The Reciprocal Link Ban!
Posted on: August 7th, 2007 by BompaReciprocal Linking is now a Google Violation
I could barely believe my eyes!
Google has posted a new webmaster guidelines page titled “Link schemes”, which clearly states that reciprocal linking, (”Link to me and I’ll link to you.”), is against their TOS and can “negatively impact” your site’s ranking.
This is very bad news! Coming into an agreement with a fellow webmaster to trade links has been the number one method of gaining links for years. Many very good sites will have a Links page or Partners page where other webmasters in their niche can submit their linking information for consideration. This is now against Google’s TOS and those pages will have to be taken offline.
A very opinionated thread at webmaster-talk.com.
Bompa
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dink
This move doesn’t surprise me. With all of the attention Google has been giving to the paid link sector, it was only a matter of time until they made this official.
I believe they have been de-valuing recip links for quite a while. Possibly even applying a penalty for them.
I started seeing a drop in rankings on a lot of my white(ish) affiliate sites in March of this year.
After a lot of study, I concluded that the big G was doing something about recip links. So, I dropped all of the links, partners, or whatever, pages from those sites.
The sites have not come back. Very possible that they have gone to sup hell.
perkiset
WTF???
So in a pure WH environment, 2 cancer support sites link to each other as resources and this is now considered bad or even punishable? WTF is that about? That is the very nature of the web! So, what - linking is now supposed to be like that well known sex act, “68″ - or, you do me and I’ll owe you one… or is it that the web now has to have either link givers or link receivers… the eGoatse!
dink
Ya. The serps have been fished so badly that the mighty G is lashing out in any direction it can.
The spammers have other ways for links. The other guys are in deep doodoo.
fantomaster
If nothing else, it’s an act of sheer desperation. And boy, are we weeping to see that dinosaur go, eh?
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Gurtie
>>The spammers have other ways for links. The other guys are in deep doodoo.
yeah. once again the little guys who actually don’t have SEO but do what comes naturally will get penalised and everyone who can pay an SEO or know whats going on will be fine. Nice going Google.
Also potentially quite easy to cause problems for a competitor who links out. So lets wreck natural linking a bit more.
Earl Grey
This will kill the entire blogging community.
I really cant see how they can enforce this.
I know of maybe 20 sites on the internet that dont do this.
The indexes are going to be very bare.
dink
Serge and Brin screwed up to begin with. Back in the day, a link was a way of traveling from one place to another. Had nothing whatsoever to do with trust, or other B.S.
Bulletin boards posted links to hundreds and hundreds of sites because there was something interesting at the end of the link. Not necessarily good or evil or funny or informative, just something.
The Google brain fart assigned something to the link that was never there. They’ve been paying the price ever since.
Shouldn’t be too very long before an inbound link means nothing for serps. Sometime before that happens, anchor text will no longer pass link juice.
Hooray for LSI.
Adam Lasnik
You know, we all need a little outrage in our lives. I highly recommend, though, that such outrage be saved for things that… well, are worth getting worked up for.
Back in the days when I read threadwatch, I saw some pretty stark (and oft-amusing) fearmongering. This, however, might have even higher LBR (LinkBaitRank).
Let’s take a sec to actually read the guidelines at issue here:
—
[…] However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:
* Links intended to manipulate PageRank
* Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
* Link exchange and reciprocal links schemes (”Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)
* Buying or selling links
—
[emphasis mine]
Out of context, I understand how the mention of reciprocal linking might result in someone mistakenly assuming that we’re absolutely against that practice. But I’d think even a cursory reading of the whole page (actually even just the top part) would make things pretty clear. And, in more more thoughtful circumstances, it would also stave off misleading headlines like the one above ;).
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fantomaster
“The Google brain fart assigned something to the link that was never there.”
Couldn’t agree more and have said the same since day 1 when they launched - because they couldn’t think up anything smarter for their theses than some overblown citation index (a particularly American academic predilection that’s always been widely ridiculed at most European universities, surprise surprise), applying it to the COMMERCIAL Web of all unlikely places, they’re in no position anymore to resolve the idiotic problems they created for themselves - and everybody else - in the first place.
