Will google penalize you for linking to non related sites?

AFAIK, no, but it won't help you that much either. Link importance goes something like this:

1. related one-way links
2. related two-way (reciprocal) links
3. unrelated one-way links
4. unrelated two-way (reciprocal) links.

I'm actually not sure about the order of 2 and 3. But related is definitely better than un-related, and one-way is better than two-way. It's not going to negatively affect your rankings, but it won't make much of a positive difference either.

Hello...

Hi Megan im sorry and i mean no disrespect as i have my own opinion as to this question.

I have read many articles that suggest linking with other sites NOT at all related can be in fact not a healthy choice as google looks for sites that are simuler in content relevecy and rewards them for such backlinks.

In thinking about this what positive gain would you expect to recieve if your site was "pet" related and you linked with an "Auto" dealership? Doing such link trades is im my view is little more than wasted time and possibly harmful in googles eyes,so why even risk it?
Finding sites with relevent content or using directories would be the safest procedure for exchanging links in my honest opionion.

I think that google does some type of point system for positive and for negative links subtracts rather than adds as this would be the only true manner of judging your linking.

As for the order you selected i believe you are correct.

This is my view only and nothing more....

thank you
malcolm

i think google gives you mroe "points" for linking to related sites than linking to non-related sites, but I doubt it punishes you. unless you're a link farm, or linking to one.

KindFelix;207373 wrote: I've heard different opinions on this subject. I swap links with any website as long as I feel my type of customer visits those sites and if it will bring me business. Am I wrong for thinking this way? Will google penalize me in the rankings for some of these non related sites?

Hello,
It may be happen that google always like fresh content so it not penalize & By this way u can get more and more backlinks for your site .
SBalan Group
http://www.sbalanprojects.com/

Malcolm - that's an interesting point. I hadn't heard anything about that before but then, I'm no SE expert. So you think that they would penalize you for linking to unrelated sites???

That actually doesn't make sense to me. Or it sounds a little harsh anyway. I can see doing that to identify spammers but there are some perfectly normal reasons why you might link to an unrelated site. Blogs are good examples. On a topical blog you may occasionally go off topic and talk about something different that is happening in your life. Is google going to penalize you for that?? Web Design portfolios are another great example - a web designer is going to link to all their clients' sites which all have different topics. Will they get a - value for doing that?

This could have potentially big implications - do we need to be careful about linking to unlreated sites? Do we need to be putting rel=nofollow in?

Hello...

You do bring some interesting points up Megan, Like i said above its only my opinion and not any concreate evidence to support my claim only my theory and anyone can do as they please. I myself only trade with related sites meaning that my directories only trade with other directories, I will only buy featured sites on main pages or on a page filled with info about directories but chances are not anywhere else. I am also not an SEO expert and never claimed to be either,just dont want to steer anyone in the wrong direction which could have unfaverable conseqences. To me its just better to be safe than sorry.

thank you
malcolm

All of my hobby sites point to one another - all totally unrelated (hot rods to gold fish to photos to html ...) with no or very little out going links (one way) and all these sites of mine maintain a PR 3-5 ranking

Hello...

Great im wrong you guys are right do as you think best for your sites.
much success with your linking.

thank you
malcolm

I have just started to do a tat of SEO on a new site for certain search terms for one of my clients, I have never done anything like this before, but so far from evidence of what I have seen so far, I personally do not think SE penalise you for swaping links with non related sites, as my clients business is quite competitive and not many competitors will want to swap links with them, related sites I have written to a number of without reply, so I took the steps of submitting to web directories and many other non related sites, so far the results I had achieved had been quite satisfying, as a hand full of my targeted keywords managed to recieve a top 10 position with UK Search engines such as Google, Yahoo & MSN.

To be honest I have read from various sources or have been told from anyway, that link swapping from non related sites can harm your rankings but as always unless you can confirm this with the search engines themselves it all remains just a theory.

Point to also think about is ... search engines suppose to find links and follow them wherever they go, and the whole excercise is to lead them to new and fresh site/contents, so even if you have a new site and don't submit it to them, it poss could get crawl thru eventually because someone somewhere found something very useful on your site and gave a link to your content, most times not even related to the subject, If search engines starts to penalise sites that swap links or give a link to other sites thats not related, this to me really defeats the original concept of crawling throught sites by SE.