 

I guess I am missing something then!

 

I've been away from the SEO world for awhile, so what constitutes a good link now. I had always thought that a link from an industry related website was better than others.

[Jill]

That's such a 1990's linking scheme. Can't believe some are still doing the ole "hide the links page" thing!

[qwerty]

You probably received a template email from them saying something about how both sites will benefit from the links, Google loves links, blah blah blah, and it was probably written by the software that generated the page on which they've already given you this very valuable link.

 

The page is impossible to find because they only want search engines and the people who are considering linking to them to see it, and that's a sure sign that the links exist only for the hope of some ranking benefit -- I can guarantee you're never going to see a hit on your site coming from that page. And Google is getting pretty good at finding links that only exist for the hope of some ranking benefit and making sure they provide no ranking benefit.