Geeklog Forums

Our Web site, www.worldmusiccentral.org, has been contacted by several link partners complaining that when they search on Google for their own sites, they get our site instead. They claim that it is because of the way the links are set up.

Most link partners are requesting that we remove their links. Some have gotten really angry. Others requested that we add direct links instead of the Geeklog generated links.

Is there a way to fix this? We don't want to lose or antagonize our link partners.

I haven't used it, but does anyone know if phpLinks would do the same thing? Some people have integrated it into their Geeklog site.

You would figure any and all weight given to a site by Google due to links from your site would be welcomed.

I think thats just odd that they are complaining that you and them both show up . If you show up more, good for you. They should fix their sites so Google is able to index them properly. You should not be chastized for having a successful site.

At least that bit should be pretty easy to fix. In links.php, you'll find this piece of code (twice!):if you replace that withthen Geeklog should use direct links.

This change has its drawbacks, though. The redirect through portal.php is done so that Geeklog can count the number of clicks on those links. The above change disables that, so that the links stats become useless (including the Top 10 visited sites on the links page itself).

On a side note, I have to wonder about those partners. If they can't get their own site further up on Google than a site linking to them, then the problem is mainly at their end, e.g. because their site is not search engine friendly ...

bye, Dirk

I guess what I'm wondering is if Google can follow the links submitted to a Geeklog site, what with the one-step indirection, and all.

But, when a site that is in the number one position - finds itself lowered to a position of, say 5 ....nobody is benefitting. Not the site that has added its link to the directory and certainly not the site that is doing the redirecting.

Using the redirect constitutes hijacking, especially when the index page of the site is taken out of google's spidering schedule altogether. Google sees one or the other as duplicate content...which, I suppose is a bit of a gamble depending on which site it happens to spider first on the day a geeklog link goes live.

Darn right, I'm requesting that my link be removed....not to mention writing to Google. Perhaps, if my site was buried in Google's listings, I'd feel differently...but so far as I can see listing one's index page at a Geeklog site is a verrrry bad thing.

I'm confused. What does links.php have anything to do with a google index? How does links.php break your partners links?

Byte

To clear that for me (too) is there a good and easy to understand explanation about googles techniques somewhere?



geKow

I also think that the sites of your linkpartners are not very searchengine friendly. You can check that with searching for the sites of your partners with the "site:www.yourlinkpartners.com" with Google.

B.t.w., did they actually submit their site at Google??

I take a look at the sourcecode of your partners:
Bozorius: no metadata, lousy title
The Frett Shop: no metadata, lousy title
Bands-r-us: no metadata, lousy title

Guess that some of your partners have to improve their sites to become indexed by Google.....

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