by 3 people |
Link Cancer - The Slow Painful Death of Your Site
With the growing number of automated methods of getting people to link to you, you may want to think twice before you join. YOUR SITE IS AT RISK FROM LINKCANCER!
What you want, what you really really want (I feel a song comming on)
Getting that site to link to you.
Having built your site, you now find yourself with the hard, never-ending job of getting other sites to link to you. You can do it the long way, finding a site, looking for their contact info and sending them a begging letter in the hope they will link to you.
After a while you will soon find this tedious, time consuming and an often fruitless exercise. Many webmaster looking for a link will use a semi-automated method like SEO Elite.
Even when you finally find someone that will link with you, they may ask for a return link. This is known as a reciprocal link, which has been proved to be of little use in terms of search engine placement. There's a few free membership sites around that help you find reciprocal link partners, but these are plagued by spammers and it can be a waste of your time to just fill out the signup form.
In the last few years there has been a new form of automated link building giving you that golden 1 way link to your site.
After a while you will soon find this tedious, time consuming and an often fruitless exercise. Many webmaster looking for a link will use a semi-automated method like SEO Elite.
Even when you finally find someone that will link with you, they may ask for a return link. This is known as a reciprocal link, which has been proved to be of little use in terms of search engine placement. There's a few free membership sites around that help you find reciprocal link partners, but these are plagued by spammers and it can be a waste of your time to just fill out the signup form.
In the last few years there has been a new form of automated link building giving you that golden 1 way link to your site.
The Link Co-op Method
This method was hailed the 1 way link revolution. It worked well.... for a time. Essentially, you needed a high google PR and/or a well indexed site, that you placed in the co-op to get link weight. On this site you had to place some php code, which allowed other people to put their links on your pages and the more indexed pages or the higher PR, the more weight you would be awarded.
This then meant you could use your weight to promote your other sites. You would simply enter your site details (keyword and site url), and how much of your weight you wanted to give that site. That link would then appear on other members site where they had put that same php code on their pages. SIMPLE YES?
Well no.. suddenly people found their site de-indexed and could find no other reason, but being in the co-op. Some felt the php code gave them a number of links that kept changing and thought google didn't like this. Some felt having the code on every page (this was a requirement of the co-op rules) lead to the downfall or the fact that far too many links appeared all at once. Whilst these and other factors may have contributed to the problem, I think the main reason was LINK CANCER (more about that later).
This then meant you could use your weight to promote your other sites. You would simply enter your site details (keyword and site url), and how much of your weight you wanted to give that site. That link would then appear on other members site where they had put that same php code on their pages. SIMPLE YES?
Well no.. suddenly people found their site de-indexed and could find no other reason, but being in the co-op. Some felt the php code gave them a number of links that kept changing and thought google didn't like this. Some felt having the code on every page (this was a requirement of the co-op rules) lead to the downfall or the fact that far too many links appeared all at once. Whilst these and other factors may have contributed to the problem, I think the main reason was LINK CANCER (more about that later).
Taking the Co-op Idea a Step further.
The 3 way link system.
With the co-op method in tatters and many webmasters looking for a solution to their linking problem. The door was opened for someone to come up with a way to fix the problems of the co-op.
This came in the form of the automated 3 way link membership. There are a few of these around now and some are quite successful. The need for have the code on every page is no longer needed, you just have to have a link page. Links where added slowly so as not to look too un-natural. The system no longer requires a weight but relies on a 3 way link method. Site A links to B, B to C and C back to A, which means site A looks to have 1 way links from C - a plus point in SEO.
Of course these 3 way link membership sites have to have strict rules (some more than others). No sites related to porn, gambling, hate etc etc. That's understandable, but 1 of these membership sites even goes so far as to disallow religious sites. He has that right I guess. But the mere mention of christmas or yoga on a site you enter into his group and you get the boot, along with the canned respones.
"We run a family-friendly service and some of our clients wouldn't be comfortable linking to or being linked to from a site mentioning religion, adult content and so on."
Is this the action of a 3 way link membership protecting its members or the moral standards of the owner being forced on others.. I will let you make that choice.
But, even with these rules, these 3 way linking membership site (most of them at least) can be affected by Link Cancer.
This came in the form of the automated 3 way link membership. There are a few of these around now and some are quite successful. The need for have the code on every page is no longer needed, you just have to have a link page. Links where added slowly so as not to look too un-natural. The system no longer requires a weight but relies on a 3 way link method. Site A links to B, B to C and C back to A, which means site A looks to have 1 way links from C - a plus point in SEO.
Of course these 3 way link membership sites have to have strict rules (some more than others). No sites related to porn, gambling, hate etc etc. That's understandable, but 1 of these membership sites even goes so far as to disallow religious sites. He has that right I guess. But the mere mention of christmas or yoga on a site you enter into his group and you get the boot, along with the canned respones.
"We run a family-friendly service and some of our clients wouldn't be comfortable linking to or being linked to from a site mentioning religion, adult content and so on."
Is this the action of a 3 way link membership protecting its members or the moral standards of the owner being forced on others.. I will let you make that choice.
But, even with these rules, these 3 way linking membership site (most of them at least) can be affected by Link Cancer.
