[Jay Griffin]

Originally Posted by kyle422

As Tyler said most AA sites have there recip links in a frameset which haven't been optimized to be spidered by search engines. Meaning the search engines can't even see those links within the framesets. So how could they be banned for that? Do you have any proof as you claim that Yahoo banned these site because of recip linking? You can't just come onto the forum and start dropping bombs without evidence of your claims. From your statements I could only assume that any real estate directory that requires a backlink is a bad neighborhood.

Kyle, I did not say that these sites have been banned. AA, in their email to their marketing package clients, provided that information. I did not say that I got the Yahoo! inside information. Greg Boser said this.

Don't shoot the messenger.

As for framesets being spidered, no optimizing is required. If you know how to correctly write your HTML code it's going to happen.

As for your statement regarding directories, this post was exclusive to AA sites, not a "broad everybody is included assumption."

[Eric Blackwell]

Jay;

Let me say before I go further with this post that I don't know you. You may very well be VERY reputable in many areas of SEO. I do know of Web Guerilla (Greg Boser) and he has a SOLID reputation in the industry. That having been said, I am having a HARD time buying your logic that one should jump off and yank recip links off of one's site...whether you are the messenger or not.

a) If one gets penalized for reciprocal inbound links wouldn't the way around it for WebG be to link to everyone in sight and then make the linking site a "bad neighborhood?

My own supposition is that inbound links cannot penalize, but at WORST be removed as a factor (i.e. not help).

b) You are referring to yahoo in specific (I get that.) But the actions you are promoting have effects on other (more dominant) search engines (read: G!). It is simply NOT smart in my opinion to just "whack" those pages just because Yahoo "whacked" AA. That's kind of like selling off an investment PURELY because of tax consequences regardless of the loss. You need to look at the WHOLE picture before going there.

One AA site I am familiar with in a LARGE southern city has a #1 ranking on G! and is doubtless driving a TON of traffic to their site with it...why jeopardize that for a shot at getting back Y!??? I certainly wouldn't recommend it.

c) Once again. I respect Web Guerilla's experience and knowledge, but he's been HIRED to keep AA folks on the program whilst working to get THEM higher rankings. He is a @#$% smart guy who is well respected. Isn't it possible that he's trading on his reputation a bit to get outside of AA folks to do what he wants them to?? (Just a possibility-not an accusation) If taking off the 50 state links was going to solve a bunch of issues and people were being PENALIZED for it, then why talk about it PUBLICLY to as many of the real estate webmasters as possible? Why not just QUIETLY make the switch?
The BEST SEO's are GREAT at getting people to do what they want them to.

I DO appreciate the heads up on AA's take on this and I am going through link exchanges I have done and am making sure that they are STILL reciprocal and have not been removed. For most of us, I think that is one piece of advice that is practical. I will be monitoring that weekly to make sure it stays that way.

Another thing that strikes me as odd. If the 50 state linking thing is ALL bad , then how come many sites that are not AA are still doing fine--even when recip linked to more than a few AA sites. And at the same time many AA sites who exchanged links that are not "50 states", but rather regionally or otherwise divided to limit the number of links per page have dropped in Y! right along with all of the other AA sites??? Does not make sense. (examples can be furnished by PM if you wish.)

Out of curiosity, I did not notice a website in your sig. Are you currently hosted with AA and how's that worked out for you?

My opinion has always been that use of only one linking strategy is a sure path to destruction and while it is true that today's techniques turn into tomorrow's bad practices, the LIKELIHOOD is that in this case, that AA has gotten on the wrong side of Yahoo for something else. It may not be helping them, making it a waste of time--but I don't agree that it is a penalty. It doesn't make sense.

I will leave that to Mr. Boser to figure out. That is what he is paid to do. And he's darn well qualified to do it. I look forward to meeting him sometime and maybe buying him dinner so that we can discuss it...he's a rockstar.

All I can do for today is rely on the logic above and know that it works for me...

Best to all...

Eric

[Jay Griffin]

Eric,

You are preaching to the choir. For the most part I agree with what you are saying and much of that is being hotly debated on AA's forum.

There were some of us on the forum that do not necessarily agree with the advice being given and the possible consequences including Jeff Manson (adrhi.com) and Bob Wilson (sandiegohomes.com).

What I have said here can be confirmed either with Ken Smith or Terry Light who both visit and post here. This subject was first "touched on" in AA's Marketing Tips:

http://www.advancedaccess.com/market...rketing297.htm

Eric, I am not advocating that anyone do anything. I'm telling what they are advocating.

Who am I? As far as real estate is concerned I built relo-experts.com and own a number of other well ranking real estate directories. Morgan knows who I am.

[Homesurfer]

I've been posting here since May 2004, I like what Morgan has done, and I've supported him, exchanging a few emails. I've known Jay for years and talk to him on the phone occasionally. More often, recently. I've been a friend of Advanced Access and their management for about 8 or 9 years. I don't know Greg Boser, AKA Web Guerilla, but I am directly familar with what was said in the information Jay provided you.

What Mr. Boser said is that some of the folks who came over to Yahoo from Overture, especially one guy nick-named SpamBob, really and specifically do not like agent-to-agent linking. The penalty applied to Advanced Access sites was applied manually, not through filters or algorithms (which is why this type of penalty is not reflected across the board on other sites and developers). According to Mr. Boser, it was specifically because of agent-to-agent linking with all the spammy anchor text and everything that agents have been doing for years now. Evidently, Mr. Boser is well-known enough to get his information directly from Yahoo. Part of what he also said is that Google doesn't like it any more than Yahoo, but they haven't done anything about it yet.

