Links from my site to others...

[johnbeau]

I have a site which is a database of gyms and on each page (1,000s) there are links going out to the gym. I also have lots of links which I've set up as reciprocal links but they haven't been reciprocated (aaargh!).

My question is do these outgoing links have a negative or proisitve effect with search engines...and following on from that should I remove these links.

Any comments,as always, much appreciated.

John

[The Old Sarge]

If the sites to which you link are not reciprocating, the links are not doing you much (if any) good. They are probably not harming you, however.

The idea with linking is to get links back to your site so you gain traffic, and perhaps more important, PR.

Did you contact the sites to which you link and request a reciprocal link?

[johnbeau]

Yep contacted them all in advance...still so long as it's doing no harm. Thanks very much for the advice, John

[The Old Sarge]

Do any of your pages have PR?

[johnbeau]

Not sure...how do I find out? Thanks again for your help. John

[The Old Sarge]

There are many tools for finding your PR. This (http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php) is a simple one that I've used for a few years. It seems to be about as accurate as any of the others. Just copy/paste whatever URL you wish to check. Don't forget to make sure the "http://" part only shows up once.

You can do a search for "web tools" and turn up a bajillion other goodies ... :)

[johnbeau]

Thanks that's been realy helpful. Only have a PR of 2 on homepage so I'm guessing I need to keep plugging the links?

[The Old Sarge]

Without actually seeing your site and some of its code, I can only speculate. But there's quite a bit more to PR than just links. How about a link to your site?

[johnbeau]

Thanks so much for your help. The site is www.gymvisit.com (http://www.gymvisit.com)

Amy advice on things that could be done would be much appreciated.

Cheres, John

[The Old Sarge]

The right click is disabled on your pages. I can't access your code in order to give any meaningful advice. How long has the site been active?

[johnbeau]

The site has been up for jst over 2 years. I had right click disabled to stop anyone stealing the content from the site...does that present a problem with Google etc do you think? Cheers, John

[The Old Sarge]

It's not a problem for the SEs but it prevents me from checking some things that could be related to PR issues. And if you've only been live for 2 years and you have a PR 2, you're doing something right. But I'd still have another word with those sites that will not reciprocate the links you've put up. You could be drawing on their PR to positively influence your own, assuming they have any.

[johnbeau]

Thanks so much for your help...it really is appreciated. If you think PR of 2 is good then that is reassuring. I'm trying to continue with link building and building the content and I guess its a question of time. A million thanks for your responses,

John

[ccdoshi]

Dear John Beau, Ya If You Get 1000's of Links on One Page That Mean Google Give You Negative Remarks For Your Site Because In The Google Guidelines Google Mentioned Limit of Links on Each Page....

So Dear Friend Please Read First Google Guidelines....

Thank You....

[johnbeau]

Thanks for advice. I've been trying to scatter links now across the site...all helpo much appreciated! John:)

[Duke]

I know it's been mentioned here already but I thought I'd just chime in if you don't mind. If a site is not reciprocating a link back to your site, remove the link and be done with it becasue there's no sense in sending your traffic away.

Also, I wouldn't recommend thousands of links unless your actually running some type of directory service. Quantity does not equal quality when it comes to linking so I'd strongly recommend cleaning things up.

Here's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_campaign) some decent information on types of linking strategies and their potential benefits/pitfalls.

[johnbeau]

thanks for that...it's a bit of a voyage of discovery this. Also people that ask for a link and then 'forget to reciprocate'...is it possible to have them shot;).

Have been puuting a lot of time in on link building but hard to tell if it's having any effect yet. All advice is much appreciated. j

[Duke]

I wouldn't expect thousand of hits coming your way from reciprocal links, in fact you'd be lucky to average one hit/link/day to your site. The fact is that sites vary how they choose to setup their linking strategies so just finding your link is half the battle sometimes. Assuming someone does manage to find your link on a reciprocating site, if it isn't relevant to the site their currently visiting there's little to no chance they'll even follow the link in the first place. This is the main reason why linking for the sake of linking is a waste of time (a waste of your time attaining the links and a waste of your visitors time having to surf through the non-targeted fluff).

