too many links?

[joert]

hi guys, would appreciate any insight here.

We started our site a few months ago. We have had maybe 500 unique visitors, we post on forums in our niche, and have a signature at the bottom of posts. One forum is showing in both google and bing as giving us 500 links.

We have also done about 5 or 6 link exchanges with genuine sites, that are real, and have good related content ( though not specifically gambling, but gambling sports related). We haven't paid for any links at all. One of these genuine sites is showing as giving us 2500 links on google webmaster tools, and over a thousand on bing.

All of the links are just our site name, without the.com, in the anchor text.

Is this bad? There's definitely nothing awry here- noone is trying to make it look like we're buying links.

All advice appreciated, thanks.

[F-L-C]

So are you saying your traffic has gone down since you got more links? Or what seems to be the problem? Lots of natural related links with no spammy anchor text sounds good to me

[thebookiesoffers]

if you build links correctly you want have a problem. what you have there won't cause you any serious issues although google may have not bothered giving your link exchange much worth.

but if you want to be careful mix it up, have some with keyword anchor text, some with the url and some saying things like click here. Its all about looking natural to the SE's

[joert]

So are you saying your traffic has gone down since you got more links? Or what seems to be the problem? Lots of natural related links with no spammy anchor text sounds good to me

no mate, traffic not that major anyway.

I just noticed alot of links after some genuine link exchanges ( a few thousand of the links are from one site alone). We're on their 'links' dropdown, and somehow it seems that has translated to every page/post on their site.

Like i said, theyre a genuine good site, with real specific content, no possibility of anything bad. But the amount of links just looked huge so I figured I should ask here if it could be bad.

[F-L-C]

nah I wouldn't worry about it if I were you

[lots0]

Ya I wouldn't worry unless you start to see some decline in traffic.

These type of multiple site links are, for the most part, 'normal'... as long as you don't have a bunch of different low quality networks doing this, you should be OK.

As a matter of fact you might see a nice boost to traffic because of the new link juice..

[VaporCreations]

I just have never been a huge linkage person. Originally it was a factor which was used to measure your websites organic popularity, but now that links to and from your website can be had using non-organic methods it just seems that it is too easy to obtain them and I could only guess search bots would be thinking the same. Then I had read that links were on the table anyways with Google's Panda and Penguin Updates and taken from an expert who still ranks high in the search I had done:

While making changes to their algorithm, Google added new penalties for certain SEO tricks that used to be very effective. No longer can you create back links with just one anchor text. If Google sees a bunch of links to your site using the same anchor text, you are sure to receive some type of penalty. Your anchor text needs to look natural in the eyes of Google which is why you need to diversify the terms you use for your anchor text. Do not be afraid to mix in terms like “click here” or “visit now” as this is how non-SEO Internet users would link to your site on the web.

Although I disagree on using terms "click here" or "visit now" within SEO related links because, and as far as I have found, this is still a key method and part of your links description which is what makes the link interesting. This rule not applying to links which are related to a click here or vist now topic of course.

My feelings are that the resent updates to Google's search engines were made to search out real content first and foremost, but also to rule out fake SEO tricks and one of them being IMO the link exchange method. I really have no clue and just wanted to provide the devil’s advocate and bring the new Google updates to light and into the topic.

[universal4]

I agree that having some link here type links....or any other words is ok and actually preferred.

If the link truly is natural, it is more likely to have a click here type of anchor text on occassion since others writing about a resource they found will tend to use anchor texts that vary and would not always use the keywords that the webmaster was trying to rank for.

Rick
Universal4

[VaporCreations]

I agree that having some link here type links....or any other words is ok and actually preferred.

If the link truly is natural, it is more likely to have a click here type of anchor text on occasion since others writing about a resource they found will tend to use anchor texts that vary and would not always use the keywords that the webmaster was trying to rank for.

Rick
Universal4

Yes, I do agree as in it being ok, where as previously having a "click here" or "view this" actually had the potential to hurt you unless the link was leading to a website containing content, keywords and key phrases which included the scope of "click here" and "view this". The bots would read this blindly and once they followed this link and found no connection with those terms, they would not give the link any value within a given search.

Now I believe bots omit these type links all together which does not make the "click here" a negative factor but more or less these links become null at the gain of nothing as far as SEO goes. Possibly Google's bots retain values from searching content surrounding such a link and take this into consideration but I have no proof this is what they are doing now.

