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wahl2008
Member
Joined: 14 Dec 2008
Posts: 115
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# Posted: 6 Feb 2009 05:39
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Hello Everyone!
I keep hearing from different people and resources that a "bad back link" caused them to lose Google PR or hurt their SERP. They claim that somehow their site got linked to another site with a bad reputation or negative PR.
Yes I'm still a newb at SEO and promotion, but I think that these claims are bogus.
I don't think that Google or any other search engine would penalize you for having a bad back link.
My theory to back up this statement is this. If "bad back links" could cause me to lose PR or SERP, couldn't I just use that idea to take down my competition? I could just focus my energy on "discrediting" my competition with bad links which would be pretty easy to do. Google and the other search engines would never let this happen otherwise the system would fail.
I speculate that when people see a drop in PR or SERP it could be for many reasons of course, but a link related reason could be a loss of links. If your site is linked to a high ranking site of PR 7, for example, and you lose that link for some reason, it will effect your page reputation and rank.
Let us all know what your opinion on this topic is! I'm always looking to learn more and verify my theories 
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Vishal P. Rao
Joined: 23 Jun 2005
Posts: 935
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# Posted: 6 Feb 2009 06:44
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wahl2008: My theory to back up this statement is this. If "bad back links" could cause me to lose PR or SERP, couldn't I just use that idea to take down my competition? I could just focus my energy on "discrediting" my competition with bad links which would be pretty easy to do. Google and the other search engines would never let this happen otherwise the system would fail.
You are right Philip! Bad back links can never hurt your rankings.
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Newbie Shield
Joined: 22 Sep 2007
Posts: 1457
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# Posted: 6 Feb 2009 09:00
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Hi Philip,
I wouldn't worry about a stray bad link every now and then. However, if you have "too many too often", your SERPs and PR will definitely suffer. Same is true with link farms. That's the official word.
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wahl2008
Member
Joined: 14 Dec 2008
Posts: 115
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# Posted: 7 Feb 2009 15:22
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Thanks for the input guys!
I got an interesting response when I posted this discussion on another forum. Here's what one member had to say.
The two basic issues involved are Google saying:
1. "There's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index." HereLINK. So there's almost nothing, which means that there is something....
2. And secondly there are 'black hat' negative SEO services which offer to 'Google bowl' your competitors, i.e. hurt them by creating spammy looking back link profiles.
My opinion is that where's there's smoke there's fire and Google themselves have admitted that competitors CAN hurt your rankings so the jury is out on this as far as I'm concerned.
It's very interesting and probably quite a lingering dilemma for Google. They have to be able to penalize for linking to farms and bad neighborhoods, and at the same time try to avoid enabling competitors to take each other down.
I guess that's why they have over 100 PhDs working on their algorithm 
Cheers!
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