Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. Research & Trends
    3. White Hat / Black Hat SEO
    4. Would linking out to a gambling/casino site, harm my site and the other sites it links out to?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Would linking out to a gambling/casino site, harm my site and the other sites it links out to?

    White Hat / Black Hat SEO
    6
    7
    14710
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Markus111
      Markus111 last edited by

      I have been emailed asking if I sell links on one of my sites.  The person wants to link out to slotsofvegas[dot]com or similar.

      Should I be concerned about linking out to this and does it reduce the link value to any of the other sites that the site links out to?

      Thanks,

      Mark

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • Getz.pro
        Getz.pro last edited by

        I would not unless your site is about gabling or casinos as stated. I would not link out to non-relevant content.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • DaveSottimano
          DaveSottimano last edited by

          Hi Mark,

          I'll try to be ast straightforward as possible and say that the practice of buying/selling links with the intent of passing link value (a.k.a. pagerank, linkjuice) is against Google's quality guidelines.

          http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66356

          Unfortunately this is not uncommon, but there are some things you can negotiate that are within Google's quality guidelines.

          If they want to purchase a link, it should be considered as advertising. If it is considered advertising, you should abide by Google's guidelines and add the "nofollow" tag to the link which essentially does not give the link any value. The only value is potential traffic from your site for the buyer(s).

          Most likely, the buyer(s) will not agree to this as they are probably buying a followed link in order to pass pagerank from your site to theirs - in order to manipulate search rankings.

          Would I do it? Nope, not worth the risk. However, I would be more favourable to link to them if they advertised with me. I would only link to them if they had relevant, related and good quality content that I genuinely wanted to refer my visitors to.

          I'm guessing you're not a casino site, so you might want to steer clear from this transaction.

          Regarding your second question:

          Linking to "bad neighborhood" or poor quality sites can also affect your rankings - this is a known fact. Have a good look at their site:

          1. Is it a link farm
          2. Poor content, tons of ads/adsense
          3. Questionable material (adult etc..)
          4. Malware, spyware
          5. Thin affiliate site
          6. Do they have business contact details clearly visible
          7. Is it easy to contact them
          8. Is the content on their site being scraped from another

          I think you get the picture, definitely have a read of what Rand said a few years ago:

          http://www.seomoz.org/blog/more-on-nofollow-at-seomoz-and-how-bad-outbounds-can-impact-websites

          That post is still very relevant and sums up the point quite nicely.

          Be cautious and good luck.

          Cheers,

          Dave

          http://www.bad-neighborhood.com/

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • NextDigital51
            NextDigital51 last edited by

            Yes, it might potentially harm you. And I believe that once you link to a gambiling/casino site, less people will be willing to get links from you again as some don't want to be associated to gambling/casino sites (bad neighbourhood).

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • StalkerB
              StalkerB last edited by

              1. Never admit to thinking about selling links 😉

              2. Working in gambling, I've seen a lot of paid for links to gambling sites burn the pages they're on if it's from unrelated content (sigh, I shouldn't be honest, just going to make my job harder). Usually this'll just burn the PR of the page it's on, but sometimes can do damage to your whole site.

              3. In the interests of disclosure (and as mentioned above) I would technically be a competitor working in the same sector, but if I approach you for links you should probably turn me down too 😉

              4. If you page is about casinos or slots or games or probabilities or something related then you might consider giving them a link, but again, don't admit to selling them, especially in a public forum. Linking out to relevant content isn't as bad (paid is still bad). If it's a body building site though (just going by your user name) I wouldn't.

              5. If it was an advertising link you would have to nofollow it to adhere to Google guidelines, however I doubt the person wanting to buy it would agree.

              6. And yes adding any extra links slightly reduces the value of the links you already have.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Markus111
                Markus111 @eyepaq last edited by

                My site is fitness/health/sports related if that makes any difference.

                I understand your point about link dilution, but thats not what I mean, will it harm the rankings of my site or the sites that my site links out to?

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • eyepaq
                  eyepaq last edited by

                  Well if you're site is about casinos and gambling that can even be useful for you - it can help as google said that linking out to similar content can even help your ranking by showing users quality similar content.
                  If not for sure it won't help and more then that it can even harm you.
                  if you post the link in the footer of the page for example it won't even help them and more then that it can hurt you as they can smell a paid links in many ways.

                  As for the other links of the page, a new link will dilute the link juice. (10 links out -> link juice / 10 for each one, adding a new one will mean link juice / 11 - even if y ou use no follow for one or more links)

                  Markus111 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • 1 / 1
                  • First post
                    Last post

                  Got a burning SEO question?

                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                  Start my free trial


                  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.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • NathalieBr

                    Too many dofollow links = penalty?

                    Hi. I currently have 150 backlinks, 90% of them are dofollow, while only 10% are nofollow. I recently hit position #10 for my main keyword, but now it is dropped to #16 and a lot of related keywords are gone. So I have a few questions: 1. Was my website penalized for having an unnatural backlink profile (too many dofollow links), or maybe this drop in positions is just a temporary, natural thing? 2. Isn’t it too late for making the backlink profile look more natural by building more nofollow backlinks and making it 50%/50%? Thank you!