Bad Site Neighbourhoods
How they can give you link cancer!
You may think a bad neighbourhood is something that is limited to porn sites or gambling. But NO, it's easy to create a bad neighbourhood of sites on any topic.
Spotting them can be easy. The most obvious is if they have been banned by google. Just type their url into the search engine and see if they are even listed. Another easy method is to check the google PR rating (if you have the google toolbar installed), if its grey then that may mean its a bad neighbourhood. But the grey bar is not always an indication, some forum posts get a grey bar, so check the home page of a forum also or search for it in google to make double sure.
However, even a site marked as a bad neighbourhood can still be indexed! Google can spot them in a new york minute and with a bit of common sense you can too. The clues are easy;
Meaningless copy.
Scrapped copy from search engines.
Non related, multiple links to one site,
You get the idea...
More often than not, instead of banning these sites Google simply rewards them with a Page Rank Of ZERO and places a heavy weight around any keywords they maybe trying to rank well for and thus sinking them to the bottom of the search pile.
Spotting them can be easy. The most obvious is if they have been banned by google. Just type their url into the search engine and see if they are even listed. Another easy method is to check the google PR rating (if you have the google toolbar installed), if its grey then that may mean its a bad neighbourhood. But the grey bar is not always an indication, some forum posts get a grey bar, so check the home page of a forum also or search for it in google to make double sure.
However, even a site marked as a bad neighbourhood can still be indexed! Google can spot them in a new york minute and with a bit of common sense you can too. The clues are easy;
Meaningless copy.
Scrapped copy from search engines.
Non related, multiple links to one site,
You get the idea...
More often than not, instead of banning these sites Google simply rewards them with a Page Rank Of ZERO and places a heavy weight around any keywords they maybe trying to rank well for and thus sinking them to the bottom of the search pile.
Can a Link From One of These Bad neighbourhoods Affect me?
99.9% of the time... NO. Google understands that you cannot always be in control of other sites linking to you.
You will also find as you climb the search engine ladder for a target keyword, you will get more links from these bad neighbourhood sites, in the form of scrapped result sites etc. Again it wont hurt you.
But should you get a request from one of these guys to link to them, it wont take you long to delete that email as linking to them will endanger your site and tell google you are now part of a bad neighbourhood! That will affect your ranking and a sudden drop of PR to zero.
If that happens, get out quick!
You will also find as you climb the search engine ladder for a target keyword, you will get more links from these bad neighbourhood sites, in the form of scrapped result sites etc. Again it wont hurt you.
But should you get a request from one of these guys to link to them, it wont take you long to delete that email as linking to them will endanger your site and tell google you are now part of a bad neighbourhood! That will affect your ranking and a sudden drop of PR to zero.
If that happens, get out quick!
But I am in one of those 3 Way Link Membership Sites, How Can This Affect Me?
I hear you ask!
It only takes 1, yes ONE site connected to a bad neighbourhood to get past the inclusion process and affect every other site in that network.
The sad thing is that having a 100, 200 or even 500 sites unknownly link to that 1 bad neighbourhood site will not get them all rewarded with the same title (bad neighbourhood site) at the same time. Google watches a site that has linked to the bad neighbourhood over time, seeing how the links grow from that site and then BANG its rankings drop like a stone NEVER to come back. Then that site spreads the link cancer to those that link to it. Some in the network may never be affected, some may take a long time to even get a hint of cancer and keep telling others that their rankings will come back. Ranking bounce is normal and yes your site will go up and down, but link cancer will remain with you untill you remove it.
But just like a non smoker standing in a room full of smokers, his risk of getting cancer is that much higher and those that think they are never going to get link cancer when in a network with only 1 bad neighbourhood site feel safe, don't come running to me when you do get link cancer and your site drops.
The sad thing is that having a 100, 200 or even 500 sites unknownly link to that 1 bad neighbourhood site will not get them all rewarded with the same title (bad neighbourhood site) at the same time. Google watches a site that has linked to the bad neighbourhood over time, seeing how the links grow from that site and then BANG its rankings drop like a stone NEVER to come back. Then that site spreads the link cancer to those that link to it. Some in the network may never be affected, some may take a long time to even get a hint of cancer and keep telling others that their rankings will come back. Ranking bounce is normal and yes your site will go up and down, but link cancer will remain with you untill you remove it.
But just like a non smoker standing in a room full of smokers, his risk of getting cancer is that much higher and those that think they are never going to get link cancer when in a network with only 1 bad neighbourhood site feel safe, don't come running to me when you do get link cancer and your site drops.
OK. I am part of a 3 way link membership, how do I protect myself?
It depends on that system.
Do they allow you to stop linking to a site in your list? No... get out and join one that does!
Do they allow you to only allow links to sites within you targeted topic? NO... get out and join one that does!
Do they allow you to only link to sites with a PR greater than zero? NO.. GET OUT and join one that does!
Do they allow you to stop linking to a site in your list? No... get out and join one that does!
Do they allow you to only allow links to sites within you targeted topic? NO... get out and join one that does!
Do they allow you to only link to sites with a PR greater than zero? NO.. GET OUT and join one that does!