The same can be said for listing in directories really because many of them have deep and confusing linking structures that only serve to bury links. As an example I'm listed in dmoz (http://www.dmoz.org/Home/Family/Chats_and_Forums/) (which many Webmasters trip over themselves to get in) for Lifesupporters.com yet I'm lucky to see a few clicks/week via dmoz and their spin offs. While I'm very glad to be included in dmoz it hasn't inundated my site with targeted traffic so all it really represents is a reasonably high profile backlink.

As for link worth analytics, if you want to see where your referrer traffic is coming from sign up for an Analytics Account (http://www.google.com/analytics/) or just monitor your incoming links/referrers via your webservers cPanel stats.

While reciprocal linking may help to increase your pages or overall site importance, it does NOT flood traffic to your site (at least not for me).

If you really want to hit the targeted traffic jackpot, content is king! Publish your little heart out on your main page, forums, etc., keep it relevant to your sites theme and they will come.

Also, if you don't know about SEO (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization), dive in because it will help you much more than any one reciprocal link ever can.

[The Old Sarge]

As an example I'm listed in dmoz (http://www.dmoz.org/Home/Family/Chats_and_Forums/) (which many Webmasters trip over themselves to get in) for Lifesupporters.com yet I'm lucky to see a few clicks/week via dmoz and their spin offs. While I'm very glad to be included in dmoz it hasn't inundated my site with targeted traffic so all it really represents is a reasonably high profile backlink.

Good post, Duke. And right on target.

I think the reason so many put so much emphasis on getting their site listed with DMOZ/ODP is because Google lends so much credence to DMOZ/ODP. There was a time, and I'm not so sure it has passed, that if you got listed in the ODP (Open Directory Project), your site was automatically indexed by Google ... since Google draws very heavily on the ODP. It's a natural, really.

However, I think most Web site owners and developers fail to realize that DMOZ/ODP has nothing to do with Google. The fact Google uses the ODP is Google's choice, no one else's.

[Duke]

Nowadays all you have to do is attain a backlink from an already indexed site and you can pretty much guarantee that your site will be indexed in short order. Contrary to popular belief however, forum signature links are not the best way to do this as many sites utilize the nofollow tag (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow).

You can also submit your site directly to Google, Yahoo and MSN to ensure your site is crawled pretty much immediately.

[The Old Sarge]

And what is the best strtegy to get one way links? I would guess that most Webgmasters/site owners will spend little time and even less effort adding links to other sites when they have nothing to gain themselves.

[Duke]

And what is the best strtegy to get one way links? I would guess that most Webgmasters/site owners will spend little time and even less effort adding links to other sites when they have nothing to gain themselves.

Good content is the only strategy I know of to get decent targeted inbound links.

[The Old Sarge]

Thanks, Duke. I agree. I was attempting to draw out Jenie. Possibly get her to elaborate. :)

[Duke]

Thanks, Duke. I agree. I was attempting to draw out Jenie. Possibly get her to elaborate. :)

Ya I hear you, it's easy to just drop some info. but backing it up is what helps. I just realized another way to get good one way links is from "Targeted" directories, not just any directory. I'm sure you can also attain some decent inbound links from social bookmarking (although some webmasters think this is a trend that will fade out, or so I've read), and possibly article submission sites.

I've no experience with article submission and limited with social bookmarking but I don't think either are a replacement for unique, informative and targeted content on your own site.

[The Old Sarge]

There are some good and reputable article directories out there but most I've seen are in it for the GoogleAds income and care for nothing else, not even the quality (or lack thereof) of the articles they tout. I don't think article links will fade completetly but I do think most of the GoogleAd pretenders will fall by the wayside ... eventually.

[Duke]

There are some good and reputable article directories out there but most I've seen are in it for the GoogleAds income and care for nothing else, not even the quality (or lack thereof) of the articles they tout. I don't think article links will fade completetly but I do think most of the GoogleAd pretenders will fall by the wayside ... eventually.

...either that or be funneled out of the google algo all together, I agree TOS.

Honestly I see little reason to publish your valuable content anywhere other than your own site. Is a backlink really worth potentially sending your targeted traffic to another site?