Does domain.com/links.html = linkfarm?
 

I am just curious, I got a trade denied and he stated that the reason was that google is penalizing sites that have /links.html in the url string?!?

it should not contain more than i guess 10/20 links / page.

I thought this was considered a bad idea or at least not ideal for a long time now.

google doesnt really like pages/blocks of links, much prefers linking within body of content.

index page backlinks are definately the best.

amazing how many google engineers post at GFY webmaster board.

i say BULLSHIT! i have lots of links.htm pages and that domains are pr2/3 no problem, jesus....

I'm sure its fine for you, but what about the sites you are linking too? That's the question here.(I think)

SEO isn't an exact science so no one can say for sure and even if one knew it could change tomorrow. Personally I don't like trading links at all or if I do no more than five quality trades on one site.

yes John, a part of the question was that, but I have link.html on my paysites and I just doubt that the domains are getting penalized because of it...

also wanted clarification as to why another webmaster would have issues having a link from that page.

While you could be right, if you think about it wouldn't it make more sense for the algorithm to go by the ratio of internal versus external links instead?

If it's for traffic and the links page is well marked, I don't see a problem.
If it's for a backlink and on that page he gets a grey box on his google toolbar, that's probably why.

99% is a link farm, or he's linking you from un-indexed page.
exchange only top level links (no pages)

great, thanks izzy Also my understanding from google forums is that under 50 outgoings per page are still fine, if it's over 50, it would be considered "spammy"

sorry homer, just want clarification, top level links meaning domain/mainpage.com
and not
domain/somepage/something.html

top level means the main index page.

domain/index.html or domain/index.php

thanks CYF!

i would imagine that lower pr sites with link.htm would be effected more than higher pr sites...just my opinoin..then again wtf do i know

so basically, if you were building a site, you would opt for

friends.html

instead of

links.html?

It's a bit more complicated than that.

In my (limited) experience, webmasters search for links for different reasons:

If they want a link to get surfer traffic, they are often quite happy with a link from a 'links' page - I don't think it matters whether you call it 'links' or 'friends', to be honest.
So if it's a link for webmasters to get surfer traffic, it doesn't matter how many links you have on that page. It's not built for Google - it's built to give links, plain and simple. Although I personally wouldn't want a traffic link from a page with hundreds of links - less chance of getting traffic to my site.

However, a webmaster might be looking for a link to get backlinks for his site and, as others have said, in that case he would usually want a link from the index page. But if your links page had decent PR, he might still be interested.
The problem is that most links pages have little or no PR because (apart from your index page) you are not sending that page any links. And that's why someone looking for a backlink wouldn't usually be happy with a link from there.

I suppose the best way to think about it is, what are you offering the other webmaster in return for his link exchange. Is it worth it to him?

That's an awful lot of links mentioned there. :)

yeah, right now, it's not a crazy link page. http://www.beautifulfeetonline.com/f...ish-links.html wasn't really planning on adding but maybe 2-4 more links to be honest, then directing to footpervert.com for trades.

and the way I figured it, if it was a problem for him, I also own http://www.footpervert.com which is under 200k in alexa. I would have been happy to trade him there too, as long as I would have gotten decent traffic back from the trade daily.

oy.... NO, you shouldn't be obvious like "links.htm"

Change it to "worthlesspagethatwillneverrank.htm" and more people will accept your link trade :)