End of Month-Check Your Links

**HHI Golf Guy** · 02-28-2005, 02:56 PM

Did you know that linking to a "bad neighborhood" may cause your own site to drop in search engine rankings (especially in Google). It's true - we have had it happen to some of our sites. Once we removed the offending links we climbed back up in the rankings.

You should get in the habit of checking your outbound links each month. Yes, this is a time consuming process, but it is well worth the effort.

What too look for:

Broken links
Sites that have lost their Google Page rank
Sites that are no longer indexed by the Big 3 search engines (G, Y!, and MSN)
Verify that reciprocal links are in fact linking back to your site

Remember, with both your inbound and outbound links - quality supercedes quantity. (I'm sure that 50% of SEO or Web Developers will say the opposite is true - but we stick with what we know provides results for our clients).

**San Diego Real Estate** · 02-28-2005, 08:10 PM

HHI Golf Guy...

You are exactly right I just had that happen to one of my sites because I didn't slow down to check! !!!!!It's a Must !!!!!!

**jimj** · 03-01-2005, 06:30 PM

I better go back through mine. I have been stacking em on for months without going back in to check. Gee....how fun

**San Diego Real Estate** · 03-01-2005, 06:57 PM

JimJ it is an absolute must! I went from a PR 4 to a 3 last update because I had not kept them in check!

Have fun!

**HHI Golf Guy** · 03-01-2005, 10:22 PM

One of our sites ranked #5 for our primary key phrase on Google. The other day it dropped to #22. Considering no content changes were made to the site except for adding a few links, that's way too big a drop to see unless something is terribly wrong - especially when the rest of the SERP's didn't show a big bounce.

When I did my EOM link check I find 3 offending sites and promptly removed them. Google has since spidered the pages again, and now the site is at #4 for most of the data centers.

I cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these bad links were the cause of the drop in SERP's. However, the site held a stable position +/- 1 place for an extended period of time, and once the offending links were removed and the pages spidered again the site came back in a position better than it's original position.

Draw your own conclusions. But it certainly doesn't hurt to verify your links.

**San Diego Real Estate** · 03-01-2005, 10:55 PM

Great example HHI Golf Guy of how important this really is! I can tell you first hand that you can't let this slip or it can really effect your results!