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A WebmasterWorld thread has one webmaster who is a bit nervous after finding out a site he links to is banned in Google. He said it is a popular site, the site was banned approximately 3-months ago and he is linking to it. He asked, should he be worried about his rankings being downgraded for linking to a banned site?
In his case, it has only been a few months and I doubt Google would penalize him for one link to a recently banned site, if that link was there prior. Before I get into my thoughts, take my poll, do you think linking to banned sites can hurt you?
Overall, Google knows you have control over who you link to. If you don't, you can always enforce a nofollow attribute on links from third-parties on your web site. If you do not do that, it is your fault. If you link out to sites that are spam or banned, then maybe, if there are enough of them, Google would consider your site to be untrustworthy and you might see a degration in your rankings.
I don't think one link will make that much of a difference, but many - yea.
Do you agree?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Comments:
Jon
08/20/2010 09:37 am
I don't think it *should* cause a problem but whether Google actually *does* or not I don't know. Google is a fickle mistress at times and doesn't always follow common sense when determining rankings. Their common sense approach should be that site owners can't be expected to constantly check if they're linking to banned sites. If the link was originally placed there in good faith to a non-banned site I would hope Google would take this into account.