Can you hurt a domain?

[AugustaREGroup]

I think I have decided on a new domain that I want to be my main site in 2-3 years. I want to go ahead and start working on it now though.

Basically here is my situation. I want to have a professional take care of seo one I actually need the site (can't justify the cost when it is not producing any revenue). So, from what I have read the only thing you can do to hurt a domain is "google illegal stuff" and duplicate content, etc.

I am not exactly sure what you can do illegally.. but is there somewhere where I can read what NOT to do?

I don't mind messing around with a site to see what works and what doesn't, but I want to make sure I am not doing anything that could potentially hurt the domain/site later down the road.

Thanks for any advice!

[AugustaREGroup]

If anyone else is interest I found this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spamdexing

Also, I know link building is important, but does getting a real estate site link lets say from a car forum hurt, do nothing, or help? TIA

[NealRM]

TIA,
Go to the google site and look in the webmaster area, it has a good section on does and don't.

Most one-way links help to some degree. Google currently only penilizes for items under your control, so incomming link will not harm your site.

[AugustaREGroup]

So I can post my link anywhere and be fine? Just don't post my link on other websites I own?

I just didn't want a flood of traffic and not that much content. It would look fishy to me, but anyways I am still learning.

[ericbramlett]

Google penalizes for actions that are under your control that go against their Webmaster Guidelines. In order to curtail negative SEO, they penalize sites for aspects under the site owners' control.

[AugustaREGroup]

I guess back to my example though. If I asked for a review of a real estate site on a car site and the click the link I posted. Is there some point where that is penalized or looked down upon.

[ericbramlett]

There are a number of things wrong with that. First and foremost, Google looks at links topically, so the link on the car site probably won't do you a lot of good (except in extreme examples, and if you know someone at Car & Driver I can buy a review from, PM me now! ) Secondly, if the webmaster at the car site follows G's guidelines, he will nofollow the link to your site, which means it passes no value. If he doesn't follow G's guidelines, then the outbound links on hist site have probably already been devalued, or they will be devalued very soon (because he makes it a habit of breaking Google guidelines in very obvious ways, as in the example you illustrated.)

When buying site reviews, look at two things: 1) Will it be an honest critique of your site that you can use to improve it? (very unlikely, and not the way most people use site reviews.) 2) Will it result in direct traffic, and will that traffic link to you naturally when they see your content?

Paid site reviews w/ followed links are basically paid links, and are very easy to detect. Typically, the links are worthless, or their value is VERY short lived.

So, if by penalized, you mean "a huge waste of money," then yes. However, the site being linked to will not be penalized, other than that link being devalued. If Google were to penalize every site that received a link from a link seller or bad neighborhood, then they would open up a ridiculous can of negative SEO worms that would ultimately be very bad for the SERPs.

Make sense?

[ericbramlett]

Re-reading your original example, I see you're just talking about a site review from a forum. That won't hurt you (but you might get flamed for going off topic,) and it won't do much, if anything, in the way of helping you from an SEO perspective.

Here's an example of someone who wants a paid review, as I described above: businessforum.net/link-sales/2501-wtb-paid-website-review-bloggers-needed.html

[Discover Davis Homes]

If this is going to be a real estate site, why not throw it onto a wordpress.com blog or a basic free real estate website and just slowly build links to it over time. I don't know what your plans are, but if you are trying to save up for a custom site, just put something up, you can refine it later. Is the car question coming up because this is another place you like to spend your time? If you are spending time someplace anyway and being on-topic, I don't think it would hurt to use your real estate links in signatures, etc. (also you never know who might legit find your site that way) - just might not help all that much.

[AugustaREGroup]

First, thank you for everyone that has contributed. I do learn tons from this site everyday. Appreciate the links Eric. Time for me to do some reading

Guess a more clarification of my situation is in order. I am starting an Augusta real estate company in 1-3 years depending on how long I stay in Columbia. You can not have agent feeds in Columbia or Augusta, but I will be a broker in Augusta. Partly I want to build up some good domains when I begin in Augusta.

Ok, so the car forum thing. I used to spend a lot of time in a car forum, and they have an off-topic section (to talk about anything not cars.. so in a way asking other members to review a website is on topic). I haven't figured out how to see if it is do-follow or not (I know you have to download the toolbar or something). But honestly I do not mind if they are not, because I value their opinion (most are home buyers, and very few are real estate professionals that often pay to much to details of a site and not enough to the "average home buyer"). Main thing is I didn't want 200 people on some car forum clicking a link in my signature or thread asking to review my site hurt my domain in anyway.

Also small question that I can not seem to find anywhere. If I go to google on my computer, search the term augusta real estate investing and click my site does that hurt seo in any way? If I do this repeatedly? I really doubt it helps, but I just, again, want to make sure that it doesn't hurt it.

<sorry about the terrible grammar, etc>