Reciprocal links with guest posts bad?
-
I'm curious do you think Google would fault you or you'd get less link power if you made a page (on your website) of your guest posts from across the net and linked out to them?
-
A viable solution, but I don't want to be too covert about it.
-
Ben, can you host the page somewhere else and call it in an iframe maybe. Or a Javascript Modal window the contents of which are stored in a folder which is denied in robots.txt or Just deny the bots access to this file. If I were you, I would post it anywhere but on the same domain.
Just my 2c. Think about it.
-
Solid answer, I didn't even consider no-indexing the page, it'd primarily be for users anyway.
-
I like your idea of posting them on a Facebook page. I think that's a great compromise in this situation.
-
I know there are 5 other responses so far and mine is the 6th one. Honestly, I would not link out to them. I would not create a connection between all your guest posts and you...it does sort of a web-ring which used to exist over a decade ago. These will clearly get seen as reciprocal links. If I were you and I had domain authority, I would not do it. If you want to, why not share them on your Facebook page. Tweet them. Whatever else makes sense...except linking directly from the site where all those guest posts are linking to.
Some people may disagree....but I would rather have those links be as one-way links instead of reciprocal links.
-
Okay, so my response may have seemed flippant, but really, after everything we've learned in the last year I can't believe the discussion still is all about "what Google likes" and no one is talking about "what my readers like."
Ben, I went and looked at your blog and I think it's awesome. It's full of great content. If you have loyal followers, and they like your content, why on earth would it be a bad thing to say "Hey guys, I know you like my content, so here are some links where you can read some of the posts of written elsewhere." I think that's a cool idea. If you want to, make them "no follow" - I don't think it matters. Google is smart enough to see that you are an author referencing your other work. Readers love that. What's the first thing you see when you open up a book? You see a list of other books by the same author. Is that only self-promotion? I don't think so. You are making it easier for people who like your stuff to find more of it.
-
I would not link out to the pages you are getting links from! Let Google try to figure out that you are doing guest blogging to get incoming links and boost your rank for keywords, why make it easier on them?
-
As the current state of Google lies right now, I'd say no, it wouldn't hurt you. I (ashamedly) admit that up until a few days ago, I still had a page that had a long list of links from link exchanges--I know; I know--bad. But my point is, even with that in place, every algorithm update thus far has benefited us. Considering the fact that the next Penguin refresh is supposed to be major, impactful, and "jarring", I've since removed this page of links, even though it means some of those sites will find out and remove their links to us as a result. OK, I realized I've done nothing to answer your question and have just provided you with a random anecdote, so I guess my question is: why do you want to have this list of guest posts? Is it for the purpose of displaying your work so others can read it?
I do like Oleg's suggestion of noindexing the page. Then you won't even have to worry about what Google thinks of it.
-
Great question.
I think for powerful sites, you don't need to worry about it. If you are a new site, this could be seen as a reciprocal linking scheme. I'd recommend linking to them with a nofollow to be on the safe side. Once your site is well established, remove the nofollows.
To danatanseo's point, if you visitors would like it, you should definitely do it. But if you are really worried about G's interpretation of the page, you can always noindex the page and/or nofollow the links.
-
Forget about Google. Would your readers like it? I bet they would.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Internal Linking issue
So i am working with a review company and I am having a hard time with something. We have created a category which lists and categorizes every one of our properties. For example a specific property in the category "restaurant" would be as seen below: /restaurant/mcdonalds /restaurant/panda-express And so on and so on. What I am noticing however is that our more obscure properties are not being linked to by any page. If I were to visit the page myurl.com/restaurant I would see 100+ pages of properties, however it seems like only the properties on the first few pages are being counted as having links. So far the only way I have been able to work around this issue is by creating a page and hiding it in our footer called "all restaurants". This page lists and links to every one of our properties. However it isn't exactly user friendly and I would prefer scrapers not to be able to scrape all properties at once! Anyway, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | HashtagHustler0 -
Multiple Common Page Links
Hi everyone - I've taken over SEO for a site recently. In many cases, the reasons why something was done were not well documented. One of these is that on some pages, there are lists of selections. Each selection takes the user to a particular page. On the list page, there is often a link from an image, a name, and a couple of others. Each page often has 30 items with 4 links each. For some reason, the 4th of these internal links were no-followed. When I run this site through several different site evaluation tools, they are all troubled with the number of no-follow links on the site. (These instances from above add up to a 5 figure number). From a user perspective, I totally get why there is a link where each of these links exist. If I wanted to click on the image or the name or some other attribute, that totally makes sense. Its my understanding that Google / Bing are only going to consider the 1st instance. If this creates excessive links, wouldn't you want 3 of the 4 links in each set no-followed? If its only excessive unique links that really matter, then why would any be nofollowed.
