Originally posted by cat
sometimes people with non gaming sites ask me for LE.Could such a LE decrease rankings?
How important is LE for SE Rankings?
Linking to non-gaming sites can confuse Google about the theme of your site. As long as you don’t have many though, and they are on a link page rather than your main page or other important page you are probably fine.
More important is avoiding bad neighborhoods. Linking to sites that link to garbage means that you are linking to garbage. Certainly you should only link to high quality off-topic sites. Definitely avoid pharmacy and porn altogether.
Linking is one way a search engine can weigh your own judgement of quality. If you link to something that they consider junk, that is bad. if you link to lots of things that they think are bad, that is extremely bad.
Personally, I immediately delete 99% of offtopic solicitations if only because it is basically a sign that someone doesn’t know what they are doing and are very likely to link into a bad neighborhood.
Good links are important to have. Bad links are important to avoid.