Avoiding Dirty Tactics From Linking Partners - Frequently Encountered Unscrupulous Tactics
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Some unscrupulous tactics often encountered
JavaScript
One of the most commonly used questionable tactics is the writing of partner links in JavaScript rather than the more standard HTML. There are times when using JavaScript, to possibly prevent PageRank transfer, has a proper and useful role in website architecture. That is not what we are talking about in this case.
The whole idea behind this practice, in the hands of a double-dealing website owner, is to prevent the passing along of any Google PageRank. The unscrupulous webmaster is operating on two possibly outdated and counterproductive assumptions. They are a classic example of a little SEO knowledge being a dangerous thing.
First of all, some search engine optimization experts believe search engine spiders are crawling Java links. In the second place, Google may even be transferring PageRank along Java links. What is important to note here is the intent. The link partner used a technique where it was deliberately the goal to not pass along PageRank so as not provide equitable exchange.
Re-routing
A similar tactic to JavaScript links is to re-route your link to prevent spidering and transfer of PageRank. What is especially bad about this practice is the link often is coded so it appears to be a standard link. Watch for re-routes, and avoid link partners who use them.
Some dishonest webmasters don't mind the transfer of PageRank. Their main concern is sending traffic away from their site via outbound links. This is even more true if the link goes to a competitor's site, or perhaps to a complementary business, that may also contain competitor's links.
Hidden Links
To avoid having a visitor click of an outgoing link, the link doesn't appear visually on the page. It's hidden or cloaked. The search engines can read it, but no visitor traffic will find it. As with all hidden text, highlight the entire page with Ctrl-A. If your link is cloaked by hidden text, it will show up with that keyboard command.
Robots.txt
Occasionally, you will find that unscrupulous linking partners will code the robots.txt for the page to No Follow. With that command, the search engine spiders will not crawl the page. If that non-indexed page is where your link resides, it will never appear in the search engines. The page will never be spidered. You will not only not get PageRank transfer, you will not get any incoming link popularity benefit either.
A variation of the robots.txt theme is to place your link on a frames web page that doesn't have coding requesting the search engine spiders to crawl and index the page. Once again, your link provides less than the agreed upon value. You should, in both cases, receive some visitor traffic from the link, however.
Orphaned Pages
Another trick to watch for is the non-linked orphan link page. Often, an underhanded link partner will dutifully place your link on the alleged links page, as agreed. There is only one problem. The link page can't be reached from anywhere inside the website. The supposed link page is not part of the site map. The page is also usually a challenge, of epic proportions, to locate in any of the directories or sub-directories. Because the page is an island on the Internet, it will have next to no value as an incoming link, either for traffic or for link popularity.
Other Tactics
There are a few basic tricks that most people can readily spot with minimal difficulty. One of the most common is simply never receiving the return link as promised. The linking partner never puts it up at all. The hope on their part is that you won't ever check. They usually know from experience that many link partners don't look for their link.
Often, the one-sided link partner will indeed place your link on their page. Of course, your link disappears from the page after about a month. Your link get deleted. As with the case of never being linked, the disappearing link artists depend on you never checking your link partner pages. When your site has thousands of incoming links, you are especially vulnerable to having your links vanish, or never appearing in the first place.
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