Originally posted by arkyt
I think I hammered Links Manager enough in the past too!
I’d hope this thread stays public as arkyt has posted two little comments that lots of webmasters have ignored for a long time, and some are paying now.
Large amounts of front page links are a signal of pure spam. Whether a site is spammy or not isn’t really the point, Google can only algorithmically judge sites, not literally read their content. Sites with five-zillion-hyphens-in-every-file-name also send out a spam signal, even though there is no reason necessarily that those pages are spam. The fact however is pages like that often are spammy, so you start with off under a “yellow flag”, so to speak. It is easier to be judged harshly shoulkd other negative signals appear.
Any amount of off site links on a main page over ten was always a terrible idea, as are massive link directories. Google’s basic idea behind pagerank is a good one… when a site genuinely links to another site, it is a “vote” of confidence. This has lead to garbage link exchanges in every sector of the Internet where many webmasters simply will swap (or try to swap) with anybody and everybody.
Who you link to has mattered a lot for six months. if you link to someone who links to a spammy or garbage site, this can hurt you, and I expect it has been hurting a lot of people here who make many link swaps but don’t follow the daisy chain of who the other site links to… and who those sites link to, and so on.
dollars gambling, the .md sites, and other empires built on a foundation of non-genuine linking have been kicked into the dumper… and maybe some won’t agree with me, but I say: good.
My personal observation, and this isn’t exhaustive of course, mass link trading (or crosslinking) sites have lost PR while those with more higher quality linking have gained.
Don’t chop your content up onto microdomains; link to sites because you like their quality and/or they are linked to by quality sites; don’t use link exchange programs or software; definitely don’t link to huge numbers of related or unrelated sites from main pages; and *pay attention* to who your link partners link to… Google emphasized that in November and it’s even more important now.
Personally I don’t think a “blacklist” is appropriate either public or private, but I hope this stays out in public view — even I expect to get flamed by some links manager lovers…. 