Reciprocal Linking - The goodness and badness passes on.


Search engines calculate the position of a website in their search results from a number of factors. Most notably, they use information on who is linking to who. Two websites adhering to the terms of service of the search engines, on the same topic linking to each other will receive positive benefits by the major search engines in the search results. However, if both websites employ unethical techniques in their webpages, they will both receive a negative effect in the search results, or worse, they may receive a penalty whereby their website is not listed at all.

You will not be hurt from a link from a spamming website by virtue of them linking to you. However, you can be hurt by who you link to. If you link to a spamming website, you will viewed as just as bad. This will directly affect your position in the search results.

We have listed this information here for our mutual benefit. You need good links and we need good links. However, as stated elsewhere on this website, we are ruthless in our quest not to link to any website employing techniques (you may not even know that you are doing anything wrong) against the terms of service of the search engines. We will remove any link to a member's website entered on our system that we do not like - without appeal.

It is not our intention to unduly worry you about the content of your website, but we refer you to Google's terms of service for some good advice on employing other people (SEO's) to build your website for you.

Our staff at our Internet design and search engine optimisation company - Structured Internet Ltd - provide a free email consultancy service to members of this website with regard to the credibility of their own website content. As staff of Google have stated in various personal communications - the owner of a website is ultimately responsible for the content on their website. Penalties given by search engines are directed at you - not your website designer.