Taking Down Link Exchange Pages

John,

If you like to read more about Google guidlanes in regard to the Reciprocal Links look the address below: Creating "GOOD from BAD"!... HOW? - Guideline from GOOGLE.

It is not that Google punish the Linkexchange pages but the quality and relevance of those links 

I have a few relevant links on my website that are to directories my business is listed in - hasn't seemed to affect my ranking - I come up on page one for almost anything pertaining to home staging and my area.

Most of this I do credit to AR, comments on newspaper articles & articles I have done, and Merchant Circle. 

It is all very confusing. One expert says this. One says that. I think links that are releated to your business makes you move up.

Not so fast there!  I would not be so quick to remove link pages...  Page rank is built of various items.  One of them being link popularity.  Earlier this year MSN when it moved to LIVE  stopped indexing pages listed in its site.   Whether  or not Google has ever acknowledged using MSN link results may never be known, but from the spider sources I used, I knew it immediately.  In fact it was published on the tools I used, and MSN's site that they were no longer participating.  Coincidently, atht he same time Google's page ranking changed... across the board downward.  The Google Dance I wrote about sarted in the end of March.  I know this personally because of the tools I use to measure page rank.  I personally dropped across the board on all my sites.  You may have done nothing wrong including having quality links to your site.  It cannot appear to be a link farm.  So if you are linking similar sites such as real estate related to real estate related as in a referral page, real estate resource page, or national relocation pages...you should be OK.  If you are penalized for position it may be for other reasons.  Google did a Google Dance earlier this year and I wrote a blog about it.  The two issues are totally unrelated.

http://activerain.com/blogsview/60398/Can-t-Find-Your

 

I believe in links and will exchange with any real estate related people.

I can't remember who wrote the post, but somewhere I saw something about reciprocating in a circle of 3, as in one to the next, then that one to a different one, then the 3rd one back to you, to avoid to reciprocal links penalties.

Yeah Lisa, that's a bad idea. Some people thought of that when reciprocal link abuse started to get noticed by the engines. That lead to three way linking, which was quickly identified by the engines. In the end it is a scheme designed to manipulate the search engine and it falls outside of their guidelines. I believe it is considered worse by the engines because it is purely manipulation where one to one exchanges in many cases can be justified by the direct traffic defense.

Whoa! I consider myself to be a tech junkie but this whole SEO business has kept me outta the website marketing game. I joined this group to get exposed to others who are using these concepts to grow their business online. Is there a good place to start to get a basic understanding of How to get your website recognized and ranked by the search engines and then implement a strategy to move up to #1 rankings in relevant searches for that site?

It's all about the quality of the links. The reciprocal link farms will definitely hurt your page ranking. The farms don't have quality links so they end up actually hurting your page ranking. You might use a couple of these, but you really need high-quality, one-way links to your site. Use sites that will let you add a listing with a brief description of your business. Get listed in all the local directories like Yelp, Google Local, etc.

Thank you for the info, I have had the same thing happen and didn't know why. I will make the change immediately.

Deanna Casalino

Remax Realty Goup Fort Myers FLA

 

It's tough enough keeping track of Real Estate information so that we can provide the best professional advice. In today's world, we have to IT junkies as well. In the end it's about relationships. I'll keep the links to maintain the peer-to-peer.

Thanks for the link post. I will check this out!

ps this is from your 7-8-2007 post

You are right to do this. Google has been really hurting sites for their link pages.

John,

I experienced the same thing you did. After I removed the Links page, I returned to my original spot.

Now, I concentrate on good blog information to get me noticed. My websites are still doing well but fresh information if "King" with Google now.

John,

SEO is constantly evolving, changing from month to month I guess. I haven't seen any loss of position at Google yet despite link exchanges. They are very industry-specific, maybe that has helped. Good reminder to everyone.

 

John,

My links page got me to the top but later got me kicked out. I removed that page and my site returned to the top so links page is now a no-no. I haven't seen a problem with linking to directories. 

Thanks for the information. I am very new to internet marketing and all this info helps a lot.

John,  Just to set the record straight:  We purchased the scottsdalerealestate.com site and then renovated it in 2006.  We did not understand that it had many links embedded.  Once we did, we removed them ASAP.  I tried to contact every person who had a link on the site to let them know what was happening.  Sorry my message did not reach you.  Thanks so much for posting this blog - I appreciate the opportunity to let you know the real story. Also, this is great info for everyone to know. Even after removing the links, I am finding our site related to the former linked sites out on the web.  Just goes to show the longevity of these links - I am working with our SEO company to make sure we do not get penalized.

John,

I joined this group to learn more about web rankings and placement.  I get very little internet lead generation.  After reading your blog, I realize how much I have to learn.  I would love to be a real presence on the net like it sounds like you are.  Maybe someday.  Thanks so much for giving me an idea of what this group is about!

I really wonder if google doesn't just change up the criteria and ranking every now and then. And everyone runs around trying to change their stuff then it shifts back. i wouldn't change anything to quick on links. I wouldn't do a link farm, but the bottom line is we don't know what really google uses so you don't want to change the wrong things.