Linkbacks -> do's and don'ts 4

[1DMF]

I need to get some good linkbacks, I appreciate this.

However, let's say I have a site that a competitor who has a good google listing is willing to add us to their site and vice versa.

Now although they are competitors and the site is offering the same service as ours, we have a great business relationship with them, so we can trade links, great.

However, we don't actually want the link visible, it defeats the object of our websites, we purely want to help each other with "Popularity" in search engines.

So is placing a link on a page that the user cannot see but the search engine spider can concidered bad?

Can spiders see that you have applied CSS to a link so it's colour is the same as the background?

Will this penalise your list ranking?

We are not trying to con anyone, but if search engines are going to have this stupid popularity rule to effect ranking, then all we are doing is meeting the criteria to help each other so we can both fairly compete for business.

What logic is there in having a link form my site to theirs offering exactly the same service and vice versa? does ITV list BBC tv programmes? or vice versa? No!

But they might do a reciprical hidden link if it made a difference to where they were listed in a global TV channel schedule!

I have links on my site where relevant to other websites, but having one to a direct competitor is stupid, yet a direct competitor is willing to help promote our site with reciprical links.

Thoughts Please!



"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you.

 

[ChrisHunt]

So is placing a link on a page that the user cannot see but the search engine spider can considered bad?

Any content that spiders can see but people can't is liable to be considered bad. It's just not worth the risk.

If you sell exactly the same products in exactly the same market as your competitor, there's not much point in trading links. If there's any cases where you would say "we can't help you, but you could try xxx.com" then put in a link.

As a human reader, it increases my respect of you if I see that you're not afraid to recommend your competitor where appropriate.

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[1DMF]

If you sell exactly the same products in exactly the same market as your competitor, there's not much point in trading links.

-> but there is if they are no.4 in google and want to help us increase our ranking isn't there?

"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you.

 

[johnwm]

I understand that Google's usual response to deliberate attempts to 'cheat' the system usually end in the offending site(s) being dropped entirely from the listing

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[1DMF]

I can't believe that google employ staff to view the millions of sites to see if someone has done this, but I appreciate the sentiment.

Also if it's purely a coding mistake, that was overlooked and the webmaster didn't realise the CSS being applied to the portion of text was the wrong colour due to a global CSS colour change on the whole of the site, penalising a site for it is hardly fair!

I can't beleive it's policeable nor acurate enough to penalise 'potential' offenders.

hmm food for thought, but there has to be a better way of doing this.

descisions descisions



"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you.

 

[Foamcow]

Personally I don't think you would be penalised but it might be the link just won't be counted. There are potentially legitimate reasons for including 'hidden' text on a page. Take a dropdown navigation menu for example.

Anyway, Google don't need to employ anyone to do anymore than write a piece of code to detect it and perhaps flag it for further inspection. I'd say that for all the 'millions of pages' out there a pretty small number hide any text. It's not a gargantuan task to flag the pages that hide and employ other potentially spammy methods for human review.
Making invisible links is certainly a spam tactic as it's intention is to mislead the Search Engine. If you present different info to the SE than you do to your user than you are on dangerous ground.

On the off chance it will cause you to be penalised is it worth doing? If you, or they, aren't comfortable with people being able to see the link then don't put it on the page. It's pointless. If all you are concerned with is ranking then why not display the link?

There is no real decision to be made other than to either have the link or not have the link.

<honk>*:O)</honk>
Designease Ltd. - polyprop folders, ring binders and creative presentation ideas
Earl & Thompson Marketing - Marketing Agency Services in Gloucestershire

 

[feherke]

Hi

Once I saw a stupid site. The whole content was on a single page in different sections. Always only one of the sections sections was visible, the others hidden. As the visitor clicked on the internal links, they called a JavaScript function which changed the section's visibility.

And the site was available in Google, so they did not banned it, although most of its content was hidden.

So as others wrote it before, you have to be very bad to get banned from search engines.

( Sorry, I lost the URL and did not tested its inclusion in other search engines. )

Feherke.

http://rootshell.be/~feherke/

 

[1DMF]

If it was my descision it would be easy, but you know bosses!

I'm not sure how an algorithm can check to see if the text is hidden though.

does it read the CSS file, then collect all classes and id's and then check the class/id color vs background settings?

I thought web crawlers saw as much as the lynx browser, nothing but text, no images, no JS and no CSS?

We really would like the additional value of the link back, but I think the boss may decide to not have it.

I talked with the missus on this and we did think, maybe we could say something like, "not happy with our service, why not try our competitor" , and give the link.

Now thats got balls and might work don't you think?

plus even if they do get business from the enquiry we make money as they are an AR of our network anyway, so eveyone's a winner!

dunno if the boss will like the idea though :-(



"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you.

 

[Foamcow]

From a marketing perspective I'd say leave out the "not happy with our service".

Just say something like "Check out our competition" or "You might also be interested in..."

You could even turn it to your advantage by stressing how you have such a good relationship with the competition because you are known as being fair and a good company to deal with.

Just make sure they do something similar on the other end!

<honk>*:O)</honk>
Designease Ltd. - polyprop folders, ring binders and creative presentation ideas
Earl & Thompson Marketing - Marketing Agency Services in Gloucestershire