The Evil of SiteWide Links Test

Ok,

Who ever believes that sitewide links wont tank your site are very much incorrect.

Even 100% on topic themed links will tank your site - not only in google but also in msn and in yahoo.

Ok i wont be using exact site names because they are all my sites (different registration details, different class c-s, different content and different linking patterns)

There were 5 sites involved.

Site 1 contains approx 2000 pages on subject A
Site 2 contains approx 3000 pages on Subjects A, B, C, D
Site 3 contains approx 150 pages on subject A
Site 4 Contains approx 200 pages on subject A
Site 5 contains approx 500 pages on subject A

Site 1 1 month ago was set up to site wide link to Sites 2 - 5
after a week or so sites 2,3,5 all dropped in yahoo and in msn (small presence in google). Site 2 dropped a week before in google.

At the time i put this drop down to other factors because site 4 had not been effected which was also linked to by site 1.

Site 4 did not drop in yahoo, google or msn in this period.

Whilst doing maintance on site 1 i found that the link to site 4 was not set up correctly and i corrected this on thursday last week (tbh i should have realised what had happened at the time i found the problem - c'est la vie).

By saturday site 4 had dropped from no 4 in yahoo to 180th. it had also dropped in google and in msn.(all the links were found in a linkdomain: search by then meaning that yahoo had indeed added this data)

I removed the links to all sites on saturday.

By today Sites 2,4,5 are back in the top 20 of msn (from 100+).

Sites 2 and 4 have also improved in google.

I am almost possitive sites 2-5 will improve after the next yahoo deepcrawl.

How if linking to a site can not effect it negatively could this happen ??

The answer is it couldn't because all major search engines are penalising site wide links even on topic ones.

I dont care if you dont agree with me or think my test is inconclusive i am simply providing detaisl of a "short term disaster" that i feel is worthy of being brought into the public domain.

If you want to have more info then i will provide the sitenames to people not in the same industry as me just send me a pm.

Thanks for the test, but I have been completely sure about this since March or so.

Lil most people would say that only non themed sitewides can cause what i was refering to above ( at least in google). I have never seen anyone warning of the effect of sitewides in msn and very few talking about yahoo (except extensive cross linking but this was one domain only)

Cheers,

BB

I have to disagree. I have put up a sidewide textlink for a hosting company with a competetive name. Sure it dropped the first 2 or 3 weeks. There were suddenly like 80.000 pages linking to the hosting website.

But now it's listed #1 for the kw in both msn and google. Still nowhere in Yahoo but that's probably because Yahoo almost never crawls the site (dutch site).

I think it's more the sudden increase of BL's that causes a temporary setback then it is the sitewide that penalizes you.

I agree with Jammer. When i do aggressive link building (I add 2-3 times more links than normal) my sites drop 100-500 places. After 1-2 weeks they jump back where they were before the aggressive linking and move up slowly.

Hi there.

Are there any negative implications to the site thats receiving the sitewides.

I recieve sitewides from about 15 sites and I never link back to these sites. Is there any possibility that these sitewides linking to my sites are causing any problems. The reason why I cant tell from the SERP's is because these links have always been there linking to my site so I could never notice any differents with concerns to rankings

Hey bb,

Been a while... Nice to see you back..

To much to soon ... simple as that imho...

site wides work on older domain with 100's of established bl from loads of ip's... But I think your site is to new..

imo

Hi Broker Boy

I have the same posibility here.

I just have one problem. Google should'nt be including factors that can be abused by BH's or competitors. So does this mean to hurt you I just need to put up site wides to your site and Boom you're gone?

Yeeezzz Google is this true, you working us through the ears again?

Gabs one of the sites is a 3 year old domain that has over 5000 single links from over 4000 different ips and class c's

My point is not just about google but all search engines.

Msn and yahoo def hate the sitewides AND WILL NOT recover whilst they are up imho. I like to keep all of my irons in the fire and i try not to follow any strategy to the absolute detriment of any of the search engines EVEN msn. To me if im in all 3 search engines if 1 or 2 search engines drop me at least i am still earning off the site. Think of it as alternative diversification.

google may recover, i'll give you that (although i dont belive it will in all circumstances even with on topic links) but i'd rather rank in all search engines and expend the extra effort.

IMHO its a risk - A BIG Risk - to do this but then all seo's work different ways.

I dont mind if you believe me or not to be honest but ive spent alot of time on this forum and i always try to post when something of note comes up in my work.

Good luck to you all who think sitewides are a short cut to easy bucks - if you haven't gone yet one day you will because the search engines can and will penalise you for recieving links and the old "its not under my control so they cant penalise me" argument holds no water any more.

Cheers,

BB

P.s. I hope that if you do rely on sitewides that it still works out for you but i'd work on replacing them with good on topic single links but maybe thats just me.

I am so confused right now as to what to do with my sites. Broker Boy makes many valid points but the above that Chatmaster stated makes so much sense. From what is said thus far in this thread is all abou the RECEIVING of sitewides and not anything about the site that is giving the sitewides to another site.

Thats just tells me that all I have to do to th #1 site is link to them from all my 1000 pages and they'll drop and my site will not be affected.

I feel that this leaves TOOOO big a loop hole for BH's

What do the BH's of this forum think about that. Is that perhaps a known strategy or have you guys maybe tried it out and were unsuccessfull. Pls let us know.

Even if you made the first site drop, what would be the point?

There's still 9 other spots on the same page. LOL. Are you going put 10 sitewide links in your footer? Might look very strange to the bots.

Brokerboy, while I appreciate you sharing your experience with us all, I don't think you can definitively state the above.

Like everything in seo, there are many possibilities as to what caused the change in the serps. If you truly believe your theory to be true, why not do it to your competitors and document that as well? If you are right it will only support your theory and hurt your competitors. If you are wrong, then you will not be able to hurt your competitors rankings.

They may be my competitors but i hold no malice toward them i feel that people who dont try compete but rather to destroy only deserve my strongest disrespect and pity for their methods.

I have never and will never try such an underhanded method.

BB

I normally wouldn't condone such activities, but I am still under the belief that: "its not under my control so they cant penalise me"

anyone have a site that is stable in the serps that this can be tested on again?

bb, how many sites were competing for these keywords?