I believe that the search engines penalize you for linking to bad websites (since you have editorial control) but they don’t penalize you for incoming links, since you have no control over who links to you. Although I am aware that the engines can penalize you for aggresive link building campaigns.
Anyway the point of an open thread is to hear your opinions! So let me know what you think and I might combine them and create a post so you get some free link love!
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I agree with you, or at least from what I have heard, you get penalized from linking to bad websites. But my problem is, what is a bad website?
Sometimes a adult website (porn) is not a bad website, it all depends on your content. If you are running an adult website yourself, then linking to another adult website is not bad at all.
I think that what you mean by a bad website is either a website not related to your content at all (but still, it can be a very popular website and why should you be penalized by linking to it), or a bad website can be a website that has been used for blackhat seo and various “illegal” techniques.
But I just don’t understand why any links can be bad. If I write posts where I publish warnings about certain sites, should I get penalized for linking to them, when I am actually doing a favor to a lot of people?
Jens P. Bergets last blog post..Definition of Affiliate Marketing
so are you still selling your blog?
@Franklin – don’t that belong in a email?
I think it’s retarded that you can get penalized for linking to a “black listed” site. I mean how in the world do you know if its black listed in the first place?
Lamonte @ Binary Crunch – Tech & Programmings last blog post..Unix Forum Adds VIP Memberships
I love your stuff man – great advice always and I look forward to it. I don’t have any bad links, but one thing that I think should be addressed, is how to get links in a difficult niche. I have a blog in a big niche, but the idea of blogs in this niche apparently is a new concept. Its even hard to get the bloggers of this niche to work together, and yet its hard to fit this type of blog into a category on sites like digg or technorati.
Its frustrating. If everyone is building make money or technology sites – then where is the originality? I understand going with the flow, but ye who expands upon something truly creates prosperity for others, which is why I love your site because it is actually beneficial.
Thank you so much for everything – it works, is always something new, and I look forward to what you have to say.
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I will be looking forward to this.
charles palmas last blog post..Rapidshare.com – File Hosting of the Web.
I would say don’t worry about it. Google is a lot less cruel then it’s depicted to be. As long as you aren’t knowing linking to a link farm (you’d better know what that is) then I think you should be fine. It’s not like there’s some magical number out there of outborn links, that turns a site into a “bad site.” You could lose way to much sleep over this, and the penalty won’t be inflicted unless you do it repeatibly, and knowingly.
How to Blogs last blog post..Blog Review: EduBook.com
I wouldn’t think an incoming link would hurt you because as you said, you have no control. As far as linking out to a broken site, it may harm you only because Google likes sites to be updated often. How much it harms or if at all…not really sure.
Interesting post.
Matt Helphreys last blog post..The Three Most Important Things You Need to Increase Traffic to Your Blog
Only links from this site can be considered bad.
Just kidding. I really don’t think so as google can’t really give relevance that much importance.
Adam
Adams last blog post..Dyson DC25 The Ball On Sale, Where To Buy Dyson Vacuums
I would only be worried about in content links from a post marked “PayPerPost”
Ryan @ Linkbuildrs last blog post..Link Building With Psolenoid.com
There’s no way you can be punished because a bad site links to you. Its just common sense…if it were true you could just set up links to all your competitors from nasty neighborhoods and wipe them out.
Mike Collinss last blog post..50 Ways To Get Links To Your Site
As you said you can’t control who links to you, your competitors might submit your site to a link farm and you don’t know it. Just don’t link to a link farm from your own site, Google is not a big fan of this.
Well, i agree with you. It would be totally insane if you could got hurt from bad incoming links, as everyone could make you pain. So i guess that there just less good incoming and more good incoming link. Same is with outgoing links. If you link to site that is irrelevant you can just make harm to yourself, and that site wont get too much of the link juice.
“Although I am aware that the engines can penalize you for aggresive link building campaigns.”
This is punished by Google for all those that think those truly idiotic “auto-linking” tools are good to use.
