martinibuster on Neighborhoods

Just found this post by martinibuster at SEW forums. If you’re into linking this is a must read.

What
I’m getting at is that when you make a map of all the sites linking to
you, and who is linking to them, it says something about your site,
patterns arise. These patterns are very important, because Google is
very much interested in statistics.

…The question I would like to pose is, if you have a golf website, is it
normal that you share a hundred backlinks with hundreds of seo
websites?

…I’m sure the notion of avoiding being mapped to directories that are
heavily mapped to SEO link networks will not sit well with many that
have a financial interest in those directories, but come on, it’s also
common sense.

I posted a bit about these neighborhoods and their role in the Sandbox in my Guide to Beating the Sandbox (WMW – Supporters only). I’ve aways thought directories were a great tool for link building, but lately I’ve scaled back a bit, and am now only working with those that I think are part of good neighborhoods.