Linkswapping programs of value?

December 22, 2005 6:28 AM

Occasionally our university web site gets solicitations from link-swapping programs. Although they are reputed to increase one's search engine rankings, I believe that they are of dubious value (at best) as I'm sure that Google is aware that links from such places are not as valuable as "real links" from "real pages" and deprecates them accordingly. However, I don't have any real data or sources to back up my hunch. Can you point me to some - or, if I'm wrong - correct me regarding their value?
posted by spock to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Jeremy Zawodny of Yahoo hosted an extensive discussion on paid links last week. Follow all the links in his post for tons of opinions.

Paid links do work (for the advertisers) at least in the short term, but the search engines always have the option of blacklisting you or limiting your rankings if they feel it's in their interest. Search engine spam is also extremely annoying for people who are actually trying to do legitimate searches.
posted by mbrubeck at 7:45 AM on December 22, 2005

Note the second "fiction" at this link to the horse's mouth.
posted by bricoleur at 10:28 AM on December 22, 2005

People who are actively looking for your university web site will find it. Why would you care how it ranks with people who are not really looking for it??? Why would you invite traffic from uninterested people?
posted by Ken McE at 3:47 PM on December 22, 2005