Related Pages in Google

[Brave Boy]

Someone brought it to my attention yesterday that the related:domain.com query in google pulls up some sites that are not related to my site at all. I have a craft (ish) site (the pet memorials sig is the site in question, but the main domain not the internal page in the sig) and my related results are showing Viagra and Gambling sites. I can't see one site that I actually know and have any sort of relationship with.

My rankings have been bad for this site since Bourbon update and don't seem to be improving very much - is this the reason why? How could my site have got associated with such sites? Should I write to google and tell them?

[Brave Boy]

I'm not. I signed up to one recip link thingy but never added one of the links I was offered as they were all crap. That was over a year ago and I removed my myself from their list. Is this something someone else could have maliciously signed my site up for?

[Brave Boy]

Someone brought it to my attention yesterday that the related:domain.com query in google pulls up some sites that are not related to my site at all. I have a craft (ish) site (the pet memorials sig is the site in question, but the main domain not the internal page in the sig) and my related results are showing Viagra and Gambling sites. I can't see one site that I actually know and have any sort of relationship with.

My rankings have been bad for this site since Bourbon update and don't seem to be improving very much - is this the reason why? How could my site have got associated with such sites? Should I write to google and tell them?

I offered an answer for this a few days ago. Read this please :

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=28998

[Brave Boy]

Thanks for posting that expertu, but it doesn't really explain my situation. If I look at an internal page with the relation: tool I see sites that I recognise and if I don't recognise them I see that they are on topic. Related, if you like. But for the homepage I get rubbish.

[Brave Boy]

Except a third party can link to you and cause the association. So there need not be a direct link in order to be viewed as related.

[Brave Boy]

Except a third party can link to you and cause the association. So there need not be a direct link in order to be viewed as related.

Thanks yfs1. Do you think this is something I need to be concerned about?

[Brave Boy]

I've had unrelated sites in my listings since that search was available. I have never had issues because of it. Its a by product of any decent SEO campaign.

[Brave Boy]

I've had unrelated sites in my listings since that search was available. I have never had issues because of it. Its a by product of any decent SEO campaign.

Lol, thanks. I will take that a compliment then! :-)

[fransome]

Thanks for posting that expertu, but it doesn't really explain my situation. If I look at an internal page with the relation: tool I see sites that I recognise and if I don't recognise them I see that they are on topic. Related, if you like. But for the homepage I get rubbish.

1. Incoming links.

Ex. If you have incoming links from site X and site Y ... At related:www.yoursite.com, you will see Site X and Site Y.

Now .. The related site only shows about 30 websites. If for example you have 4000 incoming links from 4000 different domains, the most frequent ones, or the ones that link to you with the most number of links appear.

2. Outgoing links.

Ex. If you link to site X and site Y ... At related:www.yoursite.com, you will see Site X and Site Y.

Now .. The related site only shows about 30 websites. If for example you have 4000 outgoing links to 4000 different domains, the most frequent ones, or the ones that you link most often will appear (ex. site-wides)

3. If you do not link to anyone, or if anyone does not link to you, Google can not decide what websites are related to your website (because no other website defines your theme, or you do not link to any other website, to let google know your niche), so at related:www.yousite.com , you will have 0 links.

If i helped, i'm glad

I have marked as bold the important text.

The index gets unrelated websites, because others may link to you. Usually you have no control over this, ut if you really want, you could e-mail those website owners, and tell them to remove their link to you.

[fransome]

And site W could be linking to site X heavily and then Site W will show up in related due to one link from X (Even thought they aren't linking directly)

You may not like Site W but you can hardly ask them not to link to X