Backlinks to Avoid

Website Submission Tips

Due to the recent changes in Google's algorithym to try and prevent spam some webmasters are using various means so the backlinks to other sites are not followed by the search engines.

The website submission tips below will help you spot backlinks to avoid. Some websites add code that will keep your visitor on their website and others will use code that will not allow the backlink pointing at your site to pass PR (Page Rank). Some of these backlinks will not profit your site at all and may instead do grievious harm to your PR and Keyword Rank also.

The backlinks coming into your website should be from quality websites with relevant content. Check out the page where your site will be listed and use that page's PR (not the home page). Also see Getting Good Backlinks.

NOTE: Most of the following where it concerns PR no longer applies where links in directories are concerned because Google has been steadily reducing PR across the board due to more websites on the Internet every year and particularly in directories that don't put rel="nofollow" on their links.

Don't submit your website if any of the following dishonest backlink methods occur (You may need to view source code to find some of them):

Backlinks to Avoid

Pages with links inside of frames (will not pass PR and will steal your traffic).
Free for All Links - they allow anyone to post a link unreviewed which results in unrelated and spammy links (banned by search engines and also your site if you link to it).
Link farms - 100 or more unrelated links on a page (banned by search engines and also your site if you link to it).
Bad Neighborhoods - Poooorrrrnnnooo or gambling or drug sites (banned by search engines and also your site if you link to it)
"I'll link to your website if you link to my other website" is called a Triangular Linking Scheme (can be penalized or banned).
The site has a network of mirror sites with exact same web links (these sites may be banned and your link on their site will produce no benefit).
The site has a PR of 0 (either because the website is too new or page is in a dynamically driven database) Use your discression here--a new, well designed website may grow in page rank.
The website has several ads disguised to look like their own content above the links and then they have a multitude of their own pages linked in the menu with almost every link containing the targeted word for that page (for Google AdSense ads this is called a MFA site or a site Made for AdSence only, with little content).
The link page or directory is not linked from the home page or site map (search engines won't find it).
If this site is a directory are the links in a dynamically driven database? (if so it may never be found by Search Engines). If you think it will bring traffic go ahead.
If the website is a directory do they make you search to find your site? (it won't be found by Search engines unless it's on a static non-changing page).
Is the website using a redirect link to an inside page on their site where they "appear" to list more information on sites but that site's title or domain name is in the title of that page (BEWARE!!!! if your site is a new website this website may outrank your own site.) Sometimes the link to your site on these pages is not a real link.
If the page you would like to place your link on has PR but also a robots meta tag that says: "NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW" or a robots.txt* that disallows googlebot then Google will not follow any links on that page and thus no page rank for your site. They probably did this to preserve their own PR.
If the backlinks on that page have a rel="nofollow" tag on them the search engines won't give you credit for the link (some directories are doing this when they sold links to protect themselves but when the purpose of getting backlinks is to have them indexed by search engines then this is another method to avoid unless you only want traffic).
The website takes forever to load (too many ad banners, etc.) and search engines won't wait.
The website is poorly designed and has broken code, etc. (it may not be indexed)
Having a great majority of links that are traded or reciprocal (search engines may devalue all such links).

* You can check to see if a site has disallowed search engines from following a page by checking their robots.txt (enter www.TheirDomain.com/robots.txt). If you see anything like "Disallow: (with the url for the page your backlink would be on)" then they have told search engines to not follow the links on that page.

If your website has dropped in rank in Google recently (August or September 2007) it may be due to a majority of your backlinks no longer being counted due to one or move of the above reasons.

Avoid Submitting to sites with More Info or Profile pages

Some webmasters are taking drastic means beyond what is mentioned above to hide their links. Often the website will look harmless enough, but often they make another page with "more info " or "profile" and use one of the two methods below to display your site and either prevent your page rank and/or steal your traffic at the same time:

1. They put your web page inside a frame so when someone views that page they don't even need to go to your website and thus steal your traffic. If this happens put a "break out of frames" script on that page so it won't be contained in their frame any longer and ask them to remove your backlink. Use the following pop-out-of-frames script in the head portion of your pages.

<script type="text/javascript">
if(top!= self) top.location.href = self.location.href
</script>
2. They put your title (usually for the home page) on the title of the "more info" or "profile page" which results in them competing for the keywords in your title. Ask them to remove your backlink.

These kinds of sites are called Scraper Directories because they scrape whatever they want off the internet and put it on their own website inside a frame to make it look like they have a lot of content on their website when they are actually stealing other's content and their traffic also.

A good way to detect this method of stealing your traffic is to watch your site meter for links with two urls in it; the offending site's url comes first and then yours. If you click on the bad backlink it will go from their website to yours--you have to watch closely in the status bar of your browser window or you may miss it. See the Hijacking Web Page PR (Page Rank) article on how to stop this.

Buying Links From Bad Neighboorhoods

A bad neighborhood is any site with a

There is a site on the internet called the million dollar home page that is a prime example of this scheme (I'm not linking to it for obvious reasons). They claim to not accept bad neighborhood sites but if you check the site you will find they have accepted links from a lot of them. All websites linked from this page are not categorized so it would be considered a Link Farm. Also there are thousands of links on this page that were sold to unsuspecting buyers who thought they would get a PR 7 from this link. The page may have a PR of 7 (PR can be easily falsified) but having thousands of links coming out of a page would make the value of that PR non-existant. Search engines disapprove of purchasing links because it is a dishonest attempt to boost your sites importance and Google is starting to penalize sites that buy links so this is not a smart move because everyone on that site will be tagged as buying links. Most importantly, sites participating in this type of scheme may find their website banned or penalized.

Web Traffic Scams - Avoid Websites that Sell Traffic

A dishonest SEO telemarketer company called Traffic Power used a Javscript Mouseover redirect on a keyword spammy doorway page so it would rank high and when someone lands on this page via a search engine they are redirected to the intended page the minute they move their mouse over that page. Google bans such sites that use this technique and often the client doesn't even know what happened and by then the SEO fraud company is long gone. Traffic Power has since changed it's name to 1P (First Place). See this testimoney from a well informed client of LWD that was wise enough to avoid a Traffic Power's SEO SCAM when they called.

Alphabetical Listings - A Drop in PR that You Can't do anything About

When submitting a link to a directory or website that lists backlinks alphabetically be aware that your backlink may be moved to another page when that category gets too large. This will usually result in the new page having less page rank than the original so you loose page rank as the site grows and the url of your link drops out of site until the next update and this can happen several times over the life of the website. There isn't much you can do about it unless you pay to remain in first place as a featured site--which is probably why they do this (but then you are buying links and may cause your site to be penalized or the link devalued). The same often happens to a new disorganized directory that decides after you have submitted your link to break the page down into separate categories.

For more submission tips see:
How to Get Good Backlinks - Website Ranking Tips
Directories that Pass PR
Directories to Avoid

If you would like your web site analyzed for keyword ranking
please check out the Website Evaluation page.

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Technology that Blocks Some Search Engines
Dynamic Pages vs Static Pages
Keyword Ranking FAQ
Keyword Strategies
Maximize the Title Tag
Validate - Validate
Links to Your Site are Top Priority
Submitting websites to Search Engines and Directories
How Long Does It take to Rank in Google

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