Tch Family And Googles Rules

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I was just reading the Add Me to the Family forum and how you are required a link back to TC on any sites submitted. I then read the link in the How To Add Your Site thread about the importance of backlinks when it comes to your Google position/rank. I'm not sure but isn't this type of practise against Google's terms?

[TCH-Bruce 16]

I don't see it that way. TCH is not hosting a link farm, they are links to their hosted clients. Thus the reason the sites listed are checked frequently for the back link and to make sure they are still hosted here.

[Deverill 0]

Link farms are indeed against their policy. Their guideline in that area is "Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100)." The question becomes,

 

Is TCH a:

• Link Farm?
  
• Reciprocal Link Site
  
• Something else?
  

On the World Wide Web, a link farm is any group of web pages that all hyperlink to every other page in the group.

Since Family Member site A doesn't link to Family Member site B then it's not a farm.

 

A reciprocal link is a mutual link between two objects, commonly between two websites in order to ensure mutual traffic.

In this regard, the Family Member pages are reciprocal links... but that's not a bad thing necessarily. Google offers this:

Think about links in terms of visitors: are the links meant to help them find more good content or are they only meant to attract Googlebot?

The question comes down to are the Family Member pages for attracting the 'bot or to help folks find quality content. There is no question that the 'bot will go to pages it wouldn't otherwise because they are listed here. It is equally un-arguable that TCH benefits from the links. The question is, does it offer any value to a site visitor?

 

In my opinion, and that's all it is, the links here can and have helped people find good sites. I have used it myself when looking for someone to do x or y because we have an automatic common ground and I can contact them a bunch of ways. I can also look here in the Forums and see if they are smart, but maybe not web design-smart, or do they come across as bumbling idiots.

 

On the other hand, my link on my sites is there, not to get a single link of questionable Google-points back to my sites, but because I believe in TCH and want to do what I can to help people find them and to kind of pay back, in a small way, the great service they give me.

 

Either side can be argued as to whether it is something Google is tickled to death about, but it's not against their terms of service and doesn't violate their overall guideline of "do no evil".

 

Hope it helps. By the way, the definitions quoted above came from Wikipedia.

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Just to clear up my initial point I was referring to the reciprocal link back to TC and not the link to the members site.