|
Avoiding Link
Exchange Scams
One way to get
links to your site is to exchange links with other webmasters.
However, this is very much a "exchanger beware"
type of activity. Many webmasters think it is better to
have lots of one way links to your site, so they will do
anything to get you to link to them without having to link
back to your site in return.
Here are some
things to look out for so you don't get short changed when
exchanging links:
1. Some webmasters
will send you an email insisting you put their link up
first and then email them back and they will put your
link up once their link is in place. Nine times out of ten
they won't link back. They count on you not noticing that
they haven't linked back. This gives them one way links.
2. Some webmasters
will send you an email saying your link will be visible
in a few hours. Sometimes it will, most often it will
never be up. They are just counting on you to not bother
to follow up.
3. They put your
link on a page with "noindex" in the metatags
or "nofollow" on the link.
4. They put your
link on a page with low page rank and yet insist you
put their link on either your home page or a high ranking
links page. I see a lot of people that fall for this one.
5. Some webmasters
will put your link up initially and then drop your link
after a few months, so they get a one way link at your
expense. This is like giving away free text ads, so don't
fall for this. Check your links
at least every few months or so.
6. One common
scheme is to send you an email pretending you have exchanged
links in the past and asking why you have dropped their
link. In most cases you will find you never linked to their
site to begin with.
7. Before you
link to any site, make sure they are indexed by the search
engines and are coming up for their own site title and main
keywords. If not, there is a good chance they have either
been banned or have a penalty. You want to avoid linking
to sites like these because Google judges your sites quality
in part by the company you keep.
8. There are
many technical ways webmasters can put your link on their
sites and yet not have it counted by the search engines,
so if you link back they in effect get a free one way link.
While it probably isn't 100% fool proof, the best way I've
found to see if they links pages have any tricks are to
check the backlinks
of some of the other sites on their links pages. If
the linking page doesn't show in the back link of the other
sites on their links page, then odds are it isn't going
to help your site either. If a few of the links don't show,
that's okay - the links to some of the other sites may have
been too new to have been spidered yet.
9. Watch out
for the bait and switch link exchange scam. In order
to get links many webmasters will put up content sites in
order to get links from other sites. Once they have the
links from other webmasters they will take off the content
from their site and switch over to adult sites or something
else spammy. So you can't just put up links once and then
forget it. The search engines, especially Google, will penalize
you if you link to enough sites in bad neighborhoods. You
can't argue with an algorithm that you were a victim of
fraud.
I've usually
noticed a slight rankings boost in my sites after I've cleaned
up my outgoing links and deleted anything that had turned
spammy. So it is important to check your back links every
now and then.
10. Another trick
webmasters will use is to give you a useless site "award"
for you to put on your home page in return for mention on
their low ranking awards pages. In reality, they should
be giving you an award for stupidity if you fall for this
one.
11. Watch
out for hidden links when you add code for free tools, counters
or other utilities to your site. Sometimes these "free
utilities" have hidden links to bad neighborhood sites
imbedded in the code.
12. To be safe
the best link exchanges are to well ranking sites,
without our any ranking tricks, in the same, or at least
complimentary topic areas, as yours. For example if you
have a site about dog collars, links to sites about dog
breeders or dog trainers would work. Links to sites for
Istanbul hotels would probably not be the best choice.
13. Also go
easy on the reciprocal links. Quality sites usually
have a mix of links from directories, exchanges with like
sites, bookmarks, one way links, etc. So you don;t want
to have a site that only has links that are exchanged with
other sites.
|
