My general rule is that if a TGP or link list insists on large recips then I don't post to them, there are plenty of others. If I ever find a site that I want to use (eg it sends me large quantities of good traffic) but who insists on a big recip, then I guess they deserve to have a bigger recip because of the higher quantity of good traffic. However that situation has never arisen, it seems that only newbies and traffic black holes have only big recip banners, all the good ones at least have the choice of sensibly small buttons.

Just wondering since the subject has been brought up, I read repeatedly that the recips are basically for backlinks and other seo reasons and that the traffic that comes from recips is basically nothing, then why would the size of the recip matter?

The reason I'm wondering is because from a seo point of view wouldn't it be better with 20 text recips on one page than 5 pages with four each. Because 5 pages look like doorways to the search engines and you might end up with several pages with low pr where when I tried the multiple links on one page, that page got an instant pr4 just from the sites I was linked to and the ones linked back.

Seems like that would be better for everyone in the long run, probably better to have a higher pr page linked back to your site than a lower one and with a bunch of nice pr pages linking to your warning page, it's easy to get that.

Maybe start grouping recips by pr instead of traffic return?

Just questions

RE : "from a seo point of view wouldn't it be better with 20 text recips on one page than 5 pages with four each."

No, most SEs do not consider links from pages with more than 10 external links to be of much value, and even if they are less than ten many give a higher relevance the less links there are. This is why you will often see TGP WMs insisting on no more than four (or sometimes three) TGP links on a gallery.

One thing that most TGP WMs miss is that links on a gallery page do not count for much, but links on a menu page of a site count a lot higher. If the engine is spider based (eg Google) it tells the difference by internal links to html pages (if you have these you are a site, but if you link direct to jpgs you are a gallery). This means that if the TGP WM insist that pictures must not be on html pages (i.e. you must link directly to the picture) he is pretty much wasting your time asking for a recip, it will have little or no effect on your SE ranking. Worse, I have been told (but so far seen no proof) that some SEs will give you a MUCH LOWER ranking if a substantial number of your external links (i.e. gallery listings) go to pages where the pictures are not on html pages.

If you run a TGP site and you want good SE ranking you should ideally insist on all pictures being on html pages, however this will probably loose you a lot of posters, so perhaps you are better off offering better listing to galleries with pictures on html pages, which will encourage a posters to do this but will not alienate those who don't want to.

I'm not sure where exactly you're getting your information from, but you should be able to notice that since the link sites started asking for category recips those category pages are pulling up higher and higher in Google and they have lots of links on those pages.

I'm not a seo pro say I can't be positive about things but I've had excellent results from this, linking to relevant pages is pretty important, I do know that much.

Maybe XXX Jay will pop in?

You know, I heard somewhere that text links sized to "-2" may get less attention by the spiders because people will often make the links small to hide them. The spiders want to follow real links the same way a surfer would, not something intentionally made small to be looked over.

marc
hoes.com

I started to ask for people to link back to my site in 97 - the links I ask you to use might have changed over the past 2 years, but it's still the same concept - you link to me & I'll link to you :)

The SE aspect of it is just a plus for everyone - I get SE traffic & the links on my pages get spidered faster & given more relavance.

Stop bitching about what is essentially free traffic - use the recip they ask or move on :D

I have a 120x60 button if the submitter prefers to use this also I don't mind if they make up a recip table with a collection of nicely done plain text recips, hopefully still niche specific.

What I do mind if someone makes my recip look like shit by taking my design and shrinking it.

[thread split from http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...&threadid=7313]

As GG said this is incidental and a new fad. Recips are recips... eg: a good old link swap.

The traffic that comes from recips is minimal, but when you have 100s of sites linking to you it is not so minimal.

I do not beleve in mirroring doorways, and think that one page of decent recips is a much better offering. But remember recips in and of themsleves are only one part of the SE question. Structure and content of the 'linking' page, structure and content of the 'recieving' page would have much more bearing on SE outcome.

Many people do this already. Again it should be part of an overal plan/structure, not just based purely on PR.

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Ecchi those are pretty sweeping statements and I would say both are untrue, though it may apply in some cases to some SE's.

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Sorry RockDaddy but that is a bit of a generalistion too.. I dont ask for or use niche/category recips, but my categories rank up with the others.

I am yet to see a convincing argument for niche/category recips.


IMO a recip.. is a recip.. is a recip... as long as you get my URL right I am happy, and the SE's will be happy too.[/color]

DD

It's an interesting discussion anyway, I have no problem with the recips, it's not even a big deal to add the category recips because I've got it down to a nice system.

I am yet to see a convincing argument for niche/category recips.




Agree! my recip code points to the front door - always has, and always will!

Cheers,

Paul.

If you're getting not so minimal traffic thru your niche recips, isn't your traffic more targeted to that niche thus have a better quality? I thought that was a good argument, together with the SE thing.

I dont believe many people make it clear there are two recips (within the one recip), so if a surfer clicks on the recip and there is a "random" chance of the going to the correct category.

:) I would say it was "an" argument.. not a good argument...

The "SE thing" may have some advantage, but I think it is minimal, as it is so dependent on the site linking to you.

No one has ever put forward the possible negative argument for:
increased no. of outgoing links
increased/decreased word density in the page
increased ratio of linked text on the page
etc etc...


...any way I have said too much.. :D

DD