Sep
26
Links Without Value for Search Engines
Filed Under Search Engines
With the Google toolbar not showing PR accurately recently and checking for backlinks with the link: command not reflecting links as well as it used to, it’s become harder to know which links will have value. Theoretically, sites should be linked to simply because they have value and are worth linking to, but in reality most people who exchange links are looking for value returned for value given.
Here are a couple of examples of links that will give no benefit to the recipient unless there’s enough traffic to send visitors. The actual URLs have been replaced by example and othersite.
These pages are in frames, so it’s hard to see. By right clicking on the link to the page and ch0osing “Open in another window” the page can be brought up outside the frame. When mousing over the links on the page, what’s seen in the location bar at the bottom of the browser window looks like this:
http://www.example.com/store/link/goto.asp?id=99
That link is being run through a redirection script, which when checking the server header indicates that it’s also involving a temporary redirection to the link partner’s site. This is what’s returned when checking:
=======================================================
http://www.example.com/store/link/goto.asp?id=99
Status: HTTP/1.1 302 Object moved
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 13:13:45 GMT
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
MicrosoftOfficeWebServer: 5.0_Pub
Location: %20http://www.othersite.com
Content-Length: 121
Content-Type: text/html
Set-Cookie: ASPSESSIONIDCSQCDQST=KLOPHMLDGLJPMGOAPFIBBCKG; path=/
Cache-control: private
===================================================
That is not a link to another web site, it’s a link to a location on the site itself - through a script, and not the link recipient’s site. Another thing is the cookies, the session ID. Unless it’s a very high traffic site with good reason to count and track off-site links, that just isn’t a good idea. Besides, it isn’t fair to people who are exchanging links who expenct benefit back - there is none, unless it’s for direct traffic. But for SEO, nope - nothing, nada.
There are other issues as well about 302 temporary redirects, but for the sake of simplicity those are beyond the scope of what’s being looked at.
Here’s an other example, again with the domains being made generic for the sake of courtesy and privacy. While the main page has good Page Rank and is a flat HTML page (not in frames), that’s not the case with the category pages.
When pulled up by right clicking on the link and choosing “Open in new window,” this is what the URLs of the actual category pages look like
=============================================
http://www.example.com/linksection/index.php?PHPSESSID=dd88a80574c01157fab2f43e0a3b8a00&PID=40&
PHPSESSID=dd88a80574c01157fab2f43e0a3b8a00
Even with direct linking, this is what another of the category pages inside the link directory looks like
http://www.example.com/linksection/index.php?PHPSESSID=dd88a80574c01157fab2f43e0a3b8a00&PID=15
=====================================================
Here is an example of what one search turns up at Google
And another one - 2K pages
None of the content on those link pages will get crawled by search engines; when it’s a URL only listing like those are, it means that Google found the page through a link to it, but does not crawl. So again, unless you’re going to get a decent amount of direct traffic, don’t expect any benefit from the links or a link exchange where search engines are concerned. Often pages are linked to open within a frameset so you can’t see. Use that right click (unles it’s turned off), and when that happens, start looking further unless you’re willing to exchange or give a link regardless.
Here’s yet another one. In this case there’s a “program” where the site is getting unreciprocated homepage links back to their own site, in exchange for something that is absolutely of no value. That, in addition to having a link directory where the links look like this, with the server header information following
=====================================
http://www.domain.com/jewelry/linkdirectory/click_through.asp?target=http://www.othersite.com
Status: HTTP/1.1 302 Object moved
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 04:15:33 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Location: http://www.othersite.com
Content-Length: 147
Content-Type: text/html
Cache-control: private
=================================
Again, not a link to the site at all, but a link to a page on their own site that redirects - not a link - with a 302 temporary redirect, which is now causing all kinds of headaches for people with Google.
Sorry, I apologize that there are real sites to see in those Google searches, but that’s the only way to see and this is something that has to be said. More than likely, 99% of the people who have links pages like that have no idea and it’s unlikely that it’s deliberate. I believe that last one does know, because they’re savvy enough to run that program to get the free homepage links from people, which does nothing but drain some Page Rank that would otherwise be distributed to the pages of the people’s own sites.
When we are doing link development for sites, these are some of the things we have to look for so we know exactly what we’re getting and what to expect.