Fair play or foul?
 

Some of my oldest free sites are about 18 months old now. Due to my stats I'm well aware of who listed me and who didnt. Through the benefit of experience my submission list is revised and now I have a better idea of where to submit in the first place for new sites I make. I'm also aware of sites that have dropped me from their database due to their policies of only keeping links live for a certain time, which I have no problem with.

What I was thinking was to remove the recips on these old sites from those who never listed me (some of which are now 404 which is no good for anyone) and also those that no longer list the site.

I'd replace them with new link lists I never submitted to in the first place and submit the old site to them. I would of course, keep the recips from those that still have me in their db no matter how few hits they are sending.

The way I see it is I'll have a fresh stream of traffic from the new listings, and those ll's that still have me listed would pick up some fresh traffic too from new listings I'd get via their recips from the increased exposure they'd get.

For the recips that I'm thinking about removing, those that listed me but have now dropped me due to the time elapsed I summise that our reciprocal 'contract' has ended and, those that didn't list me in the first place benefitted from the traffic anyway without anything in return so I dont think I owe them anything.

I'm well aware of the "build it and forget it" ethos, and also the "dont change the site once you've built it". But my last free site took me 7 hours to make and submit. I figured I could slightly change some old sites in pretty quick time that might benefit all concerned....... but I dont want to be labelled a cheater.

This is a question I've not seen posted so would appreciate the wisdom of you ll owners as I try to build a solid reputation in this biz.

Something I wondered about too in the past, I decided not to 'risk' anything and went along with getting 6-8 new LLs and creating an extra mirror page rather than possibly causing an unintentional fuckup.

I don't see where you'd have a problem with doing that.

No problem here :)

Nope, no problems here either :)

However, a caveat. As Jel mentioned, there is some risk involved with pulling old recips. What if that particular site you pull does in fact still have you listed, but they simply haven't sent any traffic that month? I'd suggest checking stats carefully to ensure that you weren't listed...or looking for your listing at the link site in question. You never know when a small list will take off and you wouldn't want to get mistakenly blacklisted for pulling recips on a site that was in fact listed.

Seems it would be so much easier and more safe to do as Jel suggested. MrYum has a point, but if you have many sites to check, that could take some time, if it would be worth it.

Couple things I dont think submitters always think about is that LL's could have different traffic levels depending on the catagory, though you might not get much traffic for one niche, you could for another catagory. Also, if your doing narrow niches, a few hits from a LL that has filtered the traffic to your particular niche could be worth more than a bunch of hits from a page that is not as targeted.

Of course most webmasters are pressed for time, so you have to go with what works best and what is more productive. Just food for thought...:)

ronnie

To be honest, unless you pulled my recip it would be very hard for me to tell if you removed any others.

I have to agree with Jel though. We've all got free-sites out there with recips on them that never accepted us. It's kinda just part of the game. So if I wanted more traffic to an old freesite, then I'd just make a new mirror.

My personal motto is build and move on.

Dont LL's have spiders that are spidering their links and will drop them if there are any HTML changes on the pages?

If they dont, i cant see why everyone is struggeling about the build and forget type of thing,

If they have, i would assume that once you remove one recip for another, you will get dropped at every LL that actually do spider the links.

It must be a whole lot easier just to create new "mirror"sites instead of that risk?

I don't think so. I've made mistakes on freesites, and quickly made changes the moment someone pointed them out. (Thank you to all LL owners who actually keep in touch with submitters. |thumb)

I think so. I like to take risks (look at me! I'm a porn-master!|bananna| ) but I wouldn't take a risk on something with such a permanent consequence.

If I fuck up a page? I don't get listed. If I break a contract? I lose all listing preveleges! The benefit of a bit more traffic on one site just doesn't outweigh the risk, IMO.

My spiders can remove your link from the listings, or they can ban you, or they can reque your link for my hand review (most typical) these are just some of the options I have when I run them.

I know it's tempting, but think of the time it would take, anyway. Safer to make a new mirror, corral some new LLs and submit the mirror.