Linking to "bad neighborhood"

I remember reading something about it being "not a good idea" to link to
a "bad neighborhood."

I understand that, and it makes sense to me, but what happens if a "bad
neighborhood" has a link to ME ???

If I don't link to the "bad neighborhood," but the bad neighborhood is
linking to me, will it affect my rank at all?

Thank you.

"Carl Wan" <carl_wan23 (AT) cov0rnospamle (DOT) com> wrote

I remember reading something about it being "not a good idea" to link to
a "bad neighborhood."

I understand that, and it makes sense to me, but what happens if a "bad
neighborhood" has a link to ME ???

If I don't link to the "bad neighborhood," but the bad neighborhood is
linking to me, will it affect my rank at all?

Thank you.

It can if it is a link farm or some other spammy source that Google doesn't
like.

However, the likelyhood of one of those sites linking to you without your
knowledge is slim unless you have somethign of importance to that site...adn
generally the link farms et al don't look for quality content..do they?

:-)

--
James Taylor
http://www.AICompany.com
http://www.SEO-highrankings.com

"Martin Hagstrøm" <mha (AT) NOSPAM (DOT) altavista.net> wrote

And the Lord of SEO spake many things unto them in parables, saying, There
is nothing from without a site, that entering into it can defile it: but
the
links which come out of it, those are they that defile the site.

Whoa. That was heavy.

Brian
IceIsHot.com

Carl wrote:

what happens if a "bad neighborhood" has a link to ME ???

Here is what Garrett French says in his article "What Did Google
Mean?" (WebProNews)
http://www.webpronews.com/insiderrep...oogleMean.html

"Sparks of Controversy. There was a substantial amount of controversy
in the WebProWorld forums regarding what Marissa Mayer, the Director
of Consumer Web Products at Google, told me at the Search Engine
Strategies Conference in Chicago last week. She said, "If you dropped
in rankings, go back and look at who you linked to and who's linking
to you. If any of these people are using spam techniques, they're the
reason your site no longer appears on Google."

"The subject of controversy here, as you can probably guess, is
whether Google really is penalizing websites based on what sites are
linking to them - a factor that is often beyond the control of website
owners. This is a concern because if Google uses this method to
determine a site's rank then your competitors could easily sabotage
your site's ranking by linking to you from spam sites."

Read more…
http://www.webpronews.com/insiderrep...oogleMean.html

"Daniel Bazac" <nyisn (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

Carl wrote:

what happens if a "bad neighborhood" has a link to ME ???

Here is what Garrett French says in his article "What Did Google
Mean?" (WebProNews)

http://www.webpronews.com/insiderrep...oogleMean.html

"Sparks of Controversy. There was a substantial amount of controversy
in the WebProWorld forums regarding what Marissa Mayer, the Director
of Consumer Web Products at Google, told me at the Search Engine
Strategies Conference in Chicago last week. She said, "If you dropped
in rankings, go back and look at who you linked to and who's linking
to you. If any of these people are using spam techniques, they're the
reason your site no longer appears on Google."

"The subject of controversy here, as you can probably guess, is
whether Google really is penalizing websites based on what sites are
linking to them - a factor that is often beyond the control of website
owners. This is a concern because if Google uses this method to
determine a site's rank then your competitors could easily sabotage
your site's ranking by linking to you from spam sites."

Read more.

http://www.webpronews.com/insiderrep...oogleMean.html

We mentioned this in this NG almost two months ago.

We brought up several cases where it appeared that Google WAS in fact
penalizing sites because of who linked to them.

Sam found several cases where this was not occurring so the jury is still
really out....but rest assured, Google can and does do this.

They can also set a filter on a site so that the PR does not transfer. They
did this at Dr. Dobbs System Journal. PR 9 but none of it passes on.

If you see someone questionable linking to you, ask them to remove the link.
It is unlikely that a "bad neighborhood" would link to your site other than
if someone was wanting to target your site or you linked to them your self.

These sites generally don't link out unless requested to do so.

So....if you are doing things correctly and have few enemies (or they are
all pretty simple minded) then you have little to worry about.

--

James Taylor

http://www.aicompany.com
http://www.seo-highrankings.com