Google to webmasters: Reciprocal linking will get you BANNED
 

http://esotericlabs.com/search-engin...you-banned.htm

Discuss.

Read the whole page before you freak out.

I read about this on Friday. This is really a bad thing for everyone.

google is trying to change the way the net works

Not only google..

Yahoo just shut down some of my groups with thousands of members recently... no email.. nothing.. I have had the groups for years and years... wish I could have just gotten all of my member names and emails before they so rudely canned it without notice :-(

FUCKERS:mad:

The Guidelines the article is referring to is vague, but too many people take everything exactly as written - a 100% literal interpretation which can lead to statements like this thread title.

I think before going off the deep end, note the word MAY ... If taken literally, implies that using recip links may qualify as a no-no.

Adam Lasnik quotes below the article and attempts to clarify a little, but as usual doesn't do a complete job:

And goes on to say they are constantly trying to clarify their stance on this subject (read: Decide how much is too much to tell webmasters - Too little and they'll continue this practice, too much and we give away some of how our algo works).

Bottom line:
Recip linking should only been done between similarly themed sites as a long-term, mutually beneficial partnership, that should ideally add value to the site visitor (e.g. "Go here for more help on this subject" etc.) and not for the sole purpose of increasing pagerank and other nefarious motives.

So for all of us linkex'ing, Thunder-balling and linking to anybody that asks, this is nothing new - we've been playing with fire and will get burned. For those that link smartly and/or properly (according the Google's guidelines) you have little to worry about, now or in the immediate future.

:thumbsup Do something to stand out! Be unique, make it worth the visitor's time in some way or another...

Ouch this sucks. :disgust

Similar themed sites unite!

The way i read it, was if you were swapping links for no real reason except to gain PR then it was a problem.

They aren't going to stop real link exchanges.

I thought Google did this years ago.

I think it's worse for bloggers than tgpers.... :pimp

"schemes" could be the key word - Not simple links between webmasters with similarly based sites building traffic - More a case of those sites selling X amount of links to boosts your google ranking - ?

Another bullshit from google as usual.WHy bother,here are yahoo and msn.

Well, the problem is that 90% of the swapped links on sites.

Lots of BS link swapping out there. Especially in porn.

to me that means nothing more than the existing guidelines already did. the guy from google even comes on there and says you can do it and re-references the things that you aren't supposed to do. what i got from reading the entire page is relevant sites are still ok. reading into it, to me that means if you have tow sites both with relevant content and not just some pages created for links, then its still ok. they said they are going to revisit it and come up with something amicable.

Good post A1R3k!

Oh my god, if it's on the Internet, it must be true!

oh my god. a sigwhore with a worthless response!


reciprocal links should be relevant. a site about golf should not have a link to a site about huge tits.