Are one-way links better?

[PTC]

I have yet to actually see any firm proof that the presence of a reciprocal link is going to devalue an inbound link. Most reciprocal link pages suck and have lots of outward links, that is the main issue with these types of links, they are also easily spotted as web spam, and when you add an outbound link on your own website - you are giving up some SEO value.

This looks like people are just repeating shit that they heard elsewhere for the last 5 years. I challenge anyone here to show me a scenario where adding a reciprocal link devalued the original inbound link. I don't care if you claim that reciprocal links pages didnt help you, they are not the strongest. There is a huge difference between getting a shitty link, and getting a good link that is made shitty just by the fact that you linked to someones website.

[baerrus]

PTC: Hard proof will be "hard" to come by

Anyways my question was kind of in vain because by blog is hosted of off the same TLD as the main site. It appears that Google treats them as the same site.

[ak]

as long as if it's related your ok.

[parttimepoker]

one-way links are better than this thread. i did love the twist at the end where the one-way link turned out to be an internal link.

you shouldn't say "white" sites. that doesn't mean what you think (it doesn't mean anything, but it sounds like "sites run by white people"). you mean to say "white-hat" sites.

[pokeraussie]

Recip links were devalued by google around 2005-2006. Previous to that sites with primarily recip links were ranking very well. You'd be hard pressed to find that today. More to the point, sites which are looking to exchange recip links on link pages tend to be of lower quality. Don't get me wrong, I would never pass up a relevant recip link if I know it would send traffic.

[PTC]

PTC: Hard proof will be "hard" to come by

Yes, a Big challenge, but actually not too hard...

I would just build 3 simple websites. The ONLY link fuel here would be paid links from reciprocal links pages (These tend to be pretty cheap, especially when you offer to reciprocate in 3 months). Measure your results and wait until you are out of the sandbox and leveled off. Next, reciprocate the links for those websites you just built. If reciprocated links are less valuable solely because of the fact that they are reciprocated, your search results should go down after you reciprocate all of the links. In other words, measure your strength with all 1-way links, than measure your strength with all of the same links, but now as reciprocals. If you search results drop, than you'll have a decent conclusion.

Michael M. probably knows more about testing than all of us put together, so maybe he can tell us if Im full of S##t or not.

[PullMyFinger]

I have heard many opinions on the subject of nofollow links but struggled to understand them. I feel this video by Patt Flynn explains it best with the juice box example.

[pokeraussie]

I have heard many opinions on the subject of nofollow links but struggled to understand them. I feel this video by Patt Flynn explains it best with the juice box example.

The nofollow tag was introduced to combat blog comment spam, hence why most blogs use nofollow on comment links by default.

Whether nofollow links send link juice is debatable, but in terms of SEO, I don't think there is any doubt that a follow link is more effective than a nofollow.

[Michael Martinez]

I have heard many opinions on the subject of nofollow links but struggled to understand them. I feel this video by Patt Flynn explains it best with the juice box example.

I don't have time right now to watch the full video but his first "mini seo tip" is not very good. It would be helpful to people who know nothing about image optimization but he isn't aware that Google won't index TITLE text.

Also, it helps with image optimization to include a caption -- and I would use full sentences, not just keywords (in fact, I DO use full sentences). Titles should be included for usability.

One more point -- he says he would only optimize one image per post. That's ridiculous. Optimize them all.

[Michael Martinez]

So now that I'm back, I can watch the rest of the video.

Tip No. 2: Shorten your URLs "to reduce the keyword density of the URL". This is a harmless tip as far as SEO is concerned, except that it reduces your relevance to longer-tail queries. But if you're targeting a high-value term a shorter URL probably works better. From a usability perspective shorter URLs are easier to work with.

Downside is that you use up available URLs more quickly. I would only use this tip occasionally.

Tip No. 3: Create a Google+ page for your Website. He advocates doing this for first-mover advantage. There's more marketing wisdom than SEO applicability in this tip. He thinks the links are NoFollowed. I don't believe they are, but it's possible Google+ adds NoFollow on some links but not others.

Tip No. 4: Create a YouTube channel for your Website. He says do it for links if nothing else. Eh. Probably not worth the effort. If, however, you do run videos on your site then a YouTube channel makes some sense.

Generally speaking, parasitical linking on social sites doesn't create much value for your backlink profile but if you follow the rest of his advice in this tip (create videos) then you can probably realize some benefit.

Tip No. 5: Use "NoFollow" on affiliate links. His "Juice Box" metaphor is not very helpful. A Website cannot "leak out" authority or "juice". I think he is trying to describe the credibility that a search engine may (or may not) extend to a Website based on what the site links to. There *is* merit in understanding that if you link to too many "bad" sites you may be downgraded.

Former Googler Pedro Dias recently disclosed on Google+ that Google does, in fact, crawl NoFollowed links -- but it will not associate the linking site with the destination (except as many people have noted, Webmaster Tools reports NoFollowed links in your backlink reports, so keep in mind that different Google services use their data differently).

The Pretty Link Wordpress plugin he demonstrates looks pretty interesting.


My UNSOLICITED Opinion: This video is better than most and is probably a good watch for people who want to learn something more than just basic SEO.