No people, 1000 links in 2 minutes is NOT a good thing. LOL
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agree with the thought that income links can’t hurt you (much). too easy to manipulate
I don’t think an incoming link can be bad. As you said in the opener, you cannot control the incoming links, so how and why would Google put down a slap on your site.
Freddies last blog post..Quote: Genius and What’s On Your Mind
Is reciprocal linking with other relevant blogs still worth doing? If I find 10 blogs that are similar and/or relevant and we link to each other is this a waste of time now? Is it all about the inbound link?
Diane Corriettes last blog post..Why Is Tithing Such A rip off?
Google has made it clear several times in public statements that you can’t get penalized for sites linking to you. If that were true it would be possible to bring down a competitor by linking to them from known bad neighborhood sites.
Google does occasionally penalize for obvious massive linking campaigns but this is done manually with a lot of research before hand.
Frank Carrs last blog post..Earn Online Cash by Understanding Search Visitors
Nothing seems to be easier than seeing someone whom you can help but not helping.
I suggest we start giving it a try. Give love to the ones that need it.
God will appreciate it.
I don’t think you will be penalized from being linked to from a bad place, or else couldn’t webmasters try to eliminate competition by getting bad links to their competitors (placing competitors and link farms and junk)?
Funny Junks last blog post..Weekly Recap – 02/23/2009 – 02/27/2009
as far as I understand the more pub the better. Link away! However; i have read another post on this site that talks about bad links and I thought it was very interesting!
Mike, you’re 100% right. You can’t be punished over something that you don’t have control over.
I think the real answer is that nobody knows what Google thinks is important except the programmers who work on it. I personally think that no specific link can hurt you much, and certainly you won’t be penalized for any one way links coming in.
How does one address a link in from or out to a “bad site” if the site wasn’t always bad? Like, what if the site was once professionally maintained, but the domain then gets sold and becomes something bad, maybe a link farm, for instance. Does Google expect Webmasters to know their inbound/outbound links (even for content that may be years old?!) so well that they can instantly respond to anything negative? The part about incoming links, which are typically well outside of a webmaster’s control, has to not be included in the way Google addresses your site.
I would say in general, getting incoming links shouldn’t get you penalized. Having said this Google is very wary about abnormal link growth. But if your link growth has been “enhanced” by joining one of those programs that will get you 10,000 links instantly, or even simply 100 (depending of your usual link growth rate), you’ll trigger a red flag signal to Google.
@Alex I agree with you 100% All we can do is speculate on what exactly is going on.
I think we can all agree on one thing. Incoming links can’t hurt you. As we have no control over it.
Sometimes… I think people speculate too much on How much time and precision goes into calculating your rankings at Google. I honestly don’t believe it is AS complicated as people make it out to be. You gotta remember…. there are billions-if not trillions or higher…. of websites out there. And if the calculations and sorting process of websites is too or complex, then everything would be so slow.
I used to be in Software Engineering for 3 years, before I switched over to the business world, so I know what it can take as far as computer processing time, etc to do some of these calculations.
If Google is going to penalize you for linking to bad websites I think that it is pretty obvious which sites that would include. Sites like porn sites, hate sites will definitely fit into this category and any blogger that would link to these sites should have their head examined.
I dont think you get penalized for incoming links because than your competitor can just keep linking to your site, I think it matters what your out going links are.
Awww..the mystery of google search. Will we ever know???
Phil Hogan´s last blog ..How I Read 7 Books a Month and How You Can Do The Same
yes in SEO world we can’t control who links to our sites, so why would a search engine punish us for who is pointing to our site? this may only effect a site’s ranking if more bad sites linking to you than good sites
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Firstly one should clarify what a good and bad site are;
Who is judjing the sites? The owners or the search engines? I think its the search engines we’re talking about here and they rank sites with a level of trust.
Trust is built over time and from reccomendations (links) from other trusted sites, quality content, white hat methods etc.
Linking out is no where near as bad as an untrusted site linking to your own. Linking out can only disperse page rank out of your site and deliver power elsewhere on the web.