Or unless the click here link is structured including the title:


IMO Bad Examples of links which potentially can effect your SEO now:

<a href="https://www.gpwa.org/forum/search-engine-optimization-seo.html" title="gambling, keyword, stuffing, best, website on planet earth, polar bears, Disney world, free money, viagra">Forum discussion about a topic which includes none of the related keyword. !!!Get Rich Niche Blog!!!!</a>

<a href="http://link-which-goes-to-get-rich-quick-blog-asking-for-money.com/@affiliate-ID-#123456" title="the best get rich quick blog, learn XYZ in 10 minutes, be the best stuffing key words">!!!!!!Click Here!!!!!!</a>

or

<a href="http://link-which-goes-to-get-rich-quick-blog-asking-for-money.com/@affiliate-ID-#123456" title="the best get rich quick blog, learn XYZ in 10 minutes, be the best stuffing key words">Cute Puppies Need Home</a>

An example of a "Click Here" link which would have brought back negative feedback with bots but now does not bring any negative input, but brings back little value as far as SEO and the link itself is concerned:

<a href="https://www.gpwa.org/forum/search-engine-optimization-seo.html" title="Forum for discussion about search engine optimization techniques">Click Here</a>

Ultimately this is what Google and the people searching for such links want to see. Truthful and relevant info concerning what the link brings you to:

<a href="https://www.gpwa.org/forum/too-many-links-206182.html" title="Forum for discussion about too many links">GPWA Discussion About too many links being good or bad</a>

Additionally, from other perspectives I have read pretty much no, straight forward, actually know since the update and only can go off of high ranking website previously that had fallen suddenly right after the update.

[lots0]

If you look at enough true 'natural' link networks, the spam and low quality SEO only link networks become painfully obvious.

A site (like the one I list here) that has never bought or sold links, has a vastly different back-link and anchor text profile than a site that actively buys and sells links.

For one thing, in a 'natural' back link/Anchor text profile your targeted keywords will appear in less than ~10% of the in bound Anchor text(my own research).

So when 50% to 100% of your inbound anchor text has your targeted keywords, it does raise some flags with the SE's spam filters.

Most good SEOs have been telling clients to diversify their anchor text for some time now... to make the in bound links look more 'natural'...

[PokerSpnsor2-0]

To the original poster, you really shouldn't worry it sounds like you have sitewide links from your exchanges and a way to fix that would be to contact and ask for specific page only. I do not think sitewide links are very effective any more so you shouldn't see a drop in your rankings by losing the duplicate links.

I would like to mention about "click here" and other non keyworded links. I actually think that naturally some bloggers and webmasters would use "click here" for any type of niche, for example "click here to find more information about bla bla" also consider that probably 75% of sites will have at least one link like that then I am sure Google would not think 75% of the internet write articles based on "click here" You do not need to add these type of links specifically to make your profile look clean, a clean profile is a clean profile.

[GaryTheScubaGuy]

No its fine. That's a natural footprint. Keep it going.

Avoid forum sigs altogether for the time being.

GaryTheScubaGuy

[iSynergy Media]

slow and Real backlink help Ranking and Traffic.

[casinorecommender]

Hi Joert

Please write minimum of 20 articles with around 700 words and make them visible via Facebook and Twitter. And do this one-by-one. I mean do not publish them at once! And they should be uniqu of course! And pray for Google and other se's for crawling them. Then leave the other things to Google and others.. But all of the artivpcles should be top-quality and rich in wording with syninyms and acronyms etc. there should be an information that should be shared by people with people! That is all!

[casinomegamall]

There is nothing about to be worried. I think that genuine website have added your link on the side bar of their website and their all pages are crawled by search engines and only because of that they shows too many links from a single website.

[joshua123]

If you want to promote your website then it is the best way to generate more and more links. So links are must to promote websites on search engines.

[LosCasinos]

make them visible via Facebook and Twitter. And do this one-by-one. I mean do not publish them at once!

this practice leads to uniqueness reduction, doesn't it?

[universal4]

If you read his post more closely, he did state that the articles should be unique.

So, as long as they are not "spun" articles and are unique and well written then there should be no dupe penalty or a reduction in uniqueness.

Rick
Universal4