Links exchange - Penguin update potential ??
-
Hi Everyone,
If site A and site B exchange links in the past, it used to be kind of voided. So it is a practicve that we had pretty uch put on the side. But with the new penguin update, do you guys think that if 2 web sites are contacting each other to share a link in the interest of the user that it might be a new best practice to implement? Example, Car site contact car suspension site to exchange a link on relevant content such as blog articles or specific content on a page.
What are your thoughts about that ?
I am curious to know if anyone is wondering abouot that... Thanks,
Alex
-
Eric Ward did a good Hangout last Friday and gave them the nod too. the full 1hr 48min is at but but the short answer matches the answers above. If it makes sense for your user, it makes sense for Google. I think I hear Matt say that once or twice too.
-
Like others have said, there is nothing wrong with reciprocal links from other sites as long as they're relevant. The one thing to watch out for is sitewide links, especially if you use keywords as your anchor text. That can get you hit by Penguin. Best to set up a separate "resources" or "partners" page, and avoid using your keywords for the anchor (use brand name or URL).
-
We find the best way is by mixing linkexchange with a contest or joint effort providing some sort of value ie interview etc you can gain safe links and real marketing value.
-
great insight guys, this is all common sense but I just wanted to make sure of the proper approach.
-
Tom nailed it.
You won't be Penguined by this practice necessarily.
Maybe if you went out and got a whole bunch at once from low authority sites with the same exact match anchor text... Then maybe. But chances are if you're doing this it is not relevant or beneficial for the potential reader.
When in doubt always ask yourself, "will the reader ever need this?"
-
Hi Alex
Reciprocal links can be useful for SEO, user and branding purposes - provided that it is done in moderation and, as you say, done for the user.
There's nothing wrong for companies to link to each other or recommend one another (Moz and Distilled do it quite frequently) and this can help for the SEO side of things. The main thing, however, is that Moz and Distilled do so for the user benefit, never solely for the SEO.
Your example is pretty much the same principle, but in order to replicate the "best practice" as it were, make sure the links are in relative content. I'm not a fan of "recommended links" pages that just link out to companies. But blog posts and other user friendly, informative and helpful content that contain links should be absolutely fine. Just make sure you don't overdo and don't use targeted/commercial anchor text - keep it for the user and their benefit and the other benefits will follow.
Hope this helps.
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
-
Person using expired domain and its links to drive traffic
Hi, I know about people using expired domains to drive juice to their primary site but what about people using AN expired domain as their primary site (totally changing that site into a trashy affiliate-marketing vehicle)? The site I'm looking at is thegunzone.com. It has, according to Semrush, almost 38K links. It used to be a legit 17-year-old firearms hobby site, and this is what it originally looked like: http://web.archive.org/web/20120213184627/http://thegunzone.com:80/ Here is its last page before it closed and the domain purchased by the affiliate marketer: http://web.archive.org/web/20170315084035/http://www.thegunzone.com/ It closed around February of 2017, and some affiliate marketer bought it and all its backlinks. However, all those backlinks, which were previously to various articles, are now directed back to those articles (which don't exist anymore) but the homepage, including Wikipedia links. Here's an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygonal_rifling At the bottom, in the 7th Reference, there's a link to an article called " "Learning About Shooting . . ." but if you click on the original link, it just goes to thegunzone.com homepage. Again, the site's totally different. And there are just thousands of such backlinks to former articles that don't exist anymore but are redirected to this schlocky site's homepage (and it's passing its juice through too). My question is this: this cannot be kosher with Google backlinking policies, right? Is this prevalent on the internet? Why hasn't thegunzone.com been found out and its rankings penalized yet? And how do I report him? I see tons of other sites using this basic strategy too on search results with various hunting keywords. (Disclosure: I do own a hunting/firearms blog, but I don't do any backlinking at all.) Any help would be sincerely appreciated.
Affiliate Marketing | | HandyWoman1 -
Low value link building to sitemap.xml
During some competitive research recently I discovered one of my clients competitors sites had an interesting backlink profile. Looking at the top-pages report in Open Site Explorer the home page was the #1 page (as you'd expect) with 2.5k links from about 500 linking root domains The second page was the sitemap.xml (~1.5k links, 400 linking root domains) and the third was their /feed page (again, ~1.5k links, 350 linking root domains). Links to these two pages aren't something that would happen naturally (particularly the sitemap.xml). There's a whole load of evidence for nasty low quality link building such as over-optimised keyword rich anchor text, comment spam, and even some blog/article based link networks. It's a pretty nasty niche with lots of cut-throat affiliate marketing. My guess here is that someone may have made a mistake using an automated link building too, but I'd be interested in what you might think? Have you seen this before? (Sorry, I can't reveal the domains in question as I'm bound by an NDA.)
