I've Pulled Hardlink Trades - You May Want To Read This
 

Ok, my list has been around almost two years and I've always tried to treat people fair. I've given submitters second chances, removed some blacklisted statuses and even taken the time to personally argue my LL rules with foreign submitters who have disagreed via private message.

But lately something has been nagging at me and I feel compelled to take action. When I entered into link trades, it was in the assumed understanding that I would be trading with another webmasters projects that they would keep up to date and active. I know things happen in life and business and plans change, but it is very frustrating when I find that about half of my trades are to linklists with closed submits, haven't been updated in a year, or contain broken images and 404 links.

I spend a lot of time and effort in keeping my sites up to date, and I guess I expect others to do the same.

That being said I have gone ahead and pulled the hardlink trades I had with anyone whose site is no longer being updated or cared for. I have notified almost everyone I had these trades with, except for the one that has been banned from this board. I've even cleaned out my inbox for the surge of complaints I expect to see.

If you have recently asked me for trades and I haven't gotten back to you, it's nothing personal obviously.

Thats understandable preacher.

It's just too bad that so many do shit like that, or take links down, or try to cheat. Makes it hard for us honest ones to make trades and submit without having to be a "partner".

You have been more than fair, so if they don't like it and want to complain ... Fuck em. :)

Heya Preacher,
Who wouldn't yank their links?
You've been more than understanding.

This thread has got me thinking that it's time for me to do some spring cleaning on my LL's. I haven't checked my link trades in a while - should be fun. |loony|

I need to do that as well...but I'm thinking about being an ass & not telling the other side :D

Bad enough when free sites pull links or change "sites", but it's even more frustrating when people you thought you could trust do it. Sure don't blame you.

also i like to add and i may sound like a asshole but...

I been rejecting sites that have my recip mixed in with other LL that don't review anymore, take 1 or 2 years to list sites or are closed

I am fair and if it is just a few dead LL recips I wont reject

also I am on the verge of closing public submitts and just giving out so many trusted submitters a url to sub to

its taking me to long to review anymore and makes my day way to long when I figure in building

If you're looking to replace some links, I can trade with my new site: http://www.bizarremovies.com/tgp.html

Let me know if you're interested.

|spam| |couch|

How is that spam, Mr Ball breaker?

He said he's dropping trades. I assume that he'd be looking for new ones.

If I tried to pimp out the awesomely Unique TGP for E4acash again, I can understand how that could be considered spammy. |thumb

But Bizarre Movies is my personal site.

I recently did the same thing - especially with LLs that werent updating etc - although I have to admit I had 2 LLs of my own that werent updating as often as I liked - but they are all caught up now to within 2 weeks of submitting

Got me thinking as well . . . but damn you Preacher for adding another item to my "to do list" :D

I started doing something similar to this back in early February, mainly deleting sites that were penalized or had very old cache dates. I'm going to take that a step further and delete all trades with fake link lists (sites listing only sponsor hosted galleries or free sites), and review sites.

I'll make every effort to contact trade partners but as some were set up via ICQ and/or PM I may not be able to get to everyone. Hopefully posting here will catch most of the trades that fall through the cracks.

Guys, ya'll've saved me from having to start a post. I've spent the last week looking over my link trades and deleting the bad ones. I had some that were trying to install viruses, a bunch that have been penalized by google and have pr=0 on their category pages, and alot that did just what was mentioned above...no new content, changed up the pages to just ads, etc. Hence, be forewarned (Ok, it's really after the fact because I've already pulled'em) I have pulled all links that I thought would be detrimental to my site to be linked to.

Hmmmm...looks like I have more links to pull now :(

What's your evidence?
PR 0 - So what? Penalized? How do you know?

I can never tell if I understand nothing about SEO or more than most.

yeah you pulled my trade, i visit the board and am on icq most everyday and I dont get a message - thats BS

plus the way you have free site submitters sub to you and have them wait a year or 2 while you get backlinks and traffic is also BS

So later dude while I pull your links

who else wants to stop trades or pull links, if you feel froggy jump, I hate to be the one to drag down your site in the serps...

anyone who relies on free traffic from google has built there house on sand!

