Can some sites harm your ranking?

[JRM]

I have been doing some thinking and research on what helps vs hurts my site rank.
All the buzz now is, of coarse, the social networking idea.
From what have gathered, this alone is not enough. Google likes external links, but RELEVANT links, not link farms or just sticking an Electrical contractor on a site that may also have florists, etc.

That being said, what do you think about sites like "Merchant circle"?
Do you suppose that it would be seen as a link farm?
I swear my presence took a hit after signing up there!
What say you?

[yamsraps]

For the question can some sites harm your ranking the Answer is YES. It really depends on what site are you doing you back links. When Google see those sites as link farm they might give penalty to your site. Why not try creating back links in authority site and site with high PR that is related to your site.

[AirForceOne]

I think Merchant circle might not hurt you since it has a really high PR of 7. A link farm in Google's eyes would not receive such a high PR. Of course, some bad neighbors would hurt your rankings. We could easily to judge a site from its PR and indexed pages.

all the best,

[JRM]

Of course, some bad neighbors would hurt your rankings. We could easily to judge a site from its PR and indexed pages.

What do you mean by "bad neighbors"? Are you referring to sites other than MC that have back-links to my site or the other businesses listed in my area?
It's hard to control who might like an article and link to it. I do have some random ones.

Google says I have 3 thousand external links, alexa says I have 1.
I can't get in demoz to save my life! I think it's some kind of secret society like Skull and Bones. LOL
The whole mess just confuses me. There seems to be no consistency to the data.

[vivifoster]

site unrelated to your niche are usually harmful.

i guess the "bad neighbors" are any sites related to sex, porn or gambling

[Member 784332]

Google generally won't penalize you for something that your competitors could have done to you. It's my experience that if a site already has a good PR, a linkfarm won't hurt it. If a site has PR0, the link farm is going to make it that much harder to gain PR. IMHO.

[Member 784288]

Yes if you try to build links that is not related with you keyword would harm you site's ranking

[searchengineace]

I don't see any harm from business listing sites like merchant circle or other similar sites. Anyone can list your business or their own business on these sites. So you may or may not be directly involved with listing your business in there. So the search engines have no point considering links from these sites as bad links or any spamming activity. Moreover links from these sites are URL links mostly than the anchor text based links

[jennypitts]

I think Merchant circle might not hurt you since it has a really high PR of 7. A link farm in Google's eyes would not receive such a high PR. Of course, some bad neighbors would hurt your rankings. We could easily to judge a site from its PR and indexed pages.

all the best,

I agree with you... If MC were a link farm in Google's perspective they would not have such a high PR. I think that you are hurting do to other factors. You could have linked to a lot of sites with less PR than yours, or with unrelated content or something of the likes. That there are sites that can affect your ranking? YES... Is Merchant circle one of them, I really doubt it. Besides, I really am inclined to think that ONE site alone will not hurt your ranking. A combination of bad links YES, but one alone may not have such an adverse effect.

[IntegratedS]

Ya some sites can harm the ranking if those sites do not have good reputation in front of search engines..If those sites are penalized or banned before..

[elum.chaitu]

Yes JRM, you r write. some sites are causes websites health. better to avoid those site to promoting.

[vishal9717]

Hi there, yamsraps you are absolutely right the back link should be post in high page ranked and authorized sites. If did not this like that then search engines are give negative result of the relevant site.