But then again Google was never a real, bona fide search engine in the first place e.g. like AltaVista, Fast and Teoma once were - they’re merely a data mining spyshop, because that’s where the money is.
Brad
Frankly, I think we should just go about doing what we’ve always done with regard to recip. linking. In my little uncommercial niches most recip. linking is done from those awful ‘links pages’ anyway. Mainly because amateur webmasters don’t know any better.
fantomaster
@Adam: Rather than dole out the customary Koolaid (you no evil, right? Well, a man might be pardoned to nurture some doubts in view of the facts of history…) by quoting peppered with polemic allegations of “fearmongering” and inaccuracy (so all those who are criticizing Google’s policy weren’t able to grasp what “even a cursory reading” would have easily made clear, eh?) you might perhaps do something constructive to set people’s minds at ease rather than trying to insult their intelligence.
E.g. as in telling us what *exactly* Google is doing to determine “intent”:
I mean, how are “Links intended to manipulate PageRank” any different from links that aren’t?
Or links of the “Link to me and I’ll link to you” kind? (Not many others left when you rule out those…)
You got some super duper confessional robot around that’ll tell you that without fail? (Not that Googlers are particularly beyond pontificating, so a RoboPope might indeed seem in good order, pun intended.)
Or is Google into mindreading now? Ok, so we’ve got PsychicWhois already - and you guys in Mountainview are merely upping the ante, hm?
Is Google HeartSearch in the offing, perhaps? Have you been peaking into webmasters’ dark souls to be so dismissive about those who find it queer, to put it very mildly, that you’re being so blatantly cavalier about the purported mathematical exactitude (I mean: you ARE still into algorithms, right?) of terms and concepts the ambiguity of which has baffled philosophers, mystics and theologians for millenia? Do feel free to let us know.
Belief, belief, belief - “intention”, “bad”, “evil”, “right”, “wrong”, “mission” even: Where I come from, people who keep throwing about these terms are generally suspected to be part of a cult.
But then, maybe you people actually HAVE discovered or invented the Philosopher’s Stone of determining even the minutest little twitch and quirk of the human mind and we’re all in for a big Rapture fest? As Judas said in “Jesus Christ Superstar”: “Don’t get me wrong/don’t get me wrong/I want to know.” Please.
Bompa
Hi Adam and welcome to Threadwatcher.
Having not communicated in any way with you before this, I decided to ummmm, Google your name and check your sites. I was quite suprised to see your involvement with the Lindy Hop. I did a bit of that decades ago, it’s great fun.
Fearmongering and LinkBait’ing? Haha, I won’t deny either one of them. Whenever, wherever I post, it’s my job to catch the reader’s attention with a descriptive and catchy Title, I hope I’ve done that here.
I understand your point of view on this matter and I welcome your future comments.
Bompa
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Rynert
“Out of context, I understand how the mention of reciprocal linking might result in someone mistakenly assuming that we’re absolutely against that practice. But I’d think even a cursory reading of the whole page (actually even just the top part) would make things pretty clear.”
Adam, your average Joe Webmaster is going to read that and think Google is saying link exchanges will get you banned from Google.
You can argue the in or our of context all you like but that won’t change how it will be interpreted.
If this was not the intention then I am sure the copy will be updated to make it clear that reciprocal linking won’t get you penalised by Google.
If it was the intention, it will stay just how it is.
Gurtie
lol - trained by the master eh Adam?
Adam Lasnik
Fantomaster, it’s important to keep in mind that — contrary to what you’ve suggested — we don’t limit ourselves to algorithmic computations and input. We rely upon both machines and humans to keep up the quality in our index.
