LinksToYou.com - not good?

[incarnadine]

I heard that Google penalizes sites who participate in LinksToYou.com, and sites who link to such sites. Is this true? I found that one of my link exchange partners participates in LinksToYou.com - should I remove my link to them?

[cbp]

They don't. BUT, I thing they should.

Google's guidelines say:

Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank.

CBP

[regmanabq]

Ok, that's the hardest part about getting links and perhaps the thing I understand least about all the new SEO techniques from the last year or so.

All my sites so far have been very specific "niche" sites, mostly in the theatrical lighting realm which is a rather small industry with lot's of personal pages and small directories. Fairly easy to trade links and get ranked well. (easy is a relative term! I didn't find it so easy when I was 600, but I'm staying put at 1-10 for most engines for the last year so I think I know something about writing good pages and getting some listings.)

OK, so now I'm tired of selling really well in such a small market while starving and have decided to branch out into general merchandise and gifts in the hopes there are more than just a handful of people who need them.

Now I'm reading up on all the latest new techinques and it is just enough to scare a guy to death. Can someone help me with what I'm missing? Here are some of the things I have just seen on this board in the last few days.

Must get links. but wait, don't link in a "bad neighborhood" (anyone who accepts free links? Who are these bad neighborhoods. Is there a list I can see? How does Google define "bad neighborhood"?)

Don't let a page lower than you link to you or it won't count, or worse it could be seen as a link only to boost your ranking.

Don't participate with any link programs designed to get you a better ranking. (what are they for then? I can't think of any other reason to participate in a link exchange program. Have not found one yet that delivered quality visitors and I'm still a firm believer that the only users who actually see link exchange links is the search engines. Perhaps because I have previously operated in such a small niche?)

Don't do too much internal linking or you might get penalized. OR "internal links never count anyway".

Link off site to get a better ranking and be seen as more "relevent" but wait, if you link off site you will damage your popularity and lower your ranking.

Don't link from your other sites or Google might penalize them all for spamming.

Don't create gateway or complementary sites because Google will ban you, especially if you use the same server with the same or similar IP address. (this is a big one for me! Right now I have 500 products in the catalog ranging from boot knives to giant Isis statues. Had planned on doing "niche" sites revolving around the categories of the catalog. For example, www.cedarandteakoutdoorfurniture.com is our niche site for outdoor furniture. Contains more info than we can put into our shopping cart program and has pages specifically for staining wood, why to choose each wood, etc.. Thought this might be of value to my customers and web surfers alike, but now it seems that if I build more I run the risk of being labeled "spammer" and being banned if I link back to the store for purchase.)

So I just don't really know what to do. OR should I do anything other than make sure my metas are good, I have good content, links from as many similar sites as I can talk into linking to me and good link text? (like in the old days)

While I would love to just make great pages with good content, that just doesn't seem to be enough anymore. I would love to trust Google with my livelihood and be assured that pages ranked according to their actual relevancy to any search, but this simply is not true yet and many scamsters work very hard to rank higher than I do and then sell vacation packages or worse.

So I have to build great pages and worry about how to get a good ranking, all while not allowed to use the successful techniques the scamsters are using for fear I will be destroyed.

Ok, a little venting, (I feel so much better thanks for listening) and some serious questions. I guess I'm really asking this:

What are the three main things one should do, besides meta, title and page optamization to get a good ranking without fear of being barred for using "questionable tactics"?

AND what are the three main "questionable tactics" one should avoid?

I know most of this is somewhere else on the board and much of it I have already read, but as I said, much is contradictory and I am very confused now!

THanks for any help and good luck to all with their sites! Have a great day.

[regmanabq]

Oh, and how the hell am I suppose to make a great page packed with "relevant" content in 600 words or less? How much does the length of a page affect your ranking? It seems that many sites with one single link wayyyy at the bottom of the page containing some text relevant to your search will show up before any pages with more than 600 words all about the specific topic. Wish I didn't have to worry how many times I said "gifts" on my gifts site, but it does seem to matter in the ranking so I just want to know what the limit is before the search engine assumes I'm spamming and not just talking a lot about gifts!

For example, I have been told many times that I don't want to have my keyword more than 5 or six times in the whole page. Well, telling someone about a gift basket is hard to do if you can only say gift basket five times and it's already listed twice by the catalog software and once in the title! But, if the customer never sees my description because they bought at Amazon with their one sentence "great gift basket" description that was ranked high, I will just have to go that way and start designing pages I was always taught were "bad".

The writer in me says write good info and share knowledge, the marketer in me says give them what they want, hype it up and sell them what they don't really need after all, and the webmaster in me doesn't know what to say anymore. (he and the writer used to gang up and win over the marketer, but it seems that if we all want to eat next week, we might just have to listen to him a little more!)

[VegasMack]

Hi,

Please excuse my ignorance, but I am a “linking” novice.

If I understand this thread so far, not only is it bad to participate in the LinksToYou thing, but you should not link to someone who is.

Am I understanding this correctly?

Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks,

[bhartzer]

It's really very simple:
If you participate in the LinksToYou link farm scheme your website will get banned. Period. Don't do it.

[cbp]

Google are now very sophisticated in how they analyze links... we just do not now how much for sure.

In utopia, links are natural, in context, on theme and of benefit to the user.

All link exchanges that are not for this, must be for rankng purposes - Google look for 'quality signals' - if you send them 'signal' that you are participating in link exchanges for ranking purposes (ie unnatural linking), then, IMHO, you are taking a risk - it just depends on how sophisticated yo think Google have got.

CBP

[ferret77]

although I try to disagree wiht bhartzer as much as possible

I would have to say avoid "linsktoyou"

If you want to be safe

just trade links with sites similiar to yours

Google has special detectors built in that can tell when you just link to increase your search engine rankings so must think really hard when you are adding the links for other reasons when you are adding them

did you ever see the movie firefox , when clint eastwood had to think in russian in order to fly the plane its the same thing

I'm joking of course

just trade links with sites that similiar to your to be safe

[mm99]

Avoid any kind of links exchenge.

peace...Paul

[ireneherz]

I tried Links To You. It took a month to get listed. I did everything they said which involved lots of downloading and fussing, then the next month -- my site wasn't there! I didn't seem to be penalized, but I took them off anyway. What a hassle!

[pedstersplanet]

Say, for example, like me, you run a directory (like dmoz) with quite a few sites (30,000+). Would you be penalised, if say a site didn't have any link exchange farms on it when the editor reviewed the site - but after a few weeks, that site started participating in these link farms, would I be penalised? As it's damn silly if I was, as I have over 30,000 links (impossible to check), not all are linking back of course.
Any thoughts?

[VegasMack]

I don’t know if it was coincidence or what, but 3 of my sites I had linkstoyou on dropped 1pt in PR, and 3 other new sites were struggling to get listed by the SEs. That’s when I started doing some checking. It brought me to this forum actually.

The linkstoyou program was recommended, and as a “Linking” novice, I did not know any better.

I recently removed all of the linkstoyou pages and links. I suppose, if in a short period of time, my rankings and PR improve drastically, I will have my answer.

I really appreciate the help and feedback from everyone.

-Mack

[schott2]

All of this "Links to you discussion" brings up another question. What do you folks think about LinkPartners.com? There are no downloads (link farms) just sites agreeing to be listed. I don't personally use them for my links pages, but I do use them to pick up ideas for linking.

Also, what do you folks think about linking to sites who use their technology?

[bhartzer]

I haven't specifically looked at Link Partners, so I cannot comment on it.

There are websites out there that are dedicated to helping you find on-topic links, and that's generally a good thing. By browsing a directory you can find on-topic websites that are interested in trading links. The website helps you build a relationship with other webmasters that have sites that are on-topic to yours, and that can be a good thing.

It's like networking--you go to trade association meetings to find people who do the same thing as you do, and network with them.

[ireneherz]

Starlinker lets you set up a page and they put the links that you choose on the page automatically. You get 20 links free. Watch out, though. Javascript links don't count. Go for ASP, PHP or CFM.

[ferret77]

all linkspartners.com is a list of sites that trade links

it doesn't actually do anything

[rcmedia2004]

I have linked to a bunch of relevant sites from LinkPartners.com members and so far so good.
*I am not an actual member and do not use their link management service though.
I did manually check out each site they recommended and some of their members have some good PR happening so I guess it's ok.
There's also some sites that have no PR in their directory. You just need to manually check each and every one out first and pick the good ones.
I also noticed the actual link pages generated by LinkPartners.com for their members have PR as well... as per their claims.

The real clincher though is the fact that my link pages that have LinkPartners.com members links has gained PR since I started linking to them.

[stan64]

regarding linkstoyou....

how would one know if a linking partner is using them,

what if they weren't using them, then started to use them later... much later after they have signed up already for a while...

do we actually have to baby sit (sorry) each link and police it too...???

wouldn't it be better not to have any linking at all ?? rather than risk being banned by actions of others??

[stan64]

regarding linkstoyou....

how would one know if a linking partner is using them,

what if they weren't using them, then started to use them later... much later after they have signed up already for a while...

do we actually have to baby sit (sorry) each link and police it too...???

wouldn't it be better not to have any linking at all ?? rather than risk being banned by actions of others??

[VegasMack]

Not taking any chances, I deleted all reference (and pages) to LinksTOYou. I don’t know if it is coincidence or not, but my new sites that were taking forever to get indexed are starting to show up, and my older sites that I removed LinksTOYou from are moving up again.

Coincidence? Maybe. If in fact it my participation with LinksToYou out of my naivety damaged my rankings, I lost over four months trying to figure out what was wrong. I just wish I had found this Forum a couple of months ago. I would have never taken the chance.

I will keep you posted on what I pray will be an accelerated climb in rankings.

-Mack

[stan64]

hey Mr. vegasmack:

how can i find out if any of the back links to me is using banned methods like linkstoyou...

thanks.

shirley

[cbp]

Links to yo ucan not hurt you - no matter how bad they are.

CBP