To Link Drop or Not to Link Drop...That is the Question | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

I was wondering, how do all of you guys feel about doing a mass link drop on your blog at the end of each week? We've been mentioned in a lot of them, and we are considering doing them. Our concerns are:

 1) How will our regular readers react? Most of our readers are other bloggers, but we do have some people who are not bloggers that read our site. We're worried that these sorts of "stories" will turn them off.

2) Will we be punished by search engine ranking systems? I've read that doing a big link drop can look spammy to these ranking systems and will lower your rank – specifically your Google PR.

On the other hand, we think that this would be a nice way to say thank you to our supporters and a way to generate loyalty – which will equal greater traffic.

What do you guys all think about them? Do you do them?

I do it to give love to the blogs I enjoy on the regular. I frame it as the blogs that I enjoy that might be interesting to my regular readers. I have not gotten any negative feedback thusfar, but it doesn't mean my non-blogger readers like them.

As far as PR, just don't link to spammy sites. Also, links in a blog post carry more Google juice than just a comment (at least, that's my understanding), so it does help the blogs that link to you regularly :)

I think big link drops or "Carnivals" can be good if done the right way.

You are right on, thinking about it from the viewpoint of your readers.  If you add value to your readers by clearly linking to helpful posts on other blogs, they will appreciate it.  I like to see a short description with the blogger's take on the post with each link.

What I don't like is when a blog lists too many links without any insight into what I may find after clicking.  I find this happens more often than the "good" way to do it.

I wouldn't worry about the search engine.  There are blogs ranking well with and without these types of posts.  If you're worried about it, you can add a rel="nofollow" to keep the page rank on your site.

From a search engine perspective I can't see a problem if you link to resources that your visitors find useful. Google want you to provide value, and you are doing so if you are pointing to high quality useful resources that you have spent time collating.

"One must give to receive." (Somebody must have said that.)

If your non-blogger readers don't care for the round-up sort of post (or any other type you do routinely), they'll learn quickly to ignore them and move on, no big deal (in my view). Just because you post something doesn't mean anyone's required to read it, no? So I wouldn't worry too much about turning off readers by doing 'link drops.'

I tend to agree with RB40–link to stuff you really do like and think will help or be of interest to your readers, and don't overdo it. I don't know much about how Google's PageRank brain works, but I sort of think a group of sites regularly and exclusively linking to each other are going to get under Google's skin and be slapped down sooner or later… My personal feeling, based on approximately nothing, is that a weekly big set of links is too often. But I've noticed just about every other blogger disagrees with me  and like I said, I don't know much about these matters, still learning and awaiting my first slap down.