Affiliate Marketing | | DougRoberts0 -
What is the right way to link to your main site?
Hi, we have a system for tracking the leads that comes from a specific affiliate website. each affiliate has a unique tracking code. not only for affiliates that work with us but also for the SEO team has an affiliate tracking code so our bosses can track the leads and traffic that come from the activity of the SEO team. this means, links towards our website look like: www.mydomain.com/?t_src=campaign&t=AFF&t_cre=links&A=371 www.mydomain.com/?A=371 I have few questions about this: 1. This is the right way to link to my company site? How dose google crawl those link? It's can harm the link value? 2. What is my option to show my boss all the traffic / leads that our seo team brings to the site trough Google Analytics? Hope to get your support. Thanks in advance.
Affiliate Marketing | | JonsonSwartz0 -
Linking from High Authority Sites
Dear Mozzes, We're running a property portal for real estate classifieds which receives around 300.000 visits monthly. PA 47 DA 37 Mozrank 5,3 MozTrust 5,8 PR 4 Apart from our real estate classifieds we are producing proprietary trends and statistic, a rare commodity in the country we operate. Luckily we are about to enter into a partnership with one of the leading newspaper portals in the Country, appreciating PAs in the 80-90s. In this coming partnership we will provide: 1. Market statistics, which we can imagine as a chart followed by our logo and a "Powered By", which shall link to our site. 2. An in-framed part of our site in their portal where we list properties for sale, that will carry affiliate strings. In order to for us to get the maximum link value of this high authority site, how should we build the integration and linking? We've looked at similar examples here http://realestate.money.cnn.com/ here http://realestate.money.cnn.com/NY/New_York/ or maybe like the Simply Hired logo here: http://money.cnn.com/ Advices here would be super appreciated. Thanks Eric
Affiliate Marketing | | PropertyPortal0 -
Which affiliate programs pass the best SEO value through their links?
How good is Google at detecting the affiliate nature of those links? How does this rate as a linkbuilding strategy?
Affiliate Marketing | | menachemp0 -
How many affiliate links is considered too many?
Hi, Let's say you have great reviews for 50 products and some of these products do have affiliate links on review pages. And then you have user scores and you come up with a top 20 product list sorted by user scores. Now if you have the list of top 20 products on one page and all these products have an affiliate link (with nofollow relation and a 301 redirect) on the same page with only a couple of images and a summary of the review linked to the review pages, would this still be considered as what Google calls a "bridge page"? Would it be better to still generate the top 20 list but rather link to review pages only? (to avoid too many affiliate links on one single page).
Affiliate Marketing | | Gamer070 -
Big Affiliate Site vs. Small In House Software For Link Value
Hi, I have a client who sells consumer products and is interested in affiliate advertising. Of course, they can get set up with something like CJ.com. They are also interested in possibly using some third party software to take their affiliate effort in house and be able to offer publishers simple urls. The idea is that this might help the link profile for SEO as well. Here are my questions: Does anybody have any experience with the complication level associated with third-party software for link value path? So, relative pluses and minuses. Can anyone recommend an affiiate software that is reliable and easy to use? Any opinion on one big site to go with... CJ, GAN, someone else? Thanks!
Affiliate Marketing | | 945010 -
Passing link juice via aff links?
Hi All, I know there was a recent post on this subject but I'm wondering if someone could take a look at these links and tell me if there is any SEO value in them at all and if not, what would be a way to improve them that might not be too much trouble for the affiliate? This URL: http://www.premiermodelskin.com/the-products/blemish-treatment has a Purchase button that passes product data (price, quantity, etc) directly to the basket of the host site (the site we want SEO benefit to). Using a form method to this URL: <form method="GET" action="<strong>http://www.monushop.co.uk/products/premier/blemish-treatment.html</strong>"> Qty <select id="add" name="add"> <option value="1" selected="selected">1</option> <option value="2">2</option> <option value="3">3</option> <option value="4">4</option> <option value="5">5</option> <option value="6">6</option> <option value="7">7</option> <option value="8">8</option> <option value="9">9</option> <option value="10">10</option> </select> 15ml £16.25 </form> My question is, does G see that form GET action as a followable link? If not what would be a better method? Any feedback much appreciated.
Affiliate Marketing | | lovealbatross
Cheers
J0