Was it on The Odd Couple? "assume" makes an "ass" out of "u" and "me" :D

Seriously, I wish this board was the kind of place where people that did things like this didn't have to be labeled as spammers, but if I let you do it.....

You'll get the hang of this board thing now that's your an Affiliate Manager |thumb

PR makes people think my dick is bigger :D

Trade traffic, not PR.

Are you saying a site with PR 0 can still have a lot of good traffic? I'm only asking not to question you but because I don't know any of this stuff. Off the cuff I would say PR doesn't mean squat.

Think of it this way: would you rather have 1000 blind hits from a PR5 site or 1000 legit hits from a PR0 site?

And while I don't believe the PR hype anyway, back when I did, the PR was for the domain & not for individual pages (and this is probably still true, I just don;t care enough to pay attention)

So just because a category (page) has a PR0 should not effect how much traffic it has or the quality of the traffic.

Example:
http://www.link-o-rama.com/greenguy/nipples.htm - PR0
This page has traffic - and more to the point, this page has very targeted traffic.

And as always, with any SE advice (especially from me) this is all just opinion :D

Pulling links without telling people you are pulling them is a dangerous practice.

Captain and Spaceman - I've got a lot of old links with you guys on a number of domains, do I have to sit here and wonder if you are going to fuck me on them, and vampirize relevance from my network of pages?

I'm glad to see you are both reviewing again on your main sites, and have stopped this practice of not reviewing (at least on your main sites).

But this business of dropping links without notice is bad for everybody, and could end up causing a lot of trouble for everybody.

If we can't trust linking partners, if linking becomes an exercise in who betrays who first, where does it stop?

Read my post Bill. I said I would contact everyone I could find contact information for. I just wanted to make a post here too because looking through a few of the trades I noticed that I don't have an email saved in my trades folder, and there's no contact info on the sites. In retrospect I probably should have insisted that all trades be done through email so there would be a record.

So far the only thing I've deleted are a couple of domains that redirect all the category specific links to the index page, a domain that's parked, and a few that are so over-the-top bad that they just had to go. I sent emails to the webmasters on those. I'm betting they won't even see them.

As regards our other trades, I'm not fooling with them at all, and I would certainly give you a heads up if I ever did.

PR is NOT what people think it is. If it was, when you pulled a Google search for any certain term or phrase, the results would be listed by PR in descending order; PR 10s, then PR 9s and so on. PR is not an indication of anything other than PR. :D Do some searches right now and see how PR2s and 3s appear before PR5s and 6s. PR is a form of voodoo to keep you from seeing the truth.

I'm glad to hear that Spaceman, and I want to be clear that i'm reacting to this more as a general subject than worrying about specific links. If I spoke too aggressively or unclearly my apologies.

I still think that dropping links is a risky business. Just the other day I was transforming an old domain and found two links that looked bad - one went to a "domain for sale" page, the other went to a site I didn't recognize at all, one that looked as tho it had been expired and snapped up by domain speculators.

I asked about those names here, and I'm glad I did, because one name turned out to be Linksters and the other Jays - both guys who have been generous with links in the past, and who I am comfortable linking to, no matter what their domains are doing.

If you feel you need to drop a link to protect a domain, and the linker hasn't started downloading viruses or suchlike shit, you ought to consider transfering the link to another of your domains.

(I understand this gets complicated, and like me you probably have many links where you've forgotten who the link is too and where to return link is supposed to be coming from - I'm just saying don't slash-and-burn links without giving it some extra thought.)

Linking is about trust. Once we start breaking down that trust, once people see people like yourself (who have a past reputation for good linking) saying they are dropping links, it starts a process of the legitimization of link dropping for personal benefit that will hurt us all.

I've told people that you and Captain are trustworthy linkers - so if you guys talk of dropping links, that threatens everyone who links. Which is why I feel the need to speak up about it.

