One-Way Links - Do they Help or Hurt?

[Songwriters7]

If our website links to other closely related and relevant websites, but those sites don't link back to ours, is it apt to benefit our SE rankings? Are we better off linking to them anyway? Or not linking to them at all?

Thanks,

Steve

http://www.songwritersresourcenetwork.com/index.html

[SEOforGoogle]

[shameless plug alert]

I wrote an article on that...

Why You Need Outbound Links
(http://seoarticles.seoforgoogle.com/Why-You-Need-Outbound-Links.cfm)
[end shameless plug alert]

[mystic]

yes outbound links may help.

[JuniorOnline]

why do search engines make it difficult for us? why can't there be simple rules to follow? i noticed the majority of the posts here are based on expereinces and not actual facts google/MSN and yahoo have posted.

is there a reason why search engines do this?
is it because they themselves are new to this game and its all about trial and error and they dont wanna commit to anything?

I find it frustrating to see my site going up and down in ranking, although there was no changes made to it and there is no relevant compettion...

[mystic]

i know i hate that about search engines, they make everything a mystery...

[JuniorOnline]

you know - we should all agree on refusing to use PPC - and make search engine owners understand that we deserve some answers and specific rules and specifications.we are spending thousands of pounds over PPC while in reality we should be spending it on re-design of sites and optimisation.

[mystic]

yes i agree with you but lol with the hundreds of thousands of webmasters or jsut websites out there, that would be impossible.

[JuniorOnline]

true :P

our next hope would be having some sort of a commitee that deals with these issues and put SE owners straight! similar to the consumer rights they have - we should have SE something rights.. haha

[DMC_34]

why do search engines make it difficult for us? why can't there be simple rules to follow?

SE's primary focus is the average visitor not webmasters. If they told us how to rank then every spammer out there would get top billing.

To answer the threads topic:

An IBL is an IBL whether its reciprocal or one way. They will not hurt you, although it appears Google is looking at the rate of growth for NON NEWSWORTHY topics, but this is just speculation.

As for OBL's there is no evidence this will help you. I can say without a doubt it will help the sites you are linking to though. Its stands to reason though that linking to a related site add substance to your site and most topic "experts" often link to other related "expert" topics. For example a research document usually references other expert documents. As for whether it helps your sites credibility? That is just pure speculation. I would opt to exchange links with the related site instead.

DMC

[brian.mark]

If it makes sense to link to the sites for your visitors, then place the link. It may or may not help, that's not the issue. Giving value to your users will help build a dedicated user base, which in turn leads to return visitors and that helps to ease your dependence on the search engines.

If the engines went away tomorrow, would your site cease to exist?

Brian.

[craftworks]

One thing I have had happen is since all my links pages have a blurb on them about the products my out bound linkers sell.....

I am getting more hits on the scearch terms. I may not have that exact product but when someone else scearches for it they find my site anyways.

[dburdon]

Songwriters7,

you probably missed a post on this subject regarding a blog of mine that ranks No.1 on Google for a term it features as an outbound link.

see: http://uksearch.blogspot.com .

The site ranks No.1 - and still does - for the term "Novatex Texas". All it has is one outbound link.

[beanstalk]

[quote=JuniorOnline]SE's primary focus is the average visitor not webmasters. If they told us how to rank then every spammer out there would get top billing.

Indeed.