Google penalizing real estate websites for reciprocal linking
Google recently took a bite out of agents’ rankings that were using Advanced Access website templates. The reason for this penalty is the manner in which many agents use unrelated links to each other’s websites to improve their search engine rankings. Basically, they employ a “directory”, usually organized by state, with links to every agent in the country and beyond. This is better known as a “link exchange”. Of course, this is useless to the user and Google thinks so too, and they’re on the hunt to penalize the guilty.
Although it’s pretty much confirmed that this was a hand-edit by both Yahoo and then Google, there’s evidence that this is just the tip of the iceberg, as other non-AA websites using this spam technique are doing forum posts about being dropped by the search engines. Other sites using this method have seen a significant portion of their indexed pages go into Google’s supplemental results, as was warned by Google engineer Matt Cutts in his Google Hell blog post:
As Google changes algorithms over time, excessive reciprocal links will probably carry less weight. That could also account for a site having more pages in supplemental results if excessive reciprocal links (or other link-building techniques) begin to be counted less.
The owner of Advanced Access has spoken to Google and they assured him that he wasn’t being singled-out, there’s more to come, and the only way for agents to recover their rankings is to delete their state pages and do a reinclusion request. Incidentally, agents using Advanced Access templates without engaging in reciprocal linking were apparently not hit, so the fault lies with the agents or their webmasters, not the template company.
It will be interesting to see how this one plays out. This is huge for the industry as well over half of all agents’ websites I’ve reviewed use this technique; frankly, if I had to put a number on it, I’d say over 80% of the sites I’ve looked at over the years. The domino effect will be staggering to say the least.
Since day-one, I’ve deleted or ignored every link exchange request I’ve received from other agents, and I was often asked why and usually offered only a smile. Now you have my answer. 
It looks like the domino effect has started. Several Real Estate Webmaster sites went missing yesterday. And other sites not on either network (REW and AA) are missing as well. Probably because of the trickle down effect of everyone pulling their links.
http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/showthread.php?t=15141&page=24/dontfollow
>>Probably because of the trickle down effect of everyone pulling their links.
I’m not so sure about that. The affected agents that are missing aren’t even showing up for “agent name” (quoted) queries with less than 1000 results. They could not have depended that much on recips.
My money’s on the other shoe dropping.
As Matt said, Google will most likely de-value recip links. There is no mention of penalizing web sites for having recip links. What Google will continue to do is banish these recip links pages to the supplemental index.
There is no empirical evidence that shows the problems with AA and REW sites are because of recip links in general or because these links are on state pages. In fact, the limited scope of this Google purge indicates that it is a link network issue.
Too many people are jumping to conclusions on this issue. If you link heavily with REW or AA sites, you should remove those links. There is no evidence that you need to remove all of your recip links.
empirical evidence - received through the senses (sight, touch, smell, hearing, taste), either directly or through extensions.
Ask the site owners that have been hit if they can see it. Ask the ones that have removed their state pages and done a recinclusion request & starting to see their sites return if they can feel it.
>>There is no evidence that you need to remove all of your recip links.
Never said that. But if your site disappeared, you should think about how important your state pages (not all recips for goodness sake) are to you, your users, and Google. If you have state pages but were not taken out by this round, you’re a fool to think you have a handle on a long-term strategy. If you’ve watched Google long enough, you know that hand edits are the precursor to algorithmic adjustments.
Fast-forward 2-years: do you think state pages will fare any better than the old “guestbook” pages? I feel they’re already starting to mix it into the recipe. I know you guys have worked your asses off with your state pages/relationships and it’s hard to let that hard work slip away, but that’s SEO.
HHI I find it ironic that you are so quick to condemn AA or REW and suggest that people take down links to those websites, or speaking out on state pages when in fact a website is engaging in the same practices that you manage the SEO for. Or is http://articles.hiltonheadarealuxuryhomes.com/california-real-estate.asp/dontfollow not your doing?
I’m seeing a few “state pages” sites I’ve been watching slipping a bit. They are not template sites, but they seem to rely mostly upon links in the REW state pages network; as far as I know they don’t actively participate there, at least their domains aren’t in sigs on a b/l check.
These are quite obviously not penalized, but apparently suffering the type of residual “domino effect” REGuy mentioned; their diminished anchor is sometimes dropping them a page or two. You can tell which partner anchors have been tossed: the ones they’ve been killing for, their most ubiquitous phrases on the farm.
With this whodunit (for some), the reported Google paid links rollout, and iGoogle Universally spinning the head with ideas—this…is Big Daddy.
I just hit a DC where “state directories” recip spam took over the world. I’ve seen this movie before. Hang on tight to your ‘partners’…
From what I’m seeing right now, recip spam is foaming to the top for broad terms, but it’s settling to the bottom for local. I think (hope) I know where this is going.
If I had to guess at that glance: broad terms are going to be harder to come by for many and a lot of the scum will eventually be scraped from the top.
PS: my Google AJAX ’site search’ is now hitting the www . Update: they fixed it as I was about to zap it. For about 12 hours my site search was searching the web. I haven’t touched that code in months.