And, yes, we will continue to assess intent. To the extent that we can determine innocent mistakes from maliciously spammy ones, it serves both webmasters and other users well. On a lighter note, I must commend your taste in musicals: I’m generally not a big Andrew Lloyd Webber fan, but I did think JCS was a pretty interesting and entertaining musical. Still, Sondheim is better
Bompa, not sure how we haven’t run into each other before, but nice to meet you and cool to hear that there are other swing-dance fans out there
And while I disagree and dislike the whole sensationalist thing, I have to at least give you props for noting essentially “guilty as charged” with a smile.
Rynert, you raise some good points. I was disappointed that the more “seasoned” webmasters that one would expect here would take the time to read stuff more carefully before making rather stark assumptions. But as Bompa conceded, the original post was meant more as linkbait than a thoughtful observation, so that explains some things.
Still, your comment about “joe webmaster” resonates; I’ll chat with my colleagues to see what we can do to make this issue more clear. Because at the end of the day, it’s *our* guidelines and docs, and we have the responsibility to make them as helpful as we can (in 18+ languages, too… whew!)
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fantomaster
Adam: Nothing personal, and while your good humor is well appreciated, I really wouldn’t take this affair too lightly. Because in case you haven’t noticed by now, viewing some of the industry’s reaction all over the place you’re being perceived at gate crashing the very underpinnings and the most fundamental tenets the WWW (which, like it or not, are links). Can’t really blame people for resenting that, can we now?
Ok, so we’ve always known about Google frowning on all kinds of link schemes and SERP manipulation, but be that as it may: what your guidelines’ wording put over (whether intentional or not) is just what Rynet says - and terming it FUD is positively no exaggeration, no matter the linkbait it may be attached to. (Ever considered what a lame excuse all this “linkbait” arguing has turned into? Now whose fault is that, I wonder?)
So you’re discerning intent, eh? And who are you (seeing that it’s not all algo driven after all, as you point out) to judge my intentions when linking to anywhich site?
But as you Googlers all seem to be so dreadfully hooked on religious language, may I refer you to Matt. 7:1? (Now if THAT abbreviation isn’t an ironic coincidence, I really don’t know what is, heh…)
As for JCS, I’m actually no big fan of musicals at all - the only version of JCS I do happen to truly enjoy is the Laibach one.
Adam Lasnik
Dang, I thought we had at least found some common ground with musicals, fantomaster
And back on a less artistic note… yes, we do take these issues seriously, which is why we bother to follow a zillion blogs and forums, do an enormous number of search quality tests on a regular basis, maintain and expand a Webmaster Help Center in 18 languages, engage with webmasters around the world online and at conferences, and so on.
I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on the intent issue, though. You seem to take offense at us judging anything at all, but that’s what a quality search engine does: it constantly makes decisions on what is important and relevant, and that requires judgment. And rather than limit ourselves to black and white automated decisions, we scalably tackle search quality issues with a mix of automated and non-automated evaluations… of which assessing intent plays a part in improving the quality of our index.
We frown upon PageRank manipulation because it can potentially harm the quality of our search results.
We’re constantly updating and improving our documentation; I’ve shared this thread with our doc folks so they can potentially better understand how our guidelines are perceived and strive to make them more clear.
wizardman
Does this mean all those BLOGS with incredibly good pages ranks and awesome Google ratings are now going to fall off the face of the earth. I mean if you really think about it that’s the only way people managed to get their BLOGS read and seen was to setup reciprocal links with other BLOGS in the industry.
fantomaster
Adam: Of course you’ll have to assess relevance and quality if you want to get anywhere at all. What I’m pointing out is that that’s exactly what you’d better focus on - which is really subjective enough, I would think - rather than trying to divine people’s blooming intentions of all unlikely factors.
And let’s get real here: If you really want to follow and check out manually (even if algo aided) a link trail that will make you hop around half the Web via dozens of relay points, how well is THAT supposed to scale?
So you’ll likely have to work by pre-selection, e.g. primarily targeting the more spam-prone verticals, right?
IrishWonder
I believe what he means is the cases of manual review - but still,under the circumstances, it looks like the whole web will appear under manual review
Justin Goldberg
Statcounter links still work:
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-08-13-n50.html
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nop_90
I hope this rumor is true.
It will be super easy to fuk G over