is DavidNaylor.co.uk a bad site to link to ??
Matt Cutts ( that’s how you link to a someone when you talk about them btw Matt!) got me thinking recently,…. is my site bad to link to ??? Last month Matt mentioned my site 3 times on his blog first here..
Danny in town next week … which I could understand .. I was mentioned in passing but then is one .. Spamming DaveN hmm still no link .. then in again in the Adwords review he mentions Shoemoney and me .. but still no link ..
What’s wrong Matt… you scared or is it more sinister, like when you took down your link to Jeremy 
could this be the reason why some of my posts have now been hijacked in Google, Has Google weakened www.davidnaylor.co.uk ??
Who Knows ??
DaveN
6 Comments
IrishWonder - http://www.irishwonder.syndk8.co.uk
I experienced the same – and it is still happening – about people wary of linking to syndk8 – which is not banned or anything but people still are afraid to link in so many cases. This is getting better with time though – they seem to be overcoming their fear hehe.
Justin Pfister
Google or not, we’ll still read your blog and the social effect will still be had. Google has zero influence over my blogosphere experience and I’m sure that goes for many people.
ShoeMoney - http://shoemoney.com
I still link to you =P, with no follow (jk)
Chris R
I think it is a shame this happens. It really reinforces the underlying unfairness of PageRank and linking based algos that favor the rich and penalize the poor.
I know you don’t run this site to make money – (I don’t think you even have any ads), but someone like Matt not linking (while perhaps well intentioned) does more harm than good to the web.
I think while Google has been somewhat successful in getting rid of what the perceive as “spam”, they also have discouraged many people from writing original good content – as if they don’t have blog friends – or links – it doesn’t rank for squat (usually).
There really needs to be more emphasis on indexing quality pages and not running the internet like a popularity contest.
Aaron Pratt - http://www.seobuzzbox.com
DaveN – I do not see you linking out to lots of trash in here, why would you be “weakened”? In fact if Google weakened this blog it would be going against their internal guidelines.
Will keep you posted though, I interview (and link out to) people who do not always follow Google’s guidelines, but even they got great blogs with no “articlebot” links in the footer.
Google is beyond playing games, it’s ALL algorithmic dudes…
Phantombookman
As to whether there is/couuld be a penlty only Matt knows.
What I know is Google is causing real problems by cultivating this terror of penalties.
It may be less of a worry for ‘throwaway’ sites but those sites that have taken years to build, tons of research etc nobody wants to, or indeed dare, take the chance.
To me the issue is simple.
Never penalise anyone for any links!
If they are link schemes or paid links simply give them no credit in the serps.
Just make what their algo determines poor or bad neighbourhood links worthless in terms of SERPS.
What is so difficult?