Is link exchange doing more harm than good?

[multilingual]

I recently put up a posting about one of my sites disappearing from the top page of Google's listings.

Not knowing why, I decided to trawl through all the spider reports on every single page to try and pick up a few clues. (a long job on a site with over 400 pages)

Anyway, after a while I noticed a pattern which is either just coincidence or very important.

I found that nine of my pages were dropped by Google on the same day as my site went missing. These nine pages all contained the work 'link' in the page url.

......com/add-your-link.html, ....com/link-exchange.html, ...etc

No other pages were dropped on that day, nor since. My site as a whole is still indexed but is now well down the rankings.

So here is my thought: Are we looking at a new Google approach to penalising people who actively seek links, in preference to those who receive links for no other reason than they are actually worth linking to because of their content?

If you are not actively seeking links but still have plenty, then you may be considered as more relevant to a search.

Have I stumbled across the next big thing in SEO or should I just get my coat? :?

JB

 

[DuaneJackson]

They are penalising against those that actively seek links.

We have always had a link to our site from the bottom of every page on sites we develop (Assuming the client was OK with it). This is now considered to be a Bad Thing by google.

Not sure if they are picking it up in the way you are reporting though. Worth keeping an eye on.

 

[Enigma121]

Natural linking occurs when the content of the site is right. This is why syndicated content is so important, as it allows you to include links back from sites that genuinely use the content you provide.

It's not a surprise that Google are rewarding sites with better content and therefore more natural linking. This shifts the focus more on content and syndicating that content and less on links.

The content part is not a new idea. The shift in Google's focus is. It's good news for us, as we can help our customers achieve this painlessly.

 

[MSOMedia]

I'm guessing one of the reasons you may have dropped in the rankings is your inbound links. You've only got 6 sites linking to you (http://tools.marketleap.com/publinkpop). Google thinks your site's not that important because no-one's linking to it. When the number of relevant incoming links drops, your PageRank drops too.

From what I can tell you seem to be doing everything right on your Links pages. Your links are categorised, ordered and relevant. It may be worth contacting all of the people on your link list and asking them to reciprocate. It's a time consuming job, but worth it.

I disagree that Google penalises you for exchanging links, and even actively seeking them, because that's what the Internet is: an interconnected network: Inter - net. People think reciprocal links are all about making Google happy, but that's only part of the story. If the site you're linking to is popular, that site's visitors are more liekly to visit their links page and find your link, then visit your site. If done properly, link exchange can be very valuable. If even a small mistake is made, it can hurt your site.

If it's of any help, I wrote a couple of articles on linking for my weekly newsletter. The links are below:

Part One - http://www.msomedia.com/results/gr00006.htm
Part Two - http://www.msomedia.com/results/gr00007.htm

 

[multilingual]

Thanks MSO,

However, the site I am talking about is not the one listed below, it is another one of mine:

http://www.english-to-russian-translation.com

The site below is only newly built.

Cheers

JB

 

[MSOMedia]

Damn it, I'll get my coat.

If you have "the knowledge" of XML, you can give Google a better idea of the contents of your site. They've got a not-quite-new scheme called "Google Sitemaps" which is in beta at the moment. The idea is: you submit an XML file which tells Google all about your website: all the pages that you want Google to find, how often they change, when they were last updated etc. Google then uses that information to crawl your website, so it should pick up pages that it otherwise may have missed.

Hope that's of some help,
-Mark

 

[multilingual]

Cheers,

I don't know the first thing about XML, but my site host does all that Google Site-Map thing automatically. They started back in June.

All I had to do was log into Google and get some 'key' which was about 30 characters long. Then I just insert that string into my control panel and it's all automated from then on. The site map is updated every time I change, or add a page. Yahoo also have site map submitting.

The last time it was submitted was on 31/10/05.

All my pages are indexed, apart from the nine pages that were dropped, and those are the "link exchange" pages.

Coincidence? Starting to wonder.

JB

 

[MSOMedia]

I'd have a look at your Links page(s) but I can't find a link to them. Whereabouts can I find a link to your links page?

 

[multilingual]

Bottom of the page, "Partner Directory"

JB

 

[MSOMedia]

Thanks JB!

Wish I had an answer for you. Maybe Google thinks you've got too many links? I don't know. If so, you could probably stand to lose a few of the categories, liek "Kids & Teens" and "Dating" etc.

I clicked through every category in your Links pages and Google has a PageRank for each of these pages, which means those pages are indexed.

Sorry, I'm out of answers I'm afraid!

-Mark

 

[multilingual]

I kept the dating links because they are mainly links to Russian dating sites, which ties in with the Russian translation, but there may be an argument to remove some of the less relevant links.

Thanks for looking anyway.



JB

 

[Srivvy]

Hello Multilingual

I know Im a bit late replying here, but you certainly have too many irrelevant link categories in your directory.

The idea of linking to other sites is that you offer your visitors more information to assist their search. Someone browsing your site about translation is unlikely to be looking for food and drink or information on birds. Even if you can give a reason, it is going to be far to tenuous for a search engine.

There should be plently of language related sites in the world that you could exchange links with, rather than going with anyone that you happen to find or that finds you.

 

[clairemackaness]

Well I'm glad I've been sticking to my original principle of only linking to those who are art releated or have a reason to be on my site. All my odd links are tucked well away on pages that I dont mind Google ntot picking up.

Personally as a web user I cant stand sites that are full of irrelavant links and usually go elsewhere.