SEO effects of random link display plugins

[ramccluskey]

I am acquainted with plug-ins, like Better Blogroll, that allow you to display random links by category from your links lists. I am thinking about using this idea to provide links from my blogs to my other sites. However, I want to avoid reciprocal linking. These thoughts made me realize that I don't know how Google decides what links to follow from a WordPress blog.

If I have 20 links in a category, but I only display five of them, at random, each time I "display" a page, how does Google determine which of those links get the link juice when the page is crawled? Does the spider actually display an instance of the page, then cache it, then crawl only the displayed links? Does it have some way of seeing all of the 20 links that comprise the actual category? Thanks!

[Brad Callen]

Never tried, but I think there must be better options out there. What about related posts plugins? Remember, Google looks at link churn rates too so although you might not see immediate negative results it may impact you in some way long term.

What is it for? Is it for recip. link partners? Because I sure wouldn't be down with my link displayed randomly!

[ramccluskey]

Brad Callen: Thanks for your response. These links are not for third party link partners. They are for some of my own other sites. These are mini-sites that are unlikely to get many links any other way. I suppose I could do a bunch of old fashioned link wheels but it would be a pain to keep track of. I would appreciate feedback on this idea, as well. I've never done it before. How do people make sure they don't end up with reciprocal links? Thanks again!