Hello,
I want to discuss this topic (Can LinkEx screw up your page rank and possition in google results? I think it can...) with more webmasters so I posted it here...
Why do I think that LinkEx can screw up your PR? The answer is quite simple... I use Google Webmaster Tools and there you can find the following text:
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Report paid links [?]
Help us maintain the quality of Google search results.
We work hard to return the most relevant results for every search we conduct. To that end, we encourage site managers to make their content straightforward and easily understood by users and search engines alike. Unfortunately, not all websites have users' best interests at heart. Some site owners attempt to "buy PageRank?" in the form of paid links to their sites. Buying links to improve PageRank violates our quality guidelines.
Google uses a number of methods to detect paid links, including algorithmic techniques. We also welcome information from our users. If you know of a site that buys or sells links, please tell us by filling out the fields below. We'll investigate your submissions, and we'll use your data to improve our algorithmic detection of paid links.
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Considering LinkEx as the easiest way to exchange hardlinks nowdays, I assume that google might consider it as something negative and I guess it might be considered as a kind of Paid Links (you link me, I link you) - even if the webmasters don't pay each other...
Ok, lets say noone will report you that you use LinkEx to get more hardlink trades, but I think noone has to report you... Google can simply analyse your web and found this in your HTML source:
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<!-- Output generated by LinkEX (+
http://linkex.dk/) -->
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or it can simply try if there is a most used directory where LinkEx is being installed and it's:
/linkex/
What I believe is that it's very simple for Google to find out who use LinkEx and give the site negative points and maybe not to transfer some of the PR to other sites the site links to...
LinkEx is alive for quite some time and Google surely knows about it... So I guess this solution would be logical from them...
What do you think?