Yes we are still operational more than ever you could say.
If you are able to contact us at support@linktive.com we will be more than happy to help you through the sign up process.

Regards
Andy

Thanks for your reply, I’ve had a chance now to use your service for a little longer to give a more rounded opinion.

My biggest concern is still the honesty of your webmasters. Other then community feedback, there is very little filter for spam. Once your site becomes very successful, I can see hundreds of link requests in everyone’s link request inbox, do you expect me to review each site individually to assess it’s relevancy and quality?

I understand I can deny links but what if I overwhelmed by 100 websites all seeking my attention?

That said, what are your plans on promoting content past a simple text link?

Regards
-Kun

Thanks again and I fully understand your concerns.

These are the most important issues to us above all. I know there is a fine line and I am happy to continue the discussions with all the major search engines. These guidelines were setup to guard the search engines and (it is said) users from spam or bad link neighborhoods that are only out to game search engines. This is understandable and has been respected in developing our technology.

We believe we offer a service that allows site owners who are interested in building a link network for their site to meet with other site owners wishing to do the same. None of the process is automated, human interaction is still involved in making decisions.
This is when the site quality and content comes into play. If a user is not happy with site quality or content the user has the right to deny the link.

I feel we are a step that is enhancing the natural linking building process by offering the opportunity for people to create relevant links and good link neighborhoods around their sites.

Because of the need for site owners to authorise the links created I don’t feel they need to be devalued in a SEO sense by having a rel=nofollow tag applied to them. The links are also not purchased.

We will continue to work hard to make sure that no harm will come to our users in regards to banning or negative marks from search engines.

Regards
Andy Clark

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Good to see you’re an engaging company. Don’t get me wrong, I wish your company success, I just feel that users may end up actually doing more harm than good with this type of reciprocal linking program.

I accept that you’re not trading page rank, and from your perspective you’re inside the guidelines.

However, this is googles problem, not your problem. They’re looking to produce “fair” and good quality results in their search results and of course everyone knows that link structure on the web is a large element of their algorithm and always has been since the start.

If Linktive is a success and reaches critical mass, the impact on that natural link structure is affecting in a way that forces Google to change the way that they rank pages. The net result, and the reason why companies have failed previously in this space, is Google have no option but to ignore links that are aggregated through your system.

Going a step further, if Google disagree with you and feel that actually sites using your service are in breach of that clause #3, those sites could experience a loss of traffic from traditional means like search.

That’s where the danger lies for the website owner.

If you are in any way concerned that may happen, and you truly are not seeking to influence search traffic in any way, then you have the Google supported option of using the rel=nofollow HTML tag in the links to specifically state to Google that you do not want it to pay any attention to the links.

Then you’re truly into the space of traffic sharing rather than SE manipulation.

Dean

I found your entry interesting do I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog …

Thank you for your feedback we take note on the slow server issue right now.

I understand the issue of finding the wheat from chaff. Yes currently each your links (content pages) has a profile, this is matched up against similar profiles. This does take a degree of honesty to the person entering the profile. Our two security measures are human monitoring of what is entered and then a soon to be released ability for users to rate the links they encounter.

I think the line is drawn between spam and a quality site in Linktive the same as a site determined to be spam or quality anywhere else. We give you option to go and view the site and make sure it is up to the grade of a site you feel is on your level.

I beg to differ on our on UPS being the availability of other site owners contact info. And would interested in where you found any other users contact info? That aside I believe our UPS is the ability for site owners to maintain and monitor the links they create.

While putting the service through it’s paces I would be interested in what you thought of the ability to accept and deny links?

We agree that content is king and like all services they must start somewhere future updates will push past the point of a simple text link.

Regards
Andy Clark

Yes this is correct first I should clarify Linktive does not trade on pagerank it is not a defining element within our system. With that in mind we have no intention to intentionally to manipulate PageRank.

On the matter of buying and selling links we don’t charge for links we charge for the use of monitoring software.

We by no means have all the answers but are building a service we feel will benefit site owners.
Any feedback is more than welcome.

Regards
Andy Clark

As Dean’s pointed out I don’t believe Google’s going to be happy with this system. You say that it’s not trading PageRank – but a reciprocal link does exactly that? I don’t understand exactly why you think this doesn’t contravene Google’s guidelines.

Cheers,

Phill Midwinter

However, the experience has been less then impressive, with very slow operation and clear information about how to sort out the wheat from the chaff.

I can see how getting links from quality and relevant websites can help with your SEO, but what I can’t see is where you draw the line between spam and quality site. And as far as I can make out, the relevancy of a website is solely determined by the tags and description your profile!

To me, this site is no different from another web directory, with their only USP being the availability of site owner contact info. Not really a great selling point as most webmasters hate “link to me” emails.

A one stop shop of link building will never work unless the focus is sharing content (hence social networks). However, Linktive just comes across to me as another “link to me” request site that will at best be used by spammers.

I realize this might be a radical or new concept to some, but not every single instance of people linking to each other has to concern itself with Google.

Considering Google for a moment, perhaps a system like linktive could potentially be a source of good information *to* Google if the quality of the links it helps foster are proven to be of a certain quality.

The point I’m making is that link building should be done primarily with visitors and business in mind and SEO second.

You’re correct that data suggests the direct SEO benefit from a reciprocal link is less than a one-way link, but that’s still no reason not to do it if you’re giving your visitors what they’re looking for.

SEO follows when you demonstrate relevency. A link should always be surounded by original, good quality, relevant content and not as an afterthought.