Search Engines punish us for having "links" pages

[rghollenbeck]

Search Engines punish us for having "links" pages because some people do this to promote sites to raise their search rankings.  I don't do that for the same reason.  I want to recommend certain sites to my guests but I don't want to get punished for doing so.

 

I might have a solution.  (So, in addition to asking about the php code that I would need, I'm also asking if the following trick will even work to avoid getting punished in my ranking.)

 

Instead of the traditional. . .

<p><a href="http://www.phpfreaks.com">PHP Freaks</a></p>

 

I thought I would try something like this. . .

<!-- SEARCH ENGINES -->
<form name="myform" action="http://www.mywebsite.com/searchformhandler.php" method="POST">
<div align="center">
<select name="searchengineselection">
<option value="http://www.bing.com/">Bing</option>
<option value="http://www.dogpile.com">Dog Pile</option>
<option value="http://www.google.com">Google</option>
<option value="http://www.startpage.com">Start Page</option>
</select>
<input type="submit" name="searchengineselection" value="Insert">
</div>
</form>

 

These are only example sites.  I have a whole page of suggested websites to send my guests to.

 

Now, if this is a good idea, I'll need to create a file called, "searchformhandler.php."

 

I think I know enough to figure out how to echo the right substitute code, I just don't know how to execute it.

 

I'm rusty.  There's got to be a command to open a web page.  I don't think I would do some like this. . .

 

<?PHP
echo "<a href='" + searchengineselection + '"> // or whatever
?>

 

Isn't there some kind of php command to send a link?

 

Also, I need way to pass the form data value from the weblinks.php page to the searchformhandler.php file

[rghollenbeck]

Search Engines punish us for having "links" pages because some people do this to promote sites to raise their search rankings.  I don't do that for the same reason.  I want to recommend certain sites to my guests but I don't want to get punished for doing so.

 

I might have a solution.  (So, in addition to asking about the php code that I would need, I'm also asking if the following trick will even work to avoid getting punished in my ranking.)

 

Instead of the traditional. . .

<p><a href="http://www.phpfreaks.com">PHP Freaks</a></p>

 

I changed it up a little bit.  But here is the php that I'm trying to do but it isn't working

 

 

I thought I would try something like this. . .

<!-- SEARCH ENGINES -->
<form name="myform" action="http://www.mysite.com/links.php" method="POST">
<div align="center">
<select name="selection">
<option value="http://www.bing.com/">Bing</option>
<option value="http://www.dogpile.com">Dog Pile</option>
<option value="http://www.google.com">Google</option>
<option value="http://www.startpage.com">Start Page</option>
</select>
<input type="submit">
</div>
</form>

 

These are only example sites.  I have a whole page of suggested websites to send my guests to.

 

Now, if this is a good idea, I'll need to create a file called, "links.php."

 

I think I know enough to figure out how to echo the right substitute code, I just don't know how to execute it.

 

I'm rusty.  There's got to be a command to open a web page.  I don't think I would do some like this. . .

 

Isn't there some kind of php command to send a link?

 

I made a links.php:

<?php
$selected = $_POST['selection'];
fopen($selected, "r");
?>

 

but that just gives me a 404 file not found error.

 

 

I would have edited this post instead of replying to it, but  it didn't allow me to do so.

[cssfreakie]

ever seen the rel="nofollow" attribute? I read somewhere that this is accepted by google to ignore the link when indexing, since bing is caught in the act of copying search results that includes them too

 

 

and here is the wise wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow

[rghollenbeck]

ever seen the rel="nofollow" attribute? I read somewhere that this is accepted by google to ignore the link when indexing, since bing is caught in the act of copying search results that includes them too

 

 

and here is the wise wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow

 

So you're telling me I don't have to go through all this--just put the nofollow in the meta robots tag? No!

I'm putting "rel='nofollow'" after every link on that page.

I read the article.  Thank you very much.  Solved!

[cssfreakie]

No problem! you can send the million in 50 dollar bills to me in the weekend 

cheers!

 

cssfreakie

[rghollenbeck]

No problem! you can send the million in 50 dollar bills to me in the weekend 

cheers!

 

cssfreakie

 

I'm betting this will dramatically improve my ranking.  Until today I had never heard of "spamdexing" or spam indexing.  It makes sense to me.  Google wants quality links and will reward the webmasters who don't deliver junk.  I will be very careful about this in the future.