Would linking out to a gambling/casino site, harm my site and the other sites it links out to?
-
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
-
I would not unless your site is about gabling or casinos as stated. I would not link out to non-relevant content.
-
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:
- Is it a link farm
- Poor content, tons of ads/adsense
- Questionable material (adult etc..)
- Malware, spyware
- Thin affiliate site
- Do they have business contact details clearly visible
- Is it easy to contact them
- 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
-
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).
-
-
Never admit to thinking about selling links
-
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.
-
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
-
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.
-
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.
-
And yes adding any extra links slightly reduces the value of the links you already have.
-
-
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?
-
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)
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
-
My site in 2 page
my site in 2 page how can i rank with this keywords in dubai legal translation in Dubai
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | saharali150 -
Should I disavow this Link?
I am trying to clean up my link profile to get rid of a partial penalty and am not sure to do with one of the links to my site http://www.seoco.co.uk The link is 100% organic and has come from a foreign language site that published an infographic that I did: http://www.clasesdeperiodismo.com/2012/12/23/la-evolucion-de-las-redes-sociales-este-ano-en-una-infografia/ The thing is that in the link to my homepage they have used the anchor text SEO as opposed to my company name. I have already sent them an email and asked them to change the anchor text but they haven't responded so I am guessing they probably wouldn't respond to a removal request either. Should I disavow it?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Eavesy0 -
Are multiple links on the same domain worth pursuing?
Let's say you get a guest post on a blog that links to your site for $100. How much is the link from another guest post on the same domain worth? $90? $50? Does each additional link from the same domain lose its SEO impact? What if one blogger loves your content and is willing to post 10+ of your blog posts with links to your site in each - is that worth pursuing just from an SEO standpoint (I know it can be a good branding opportunity if the readership is right)?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | pbhatt0 -
Spam linking site how to report
I have a spam linking site that is generation thousans of links to my site. Even if i have a good link background, this is the only spammy i have, each week number of links comings from it increases by 500 , i know have 3000 links for that site and 1800 for other sites, but that one keeps growing What should i do, i dont want that link it is imposible to remove as webmaster does not respond
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | maestrosonrisas0 -
Should I 301 Redirect a Site with an 'Unnatural Link' Warning?
Hey Fellow Mozzers, I have recently been approached by a new client that has been issued with an 'Unnatural Link' warning and lost almost all of their rankings. Open Site Explorer shows a ton of spammy links all using main keyword anchor text and there are way too many of them to even consider manually getting them removed. There are two glimmers of hope for the client; The first is that the spammy links are dropping off at a rate of about 25 per week; The second is that they own both the .com and the .co.uk domain for their business. I would really appreciate some advice on the best way to handle this, should I :- Wait it out for some of the spammy links to drop off whilst at the same time pushing social media and build some good clean links using the URL and brand as anchor text? Then submit a recosideration request? Switch the website over from the .com domain to the .co.uk domain and carry out a 301 redirect? Switch the website over from the .com to the .co.uk without doing a redirect and start again for the client with a clean slate? I would still register an address change via Webmaster Tools. Add a duplicate site on the .co.uk domain. Leave the .com site in place but rel="canonical" the entire domain over to the .co.uk Any advice would be very much apprecited. Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AdeLewis
Ade.0 -
How to recover my site from -50 penalty
One of my sites was hit after Google confirmed its panda 3.2 update. The site ranked very well for many heavy traffic keywords in my niche. But all of a sudden, 80% of the keywords which ranked high in the previous dropped 50 in SERP. I know it is a -50 penalty , but i do not know how to recover from it. The link building campaign is almost the same as before and all of the articles are unique. BTW, i have two image ads on the sidebar and 7 affiliate links on the bottom of the page. Any input will be great appreciated !
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | aoneshosesun0 -
What to do when majority of results have shady links?
So I am doing my back link research for the hosting industry and I am running across two different types of link schemes that make it hard to compete with straight white hat techniques. I am determined to keep our efforts white hat to retain long term value, but at the same time I am constantly tempted to slowly add links in the more grey ways. So here are some of the common practices I see a lot of (e.g. 8 of the top 10 sites for top terms use these). Link Buying/Article Links - You know this one well, their link profile has a 10:1 ratio of keyword links compared to brand name links, and the majority of those keyword links are on nonsensical blogs, or on related "tech" sites but obviously labeled as paid links. - I don't like this much, and have even reported some of these. "Hosted by" - So the majority of hosting companies out there have pre-built collections of templates for wordpress, joomla, and other CMS systems, and they have taken the extra step of putting "Server Hosting by XXXXXX" in the footer of those templates. This leads to thousands of small sites being hosted with the keyword backlinks. While I understand this, at the same time I would hope they wouldn't get credit for links all coming back from IPs that they own. While they aren't creating these sites they know the majority of users won't change the template (or know how to). Lastly there are some "Link to us and get discounts" programs going on with customers as well. So, seeing the linking setup this way, would you try to report each instance you see to Google? If so do you think they would really change anything considering how rampant it is among the results? Lets hear some opinions! In the mean time I am going to go work on my awesome content, press releases, and cross-company promotional campaigns ;).
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SL_SEM0 -
Reviewing a competitors links
Using Open Site Explorer I was reviewing a sites links. This site happens to appear at position 2 in Google for a key-term that I am targeting for one of my sites. Most, if not all of the links appear to be coming from some very questionable sources that have absolutely nothing to do with their sites content or business. Some of the page titles are : Free Music - Free Music Tampa Bay Florida Fishing Guide Free BDSM and Bondage Sex, BDSM XXX, Fetish Por... LAX Car Rental Reciprical Links Page - Add Your Link Casino More Links Is this practice going to end up hurting their site and catch up to them at some point? From what I have read, these are not the type of links that you want to be going after.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BrandonC-2698870