Linking to non related sites

[pow-wow]

Will google penalize a site's ranking for linking to non related sites?

[tb987]

I don't think there is an explicit penalty otherwise this site would be in trouble.

However, if the links are excessive and random the site may be flagged as a link farm.

Linking to related pages on quality sites is a good idea from my experience and is what you would expect to happen under normal circumstances - i.e. natural linking.

What effect will this random link and text have on the keyword density of your site and what Google thinks a page is about? How will this affect your ranking?

Cheers,

Tony

[MarkeD]

Outbound links to unrelated sites, especially bad neighbourhood sites, IMO will have a detrimental effect on your site rankings.

[Arleigh]

I think there's no harm linking to unrelated sites unless the site's link page has too much outbound links or has adult web content...

[SticKer]

Try getting links from relevant and general sites that could have some thing related to your site. Links from sites that are no where related to your site might affect your rankings.

SticKer

[Sportsgreen]

Im sure that google can tell the difference between a genuine site that indulges in a few harmless link exchanges and something like a link farm that has just been created for nothing other than sole the purpose of participating in link exchange they are two seperate things really and can easily be identified.

[linkseller123]

Linking to unrelated sites is not harmful for a website if the website have no more than 50 outbound links, have good PR value and cached by google crawler.

[john_logic]

whether search engines penalise you or not for linking to unrelated sites I know as a user I would "mark a site down" for linking to unrelated content. Highly unhelpful. If a site has a link to useful information regarding a topic about which I'm reading on said site I'm likely to open a new tab, read from the new site, and return to the original when I'm done - citing the original site as a useful resource in terms of relevant linking

[shelly1984]

Hi I am looking for finance sites only..... i have good pr sites... we can be a good link partner, so plz contact me at: shellybrown1984(at)gmail.com

[jubach]

linking to unrelated sites can affect your SERPs. others say even if you link to an unrelated site as long as the PR is high you'll be fine. i am not sure about this.