Link Co-op Sabotage Opportunity?
Oh this can be an ugly business.
All of my Co-op sites have fallen out of Yahoo
*Starting from this page - to the end of the thread - discussion re: links from co-ops possibly causing wipeouts in Yahoo. And … then … some … talk about the ability to use link co-ops to bounce competitors outta the way (ummm think GoogleBowling)
From above blog post:
That has always been why search engines don’t penalize webmasters for inciming links. They don’t want site’s competitors manipulating their results. It seems that Yahoo has left themselves vulnerable to just that…
I have to disagree with that. Without getting too specific, I could do the same with Google. It’s called GoogleBowling.
I wonder if these link co-ops would respectfully accept requests from webmasters wanting their domains blacklisted from the co-ops? Meaning the co-ops would not allow those domains to have co-op links point to them?
I’m going to email Digital Point and ask.
I’ll keep you posted.
Terry:
July 3rd, 2005 at 10:04 am
Ok I just sent an email from the forum’s administrator profile. I hope it worked because at first the message I got was:
and then …
I’ll wait a bit before trying another method.
Ed:
July 3rd, 2005 at 5:20 pm
I am an avid coop user, is there any proof that yahoo really hate the coop? Or this is just a theory.
Terry:
July 3rd, 2005 at 6:04 pm
Hi Ed, by reading the thread over at DP I linked to, it does give the impression that Yahoo is dropping sites with co-op links pointing to them. Also the blog I linked to (Yahoo hating the coop) points out that a charity site, his own travel blog and numerous sites were dropped and not appearing in Yahoo’s results.
What’s so disturbing is that if Yahoo (and there’s talk of MSN trouble too) is dropping sites with the co-op links pointing to them, the link co-op could certainly be used against your competitors (and discussed a bit in both the forum thread and the blog above).
I don’t use the co-op and don’t begrudge anyone who does. But I do think it’s *very important* that these link co-ops provide webmasters some method(s) of protection from link co-op sabotage.
It’s the responsible thing to do IMO.
Terry:
July 3rd, 2005 at 7:27 pm
And a few more links crossed my path:
Can you BAN a competitor?
The question asked of the Google engineer was in regards to whether or not Google penalizes or filters a site that has a sudden influx of new pages. This was the explanation given (paraphrased)…
Comments regarding the above found in this forum thread:
Do check out the latest scoop
Ben:
July 3rd, 2005 at 8:04 pm
The Coop is not a long term solution. I liked it at first, but there’s no way it can work as an SEO tool. Like it sayson the FAQ, it is for advertising not SEO. If you want SEO, go with AdCaliber or LV.
Stephanie:
July 3rd, 2005 at 10:19 pm
No trouble with being dropped by Yahoo on my best Coop site. One other is gone, but top 10 on some great keywords in Yahoo for my best earner.
I’ll admit I’ve worked on getting other links to that site, so some may think that I’ve done something to save it from any problems, but believe me, there’s a fair amount of Coop weight pointed at it.
Terry:
July 4th, 2005 at 10:43 am
What about pointing too much weight to a site? Will that drop a site out of the rankings?
For those who would be interested in having your domains forbidden or blacklisted from the link co-op, I still haven’t had a response to my email above, but it is the long weekend for a lot of us. I’ll try another email in a couple days if I don’t hear anything.
As usual - I’ll keep ya posted!