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Reciprocal link
scams are on the rise. It is no secret that most search
engines count the quantity and quality of incoming links
to a website when deciding how to rank it. In fact some
give weight to the ratio of incoming links versus outbound
links. This has lead some webmasters to use some unscrupulous
tactics in order to inflate their search engine rankings
at the expense of their link partners.
FFA Links
Pages
Free for all
(FFA) links pages are worthless and potentially harmful
for your incoming link to be on. If a potential partner
has a page with no Page Rank and over 30 outbound links
be careful about placing your link there. True FFA pages
may have hundreds of outbound links on a page all going
to a wide variety of irrelevant websites.
This will either
be worthless in helping your website in the rankings race
or it may harm your rankings as some search engines will
penalize your website for having a link on an FFA page.
If your link is on a partner site that has over 30 outbound
links, this may not be a true FFA page, but most likely
this page will be disregarded by the search engines. This
will not be a good trade either. Your goal is to have quality
links pointing to your website. Why give out a quality link
from your website if you don't receive one in return.
Disconnected
Links Pages
Disconnected
links pages come in three types. The first type is a standalone
page that does not link to any other page on the website.
Sometimes a Webmaster will isolate the links page by not
linking it to any page whatsoever. In the second type, the
Webmaster can bury the page by linking it 4 or more levels
down from the homepage (robots usually do not crawl this
deep) and thus this link page will never be indexed and
your link will not count as an inbound link.
The third type
of disconnected page is a links page with a URL that is
different from the domain name of the site you want to link
to. This link page may be created by a service on the web
or software, but if you link to a partner's URL with a particular
domain name, make sure this same domain name is linking
back to you. The Webmaster will use this tactic in order
to receive lots of incoming links on his site and appear
to the search engines not to have a bunch of outbound links
from his site (your link is actually on another site, remember).
Dynamic Link
Pages
While not necessarily
a scam, this technique can leave you on the short end of
the reciprocal linking stick. It is no secret that most
search engine robots have difficulty in indexing dynamic
pages (the ones with the "?" in the URL) and simply
by-pass these pages. Some webmasters have taken to creating
their reciprocal links pages dynamically instead of statically.
The downside is that most of the time these links will never
show up in the search engines. The webmasters get a reciprocal
link from your website which most likely is static and has
some Page Rank and in return, they put your link on their
page which has no Page Rank and will never show up in the
search engines. This doesn't sound like an even trade does
it?
One way to check
this out is while you are in the process of checking out
some potential link partner sites (and if you have the Google
toolbar) check out the Page Rank on your potential partners'
link pages. If the page rank is zero this does not necessary
mean they are dynamic but it warrants further investigation.
If you go back and then forward in your browser you can
usually see if the page is dynamic. Also, many times the
page will have an .asp at the end or .php and probably a
"?" in the URL as mentioned before.
If you like
this potential link partner's website you can always ask
to trade links on a static page and / or some page with
a Page Rank of more than zero.
What can I do to insure a fair link trade?
You can insure
a fair link trade by first checking out your potential partner's
links page where your link will appear. Look to see that
it is static and has some Page Rank. Verify that the URL
of the links page comes from the same domain as the rest
of the website. Also make sure there are not over 30 outbound
links on this page. Also, start on the homepage and trace
the route to the links page. If it is more than 2 levels
down from the homepage, then don't trade (unless there is
some Page Rank of course). Make sure you can trace the path
to the links page to verify it is not a standalone page.
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