Reciprocal linking in disguise...
This still looks like an attempt to disguise a reciprocal link building effort.
Mert said: "I believe every agent that is being your referral partner should have its own specific portfolio page for a small geographic area."
If I understand your comment correctly, you propose setting up a page on your site for "any of your referral partners." What is your end objective?
Who are these partners? Partner, by definition is "two people sharing with another or others in an activity".
What is the activity you share in? Hmmm, Is it I'll build a page for you on my site and you build a page for me on your site?
Or, are you just going to be a really nice guy and build a page on your site for anyone who wants one - without regard to whether or not they do the same for you? Otherwise known as "reciprocate."
Now we approach another issue:
Let's just imagine that you are going to build these "referral partner" pages without any reciprocal requirements. If these pages start ranking for their keywords - which are not in your market - you can bet that the agents that do work in those markets will call it Spam! Expect - in advance - that you will be the target of many filed Spam notices. It's not necessary for us to debate whether it is or isn't Spam. Just know that you will be a target and, if you choose to implement such an approach, accept the consequences should they arise.
Here is what Ramez Naam with Yahoo said about this at SES San Jose last year. He said that if it is also an issue on how your pages rank. If your site is about Florida and because of anchor text on your page it shows up in the results for Illinois, then that’s not a relevant result for their users. (Ramez didn’t use those specific states - I just can’t remember which ones he used.)
Jim
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