Technical SEO | | APFM0 -
Optimizing internal links or over-optimizing?
For a while I hated the look of the internal links page of Google Web Master Tools account for a certain site. With a total of 120+K pages, the top internal link was the one pointing to "FAQ". With around 1M links. That was due to the fact, on every single page, both the header and the footer where presenting 5 links to the most popular questions. The traffic of those FAQ pages is non-existent, the anchor text is not SEO interesting, and theoretically 1M useless internal links is detrimental for page juice flow. So I removed them. Replacing the anchor with javascript to keep the functionality. I actually left only 1 “pure” link to the FAQ page in the footer (site wide). And overnight, the internal links page of that GWT account disappeared. Blank, no links. Now... Mhhh... I feel like... Ops! Yes I am getting paranoid at the idea the sudden disappearance of 1M internal links was not appreciated by google bot. Anyone had similar experience? Could this be seen by google bot as over-optimizing and be penalized? Did I possibly triggered a manual review of the website removing 1M internal links? I remember Matt Cutts saying adding or removing 1M pages (pages) would trigger a flag at google spam team and lead to a manual review, but 1M internal links? Any idea?
Technical SEO | | max.favilli0 -
Link Anchor Text
When we have run a Open Site Explorer analysis on our own site, it says that for all our internal links the Link Anchor Text is 'Help with logging in' I am a bit confused as to why it shows that. That text does appear in the header of the page, but is not the first piece of text. Why is it happening on our site?
Technical SEO | | MattAshby
Why do I not see this on other sites?
What affect does this have on our ranking?
What's the best fix? Example page that we ran on Open Site Explorer: www.rightboat.com/search?manufacturer=Beneteau&model=Antares+9.800 -
Why does my site rank so badly
its my turn to ask the interminable question why does my site rank so badly? site is: marriagerecords.org.uk. it was #1 for 'marriage records' on google for about 6 months. then it was 5th to 10th for about 2 months. now it is nowhere for this phrase and anything else, none of the pages I have written rank for anything. I have spent hours upon hours researching original content and I have got some great backlinks from sites like wrexham.gov.uk and somerset.gov.uk (some dont show in opensiteexplorer yet). im guessing im over-optimizing something but i'd love some concrete fixes if anyone could suggest any. thanks, tom
Technical SEO | | lethal0r0 -
Canonical Link Quesiton
I wrote an article that is a page article, but would also be a very good blog post - So my question is two things: 1. If i post it as a static page and syndicate it as a blog post and have it as a canonical link to the page, google will read see the blog and read the page _url as the one with credit correct? In turn not dinging me for duplicate content. 2. Given if the above statement is correct, should I write the blog and put it on my static page referencing the blog or the way i have it as a static page with the blog using a canonical reference back to the page. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | tgr0ss0 -
Guest Blog Posts and PR
Let's say I do a guest blog post on a PR5 site. Let's also say the post is deep within the site, and the page rank that flows to it is only maybe PR1 or 2. Let's also say it doesn't get many links to it so it forever stays that way. Will Google realize even though the PR of that page is low, it's on a PR5 site, thus giving it more link power than it the overall site were a PR2 site? Did that make any sense?
Technical SEO | | UnderRugSwept0 -
Is this a good link?
Found a .gov link to my website www.kars4kids.org. The url it links to is http://www.nyc.gov/cgi-bin/exit.pl?url=http://www.kars4kids.org/ which does eventually redirect to kars4kids. Will search engines see this as a link?
Technical SEO | | Morris770