Too Many Links Too Fast Options

[Papadoc]

I've seen this warning over and over again regarding getting too many links too fast having the sandbox effect. Yet I've never seen it discussed beyond this.

What is too many? What is too fast? Is this only for new sites? What happens if you are an older site and want to start a marketing campaign? Does the site then get sandboxed? Do you get out of the sandbox with your links still in tact and counting?

I am looking to hire a marketing relationship manager and part of this duty would be to negotiate reciprocals between us and complementary sites, and pick up links from others who would promote the organization. I should point out that the site that this is being done for is a non-profit org and so we should be able to pick up links quickly if my experience holds true. One of the areas that we have tested this is with media organizations (television radio) where they point from a community services page. Not exactly site<->site complementary but perhaps more so from a page topic perspective. I could estimate that with a dedicated person, we should be able to pick up between 20-30 per day. BUT!!! Is that going to sandbox a domain that's been around for over a year and shows VERY well in the results?

Any advice would be helpful

[SearchRank]

BUT!!!  Is that going to sandbox a domain that's been around for over a year and shows VERY well in the results?

First of all, if the site already shows well, why do you want more links?

That being said I think what is called the sandbox effect for sites that instantly acquire thousands of new links would only apply to those that are getting bunches of them from just a few locations. I couldn't see getting a few each day from a variety of sites having a "sandbox" type of effect, especially on an older, established site.

[Scottie]

Typical linking campaigns for existing sites don't seem to be affected, although new links are taking longer to "kick in".

If you are getting links with relevant sites in the hope of driving more useful traffic, I wouldn't worry about whether they show up very quickly or not!

[Papadoc]

First of all, if the site already shows well, why do you want more links?

I should have said that about 4500 internal pages show up very well (position 1-2) when searchers use geographical information (city/state), and they do about 50% of the time. However, for those users who do not include geographic search terms, though the main page shows up in position 13 in Google, it is not seen in the top 200 in Yahoo. Since we are highly optimized on the home page, I believe our only direction to go at this point is to obtaining new links.

We are exclusively seeking links from established sites, most of which have been around for at least 3 years. There could be a question regarding the complementary nature site<->site however, as we are community service oriented and these are largely media outlets such as television, radio, and newspaper. However, the links that we are seeking are from pages that also point to other community service organizations as well. Would that mean that links from these pages might also be sandboxed?

[Googlewhacked]

I don't know if this will help, but I wrote an email to a coworker not too long ago on this subject. Here is the relevant excerpt:

"Let say that you have a person who works on obtaining directory submissions & links from relevant, related websites all day long. Assuming that (s)he manages to find & submit the site (s)he represents to 10 relevant sites per day (a realistic number, IMHO), and that an average of 70% of those result in links back to the site being promoted, that translates to:

7 sites / day
35 sites / week
140 sites / month (going with a 4-week month)
1820 sites / year (52 weeks)"

Granted there are ways to accelerate the process & some organizations have multiple sites & may be willing to to exchange links from all of them, but the above numbers still wouldn't be all that far from the mark.

Also, it seems to me that a portion of these links will be to internal pages of a site vs. all of them going to the root domain.

I know that there are link buying programs out there that will give you a text link from every page of their 12000 page site, but the vast majority of those links are devalued, so the link pop. benefit is negligible.

Phil

This post has been edited by Googlewhacked: Oct 19 2004, 02:51 PM

[Shane]

though the main page shows up in position 13 in Google, it is not seen in the top 200 in Yahoo. Since we are highly optimized on the home page, I believe our only direction to go at this point is to obtaining new links.

I read here that Yahoo doesn't place nearly as much value on links that Google and Teoma do. They place more value on on-page elements.

Now, I have no personal experience that proves that out, nor have I seen any elsewhere, but it seemed to be a reasonable claim from a reasonable person. I'd certainly be interested to learn more about that.

[powerofeyes]

I read here that Yahoo doesn't place nearly as much value on links that Google and Teoma do. They place more value on on-page elements.

That has been the thought from the day yahoo launched their own search engine,

But our recent tests shows yahoo puts a lot more weight on anchor text from unique established sites than google or any other search engine, This came as a surprise to us but we tested this across some 25 sites and all proved yahoo gives a lot of weight to anchor text of incoming links from established and popular unique sites,

if you dont believe me test it out your self, Dont put links with anchor text on some junk links page but put it on a valuble page( possible homepage) on a valuble position,

Answering Papadoc if you want your inner pages rank well in yahoo, get some links to important inner pages with appropriate anchor text, Yahoo doesnt seem to give the same credit google gives to an internal links,

Google gives a lot of credit to internal anchor text links but it is not the same case with yahoo,

[Shane]

That's exactly what I was looking for, powerofeyes. How exactly did you do your tests?

[powerofeyes]

How exactly did you do your tests?

By placing keyword phrase anchor text links on established sites to the targeted client site or our own site,

[Shane]

How long did it take for you to see it impact Yahoo's results?

[powerofeyes]

Believe me or Not, 6 to 12 days (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) , Those sites are crawled by yahoo slurp everyday and the effect of the links are visible in a week, I first hated yahoo badly but we love yahoo (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Now,

[Shane]

Very interesting. I'm going to test that as well. I'll report back and let you know how it worked for us.

[magellan]

First of all, if the site already shows well, why do you want more links?

You can never have too many links IMO. For this kind of site a lot of traffic may come from decent links.

[Leann_Pass]

I could estimate that with a dedicated person, we should be able to pick up between 20-30 per day. BUT!!! Is that going to sandbox a domain that's been around for over a year and shows VERY well in the results?

20-30 links per day for an established NPO is perfectly reasonable...NO it shouldn't set off any alarms. In fact, if your marketing mgr uses anchor text wherever possible, sticks to mostly relevant sites, and does not reciprocate with "bad neighborhoods" it should give you a huge boost in the SEs and really improve overall visibility.

I wouldn't worry about the sandbox, I don't think most people need to. Those affected by it are generally those with new sites that come straight out of the box with thousands of links....I think it is obviously an unnatural circumstance when a site automatically has say.. 20,000 links the 1st day it's live =). I don't blame G for sandboxing them.

Like Scottie said, links seem to take longer to count with G these days, but that is certainly not a reason to be concerned.

Leann

[glengara]

IMO, if you're 13 in G but not in the first 200 in Y! it is not a link/anchor text problem.

Have you had anyone confirm your pages are well optimised for Y!?