Hey Marc...not trying to pick on you, but you spoke up so I will use this site as an example....don't hate me |couch|

On the 1st of February, I started this thread. I have not deleted any trades, but have still been trying to figure out what to do about what seem like bad trades to me.

Now for pornoplenty. The amateur page, for example has no PR. Again, I really don't care, other than to wonder why?? That site (and that page) have been online for over 3 years. Also, I cannot find that page indexed in Google. Is this not indicative of a "problem" in Google's eyes. I don't want to be unfair, but I also don't want to lose traffic and money. Something obviously started pissing Google off about my site, and I would like to "fix" it if possible. After all, I am here to make money.

Look again.

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:...&start=10&sa=N

Ok, so I see it says it is in the supplemental results. If you just search for the url though, it is not there. Care to explain why???

No, but if you are a Goolge scholar, why don't you tell us why. ;) Then we'll all understand why you are concerned about the trade.

Because use hasn't asked me ;)

I never claimed to be a Google scholar, which is why I started the original thread. So others, who know WAY more than me, would hopefully explain a few things to me.

If you don't understand my concern from my original post, then I'm not sure I can help you.

JennyM

I think it was last summer when a hell of a lot of sites got hit with there category pages loosing PR and going supp. and even a bunch of mainstream sites(I did a lot of reserach on it and so did a lot of others and they found no good reason for it)and it was after that, That google started liking my index page a lot during the summer months

then google did another update in the fall and my google traffic fell way down and since then it's been slowly coming back...

I know it been really bothering me why my category pages are showing no PR, and trust me I been trying to get them back

I really have no agressive cross linking or spam pages out there or nothing like that

I think some of my google short comings are from having to many aff links and I been working on that to see

so give it another BL update and toolbar update and if my category PR dont come back then just drop your links to my site

My index page is a 5 going by the toolbar for those PR whores

I don't need help. I roll with the punches. I don't get concerned about the minor BS so many of you spend time tracking. And it is BS. You have nothing to validate your concerns with.

also adult link sites fall out of google grace all the time and for a long time at that, and if the link lists that you traded with, 3 to 4 years ago are worried about the "not banned" fallen out of rank site bringing down there site, then who thats in this for the long haul wants to trade with them...

me and greenguy has link trades all over and did my No PR category pages keep his site from his "Good google luck he has had lately"

NO

whoever wants to quit trading with my site because I have a temp No category - go ahead pull your links

I don't have a category trade with you, so I haven't pulled any links. Again, I didn't mean for this to come off as attacking you. I am sure you are busting your ass to figure out how to get your PR back, why it's gone, missing your traffic, etc. All I am trying to do is run a successful site that makes me money.

I traded links with you when your site was barely a month old. How much PR do you think you had????

Many people talk about not bowing or worring about SE traffic, and it makes some sense, but I have to say personally, when it's good, you sure want more and you don't want to lose it. Just my opinion.

I could be wrong but, I think the point of PR0 sites, was more, not wanting to link to banned sites. Linking to banned sites sure can't be real good for your own site. Then again, how do you tell for sure if a site is banned or not?

With all due respect, I don't really need anything to validate my concerns. It is my site, and I decide who to trade with. I could have declined the trade to begin with. So, what? Are you saying if I decide to trade with a site, I am stuck with that trade forever?? Wrong. I haven't deleted any of those trades yet. I am still trying to read up on some things, and hopefully learn some shit. If/when I decide to no longer trade with certain sites, that is my business.

I dont wanna fight and argue with anyone

jennyM were cool

and captain you should have told me and if I sounded harsh then I was just having a bad day

Jennym, I don't know squat about SEO but it's already been said that PR really doesn't mean |bullshit| . Why are you worried about linking to a site that has PR 0? I think if they had traffic, and from your stats you can see if they're sending any, that would be enough to keep links up and not worry about it.

Thats a good outlook - unfortunately I guess there are others that feel that they should just pull links based on their own opinions without notifying anyone and get the benefit derived from having PR3 and 4 category links pointing back to their category pages |crazy|