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Google scared website owners off of webrings telling they they may get penalties from them and overnight website owners left them. There was a time when you could link to any other website without worry... then too late Google came up with nofollow.

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That time is now if you have a personal site and you don’t play the SEO game. I personally just link whatever I find interesting and Google and its ranking can go hug a cactus.

Also, you can feed OpenAI bot et al. boatloads of garbage text for bonus points.

Right, too many people care too much about what Google wants/thinks and forgets that if you just do what you want the web is better.

Google isn't the gatekeeper of the web. Drop them as an authority in your life.

Wait, this must have been just before I entered the industry. What was Google's rationale? Didn't they start out determining popularity by reference count?

Edit: Ooh, I see. Interlinking clusters were considered fraudulent references.

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