Link black-holes you should watch out for
Posted by multippt
If you studied quantum physics, you probably know about black holes. Even if you didn’t, you probably heard of it right? A link blackhole is like a blackhole - it eats links, but gives back few links that are taken into account by search engines in ranking. Generally, if they get popular enough, they would become a authority site - if many link to it. However, it may not generously give back the favors (but if you do manage to get a link from one of those link black-holes, they are considered incredibly high quality).
Here are some common link black-holes:
1. Parked pages
Parked pages are those that are used when one does not have any active use for a domain but still wants to earn some cash from it. It has a prevalence in valuable domains turned wastelands. Parked pages link only to the sponsoring site. It will not link to anywhere else, so don’t bother linking. (Besides, who would want to visit a parked page?)
2. Search engines
Sadly, your favorite search engines are considered link black-holes. Why? It’s because they are linked frequently, but search engines rarely link out to others. Generally, search engines prefer linking out to sites in its network (e.g. Google links to blogger). While it is rare that search engines link to some other external site on their own, it is not impossible to get a link from them.
3. Wikis
When it comes to wiki, Wikipedia comes into picture. Wikipedia became a link black-hole through its implementation of “no-follow”. While their intention is purely reasonable, links on its many pages are not credited by search engines. Fortunately, Wikipedia still allows for non-no-follow external links - in some places like user profile pages.
4. Most popular blogs
The blogs at the top of the pile are link black-holes. They get tons of links, but few of them escape. While it is not impossible to get a link from a blog, getting a link from a top blog is harsh. Even if you do get to appear in a post, what are the odds of it remaining on the main page for at least 2 days?
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Of course, I’m not advising you not to link to them. However, while black-holes siphon off link juice, thus getting a link on a black-hole is quite rewarding. In fact, being a link black hole does has its benefits too, and people will not hesitate to link to one which is extremely useful and relevant (e.g. Wikipedia).