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | NathalieBr
                    0
                  • RosemaryB

                    Site Footer Links Used for Keyword Spam

                    I was on the phone with a proposed web relaunch firm for one of my clients listening to them talk about their deep SEO knowledge. I cannot believe that this wouldn’t be considered black-hat or at least very Spammy in which case a client could be in trouble. On this vendor’s site I notice that they stack the footer site map with about 50 links that are basically keywords they are trying to rank for. But here’s the kicker shown by way of example from one of the themes in the footer: 9 footer links:
                    Top PR Firms
                    Best PR Firms
                    Leading PR Firms
                    CyberSecurity PR Firms
                    Cyber Security PR Firms
                    Technology PR Firms
                    PR Firm
                    Government PR Firms
                    Public Sector PR Firms Each link goes to a unique URL that is basically a knock-off of the homepage with a few words or at the most one sentences swapped out to include this footer link keyword phrase, sometimes there is a different title attribute but generally they are a close match to each other. The canonical for each page links back to itself. I simply can’t believe Google doesn’t consider this Spammy. Interested in your view.
                    Rosemary

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RosemaryB
                    0
                  • wearehappymedia

                    Spam sites with low spam score?

                    Hello! I have a fair few links on some of the old SEO 'Directory' sites. I've got rid of all the obviously spammy ones - however there are a few that remain which have very low spam scores, and decent page authority, yet they are clearly just SEO directories - I can't believe they service any other purpose. Should we now just be getting rid of all links like this, or is it worth keeping if the domain authority is decent and spam score low? Thanks Sam

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | wearehappymedia
                    0
                  • SEOBirmingham81

                    The use of a ghost site for SEO purposes

                    Hi Guys, Have just taken on a new client (.co.uk domain) and during our research have identified they also have a .com domain which is a replica of the existing site but all links lead to the .co.uk domain. As a result of this, the .com replica is pushing 5,000,000+ links to the .co.uk site. After speaking to the client, it appears they were approached by a company who said that they could get the .com site ranking for local search queries and then push all that traffic to .co.uk. From analytics we can see that very little referrer traffic is coming from the .com. It sounds remarkably dodgy to us - surely the duplicate site is an issue anyway for obvious reasons, these links could also be deemed as being created for SEO gain? Does anyone have any experience of this as a tactic? Thanks, Dan

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SEOBirmingham81
                    0
                  • David-Kley

                    Should You Link Back from Client's Website?

                    We had a discussion in the office today, about if it can help or hurt you to link back to your site from one that you optimize, host, or manage. A few ideas that were mentioned: HURT:
                    1. The website is not directly related to your niche, therefore Google will treat it as a link exchange or spammy link.
                    2. Links back to you are often not surrounded by related text about your services, and looks out of place to users and Search Engines. HELP:
                    1. On good (higher PR, reputable domain) domains, a link back can add authority, even if the site is not directly related to your services.
                    2. Allows high ranking sites to show users who the provider is, potentially creating a new client, and a followed incoming link on anchor text you can choose. So, what do you think? Test results would be appreciated, as we are trying to get real data. Benefits and cons if you have an opinion.

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | David-Kley
                    2
                  • MickEdwards

                    Disavow links leading to 404

                    Looking at the link profile anchor text of a site i'm working on new links keep popping up in the reports with let's say very distasteful anchor text.  These links are obviously spam and link to old forum pages for the site that doesn't exist any more, so the majority seem to trigger the 404 page. I understand that the 404 page (404 header response) does not flow any link power, or damage, but given the nature and volume of the sites linking to the "domain" would it be a good idea to completely disassociate and disavow these domains?

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MickEdwards
                    0
                  • semoney

                    Site dropped suddenly. Is it due to htaccess?

                    I had a new site that was ranking on the first page for 5 keywords. My site was hacked recently and I went through a lot of trouble to restore it. Last night, I discovered that my site was nowhere to be found but when i searched site: mysite.com, it was still ranking which means it was not penalized. I discovered the issue to be a .htaccess and it have been resolved. My question is now that the .htaccess issue is resolved , will my site be restored back to the first page? Is there additional things that i should do? I have notified google by submitting my site

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | semoney
                    0
                  • THB

                    Closing down site and redirecting its traffic to another

                    OK - so we currently own two websites that are in the same industry. Site A is our main site which hosts real estate listings and rentals in Canada and the US. Site B hosts rentals in Canada only. We are shutting down site B to concentrate solely on Site A, and will be looking to redirect all traffic from Site B to Site A, ie. user lands on Toronto Rentals page on Site B, we're looking to forward them off to Toronto Rentals page on Site A, and so on.  Site A has all the same locations and property types as Site B. On to the question: We are trying to figure out the best method of doing this that will appease both users and the Google machine.  Here's what we've come up with (2 options): When user hits Site B via Google/bookmark/whatever, do we: 1. Automatically/instantly (301) redirect them to the applicable page on Site A? 2. Present them with a splash page of sorts ("This page has been moved to Site A.  Please click the following link <insert anchor="" text="" rich="" url="" here="">to visit the new page.").</insert> We're worried that option #1 might confuse some users and are not sure how crawlers might react to thousands of instant redirects like that. Option #2 would be most beneficial to the end-user (we're thinking) as they're being notified, on page, of what's going on.  Crawlers would still be able to follow the URL that is presented within the splash write-up. Thoughts?  We've never done this before.  It's basically like one site acquiring another site; however, in this case, we already owned both sites.  We just don't have time to take care of Site B any longer due to the massive growth of Site A. Thanks for any/all help. Marc

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | THB
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.