Google: No More Fancy Link Schemes!
Posted by Mike | Filed under Google
A lot of webmasters have been trading links with each other to get more visitors and to get a higher PageRank. Link exchanges proved to be very effective in terms of giving webmasters more exposure for their websites. After having no problems for some time, Google updated its webmaster guidelines and stated that reciprocal linking is a link scheme which is against the webmaster guidelines of Google.
On this page, you can see that Google despises buying and selling links (I think this is the reason why Text-Link-Ads is out of the first page of Google when you search for “text link ads”!). Google also hates links which manipulate a page’s PR. And you can also see there that reciprocal linking is a violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines!
Looking at the situation now, most webmasters consider Google as THE search engine — nothing can beat it and we should all focus on getting higher Google rankings. This means that Google’s rules are very important and not abiding by them will get our sites into a big trouble.
Here the things that violate the new webmaster guidelines (from Google’s Webmaster Help Center):
- Links intended to manipulate PageRank
- Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
- Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging (”Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)
- Buying or selling links
Notice the word “excessive” in the new rule which talks about link exchanges. What exactly does Google mean? Does it mean that we can still trade links, but there’s a limit to doing so?
If the guidelines meant that reciprocal linking and buying/selling links are REALLY against the rules, what options do webmasters have to get better Google rankings? Is Google trying to say that our sites’ PR and Google rankings must come naturally and that we must not have any control over it? If that’s the case, link brokers like TLA and LinkWorth will not generate any revenue any more.
If we can’t trade links with each other, then LinkMarket and other link exchange sites will surely be out of business any time soon… and if there’s any way to exchange links, I think the only plausible method is to do a three-way link exchange (though Google might be up to something… what if the big G is trying to detect three-way exchanges?).
I’d like to know everyone’s opinion on this. Please send your views by commenting on this post. Thanks!
i think i will switch to yahoo if this is really true… as the saying goes, don’t put all eggs in one basket..
you are right, most webmasters concentrate on google only… we shouldn’t focus too much on google, try to optimize on other search engines too!
Hey
Nothing new here. Reciprocal linking has not had much effect in years.
I first wrote about it over two years ago.
http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Google-Optimization-Help/Links-Why-They-Are-Of-Little-Value-In-Helping-To-Achieve-Front-Page-Google-Results/
Whats funny is it was one of my lower rated articles. Seems being able to see inside a search giant scares people or makes them jealous lol…
Peace!
[…] Links schemes don’t work […]
Hi Clint!
I just posted this to let everyone know about the new Google guidelines. I’m not saying that reciprocal linking is not effective.
Anyway, I would like to know your opinion on this issue. Is it right that Google revised their webmaster guidelines? Is it fair for the webmasters?
Thanks for dropping by!
I think it’s worth taking the message in the spirit in which it was intended - Google is asking “does your link scheme add value for the user?”
Unsurprisingly, most link exchange pages don’t add any value, and I can’t say I’m sad to see them go.