That is only a small part of what Mr. Boser said. It would take pages to go over it all, but Jay did have the gist of it correct. Jay doesn't agree with a lot of it (especially in regards to how Google thinks) but he reported it correctly.

My opinions are independent and in this forum I have a unique title. Contrarian. A lot of the reason I am a contrarian is because I constantly express the opinion that agents overdo their peer-to-peer links. Go back and search and you'll find those opinions expressed here.

When this thread came up, I did not comment at all. I did not use Mr. Boser's comments to bolster my own opinion and say "Aha!". I don't normally share source information on things I learn, but Jay is a very informed and knowledgeable individual, not a fly-by-night SEO hack -- and I count him as a friend. He didn't make anything up, no matter how much it may run "contrary" to opinions expressed here and elsewhere - and even with Jay's own opinions.

Jay and I don't always agree, either.

I am a contrarian, after all.

[Goknights]

Well, I will be having a party when one AA site in particular falls from the top.. An AA site is currently number one for my main keyword.. So, I'm hoping it tanks soon!!!

[Eric Blackwell]

Terry;

Thanks for the insight. I hope nothing I said intimated that Jay was either a) a hack or b) putting out false information. He is obviously well informed. Jay-pleased to make your acquaintance.

Not having access to the full source of what Greg Boser said, and now knowing that it was apparently a Yahoo "hand job" (Greg's term for hand edited serps...) makes more sense. An algo would not have taken AA sites out the way that they apparently have. My point was merely that there is no way that I can see to PENALIZE without it being hand done. That has GOT to be frustrating for AA folks.

Also, my opinions are my own as well and I have never met Morgan in person, (and have not to date ever been an REW customer) although I have to admit after visiting www.nanaimoinformation.com it sounds like a very cool place... I do think that his advocacy of multiple sources of inbound linkage is SOUND advice.

BTW- I do appreciate your insight and your contrarianness (is that a word?). You make me think and that is a good thing. For the record, I am an advocate of LIMITED recip linking. (I beleive it has been MUCH overdone). Trying to talk moderation to SEOs is mostly pointless, but you do it better and more effectively than anyone I know.

Best;

Eric

[Jay Griffin]

Eric,

To be fair this is not limited to AA. NumberOneExpert agents have also dropped big on Yahoo!, at least in the areas I monitor.

[judyo]

Sounds similar to what happened to Point2 Agent sites, too. There was a different theory on that one, though. Point2 utilized Yahoo mapping on their sites, then switched to Google. Seems like soon after Yahoo dumped P2 sites. P2 is back to Yahoo maps, I think.

However, many noticed that sites with multiple domain names were the one's being hit as P2 did not use permanent 301 redirects & these domains were all being indexed, showing up as mirror or duplicate sites. This all happened around the same time, so no one knows for sure what caused the dumping of many P2 sites.

[Homesurfer]

Based on what others say about their experiences with Yahoo, here's the thing you have to know, and others here can probably back it up....

Once you get brought to Yahoo's attention for ONE thing, they start looking at everything. You can fix the ONE thing that originally got you in trouble, but now you're under a microscope and may have other challenges to repair, too.

Google doesn't really seem to operate like that. They seem to just "assume" you fix the problem.

[Eric Blackwell]

JudyO;

You are very much on point in my opinion. Yes it is similar in some respects to Point2's issues. Also similar as Jay correctly points out to NOE (Number One Expert). It is also true what Terry says about once you get brought to Yahoo's attention, it is tough sledding.

Here's my thoughts on connecting these dots...

Long post ahead: Fair warning!

Here's my hypothesis. And while I am sure some may not agree, as long as they replace it with one of their own, I am more than happy to have contributed to the arena of ideas.

1) How do you 'come to Yahoo's attention'? In each example mentioned above, it was because the website networks in question were becoming dominant in many of the countries MAJOR METRO areas. While one could argue for days whether Point2's 'faults' were more or less aggregious than NOE's or AA's, the bottom line is that the network itsself was what Yahoo noted. THEN they decided to find out WHY they dominated. Then that SEO 'tactic' is labeled as a bad practice and the network is banned. This is the white-gray-black hat pattern of SEO...

(READ: SEs want you to win, but only so far... )

2) Where the practices have been easily able to be filtered out algorithmically, they have been. Additionaly, we have seen "hand jobs" done by Yahoo--taking out networks by IP address and as Terry points out, once they are onto you--it gets really tough. (This explains some of the issues that Mr. Boser is having...)

3) The fact that most agree that there is no good way to algorythmicaly PENALIZE recips, but they CAN be devalued--EXCEPT by a Hand-Edited SERP is also important.

These premises bring us to the following conclusions on my part--

1) Being hosted by a major national network of sites (AA, NOE, or Point2, etc) is a MISTAKE in that you know if they dominate their competition, they are about to appear on somebody's radar. And BAM your investment is hosed.
Success is short lived. Better to be hosted on a service UNRELATED to your SEO efforts, NO? It is a good thing to look at today's best practices.

2) As to the issue of recip linking. There are two questions...Is it a good practice going forward? and what to do with links that have already been exchanged?
a) No reason to spend tons of effort going forward on recip linking when there are other methods of getting inbound links that don't carry the risk.
b) No reason to go a yank exisitng recip links off of one's site since the likely solution is that they are worthless, not penalties.
c) Plenty of reason to evaluate and make sure that recip linking partners are still linking to you and have not turned your recip link into an inbound link.
d) Plenty of reason to take what Greg Boser said to heart about garnering links from the community and others as opposed to link exchanges with REALTORS.

I would welcome others' observations as well.

Best;

Eric