onebaldguy - 3:42 pm on Mar 16, 2005 (gmt 0)

What if inbound external links were sandboxed until the page on which they reside is viewed x number of times or the link is clicked x number of times.

I have also wondered this for a while (but I would tend to lean towards the # of times the link is clicked on vs. # of times it is viewed]. This would help G determine which links are most relevant and 'useful' to the people. It takes a large step away from the 'random surfer' model which PageRank is based on.

So if you buy a link on a page and it is of no value to the users and no one clicks on it, then G will not value that link (or decrease it's weight). However, if there is a link on a page that gets clicked heavily, maybe more weight is given to it.

The G toolbar installed on millions of machines, so why not use some of that data. The more G (or any SE) can understand and utilize user behaviour, the more successful they will be at delivering what users want.