Is this guy crazy or right on?

[pcarlow]

Take a look at this article.

http://www.webpronews.com/ebusiness/...ngLiveSEO.html

This guy asserts that "you can't build links through linkswaps anymore" with Google.

and, Google filters out what appears to be purchased links.

I think he's full of it. What do you think?

[awall19]

his title looks like a rip off of another recent article

http://www.webpronews.com/ebusiness/...opularity.html

reciprocal links still work some and Google is not very good at filtering out purchased links. as they get better at filtering out these types of ranking manipulation the techniques used to manipulate rankings will get more advanced.

I can tell you some of his information is 100% incorrect. for example, he states " Some even emphasize meta tags which haven't been used by search engines in nearly 4 years. "

yet in an interview earlier this year
http://www.e-marketing-news.co.uk/april_2004.html
Jon Glick (Yahoo!'s Senior Manager for Web Search) stated exactly how they use the meta tags.

[mjm1905]

Not to sound sarcastic, but why on earth would the company start penalizing you for this. It seems to me, they are in the business of giving good search results. Moreover, it seems to me that counting links and anchor text has lead to their success. Cutting them out would put them side-by-side with all these search engines that are dying out. Wouldn't you agree?

[awall19]

Originally Posted by mjm1905

Not to sound sarcastic, but why on earth would the company start penalizing you for this. It seems to me, they are in the business of giving good search results. Moreover, it seems to me that counting links and anchor text has lead to their success. Cutting them out would put them side-by-side with all these search engines that are dying out. Wouldn't you agree?

they do filter out some links that they may think to be of low quality.

[mazsola]

I think you might think more of goo g le than it is :-)

[awall19]

some links are known to be filtered
http://www.blockedpr.com

[I, Brian]

I've seen claims that highly organised link exchange software/programs themselves - if left on default settings - can triggers flags. But general link exchanges as a practice? No, I don't see that at the moment.

As for purchased links - the problem there is that Google almost certainly devalues multiple links from the same domain - so having 1000 links from 1 site is not going to be as valuable as 1000 links from 1000 sites.

[webmastery]

That's why the pricing metrics have already changed so much for the link brokers. You now pay more for multiple IPs than just anchor text.

[awall19]

Originally Posted by webmastery

That's why the pricing metrics have already changed so much for the link brokers. You now pay more for multiple IPs than just anchor text.

that is kinda why I dont mind spending over a grand just registering a site with second and third tier directories...to get dozens of links from a bunch of independant IP ranges.