Hello Searchwatch-

Re: the SEO tactic of a slab of links 20-30-50 or more from one site pointing to another site.

1) What is the ranking consequence for the site that does it?

2) What is the benefit to the site getting these links. Yes it increases the number of inbound links. Can there be big ranking benefit?

GAustralia

1)
a. bleeds some PR
b. could be trouble if paid links, note that some sitewide/footer type links may be thought to be paid even if not
c. maybe nothing else happens (other than #1)

2)
a. maybe if you are lucky you get juice equal to 2-3 links
b. maybe you get busted for buying links (even if not)
c. if all anchors are same, maybe a penalty on that kw
d. maybe nothing happens

I would suggest find other ways to get links.

When we take over large sites, we put a footer on the site to say that we produce it, and we do not get penalised at all.

In fact, our PR and rankings increase each year, and that's our main form of links.

bradbox -

So for those large sites you "take over" you get 10s perhaps 100s of links to your own site. So lets say for one of these sites you get 150 links to your site. How do you know this linking does not impact the ranking of the site you are doing it to?

GAustralia

I think that Google understands web design company tags, so this example is not going to be treated the same as the way other footer links may be treated. It will pass some minor value but the value is probably the same if it is just home page or on every page. However, if the footer tag is sitewide and for some other keyword not related to the content of the site, it is certainly risky to the site and could be a problem. Particularly a word like "SEO".