Beware of link exchange with puntersrealm and thedailypunt

[fkoerner]

Hi there,

I just wanted to warn every webmaster here not to engage in link exchanges with puntersrealm.com and thedailypunt.com - those sites are cheating on their link exchange partners in a nasty way (using their robots.txt files).


Both sites had been reputable english betting websites for a long time, but recently they were sold to new owners ...
The new owners now use an old seo cheater's trick, but one that's not easy to detect.


They (or rather their hired link builders) are currently quite active writing a lot of messages to other sports betting webmasters asking for link exchange, offering a backlink in their links directory.

They only offer you a redirect link, but that's not the big problem, the link is 301 redirected so although it's not ideal, you could argue it still passes on some link juice for the link partners.

But the big problem is that they have added a rule in their robots.txt file that google (and all other search engines) are not allowed to index the partner links - so this virtually means that the partner links on puntersrealm and thedailypunt are absolutely worthless from a SEO point of view!!

As a consequence google would see your links to puntersrealm and thedailypunt, but would not see any link back, so over time will think "wow, puntersrealm and thedailypunt must be very good sites when so many other websites in the industry link to them without getting a link back" ...


I was discussing a link exchange with them some weeks ago and when
I discovered the cheat, I played naive and asked them to "remove the error in the robots.txt file" (I believe in people's goodness). The link builder told me he had passed it on to the webmaster, but (like expected) nothing happened and the robots.txt cheat is still online on both sites and they are still very active trying to get links with the trick.


I just don't understand why egoism and selfishness time and time again leads to cheating on link exchange partners.
I have seen the robots.txt trick more frequently in the past, but thought it has become extinct as more webmasters are more experienced nowadays, but it's obvious that still too many fall into that trap ...


So, if they approach you, you could ask them (like me) to remove the partner links block in their robots.txt files - or if you see puntersrealm or thedailypunt links on a friend's site, ask him or her, if he is aware of the robots.txt cheating they do!!


They should really learn to appreciate their link exchange partners, not to cheat on them!

[Webzcas]

I had home page link exchanges with both those sites with my site betsage.com made before they were sold. Thankfully another webmaster told me about this a couple of months ago.

Needless to say I removed their links.

[fkoerner]

I have just seen that they have created an italian and a german version of puntersrealm using the same nasty robost.txt tactics for the link exchanges ...

[Buddy.]

Thanks for making this public.

[brean78]

Well done for bringing this up. It is a shame to see such well established sites having their reputations tarnished by unethical link building methods.

If you have links pointing to their sites you should think about pulling them down.

[ironman2000]

Thanks for making this public and giving all the members here the heads up on these guys..................

Have a wonderful week to all

Keith

[ALEX777]

Thanks for posting this, and I think it's a very good idea to warn everybody publicly! Meybe it's time to create a forum branch "Unethical Link Exchange Partners" (or something like this)? Because I, for instance, have many issues with link exchanges.... There are so many unethical webmasters who try to fool me

[fkoerner]

That's a great idea ALEX777 - I also have many issues with unethical link exchange partners - it would be good to have a separate forum section about them.

About twice a year I check my existing link exchanges thoroughly and it always drives me mad what people do.
Simply removing links without any notice to the partner is the most common offence, but I also often see that the links have gotten a "nofollow" tag, the links page is still existing, but it's not linked anymore (neither from the home page, nor anywhere else on the site), direct links turn into redirect-links, suddenly a robots.txt blocks the links page (like on puntersrealm and thedailypunt), all those things unfortunately happen quite often in the webmaster world ...

[betnod]

As one of the original creators of thedailypunt (slick) I'm sorry to hear about the problems you are now having with the site since we sold it, however I am pleased to announce we have just created a new forum and have no intention of selling this one.
I wouldn't say we learnt our lesson as we got a decent price for thedailypunt but we do miss the fun of the day to day running of a forum and have decided to start again for the pleasure of it.

[universal4]

I am not sure you know you replied to a thread almost 2 years old....

Rick
Universal4

[theGman]

Thanks the holy smokes he did - i just learnt something Wonder how many times ive been suckered by this tactic