Volume vs Focus

lots of links or little

[jsnow]

Is it better to have 50 very focussed links to your site or to have 50 very focussed links and 300 slightly off topic links?

Does it in any way water down the relevance to an industry or neighbourhood?

[ken_b]

There has been a lot of conversation here about this. In the end it seems to me that it boils down to personal opinions. At least I haven't seen anything that convinces me one way or the other.

That said, I think it might depend on the focus of your site.

I suppose one can make a case that sites with a simialr focus to yours that link to you are more likely to send visitors that will find a benefit in your site.

On the other hand, a Doctor looking through links on a medical site might be fasicinated enough by a link to a classic car site to pop over and by a 1934 Packard.

You just never know, maybe the Doctor had been meaning to do a little car shopping and seeing the link was what it took to get him to do it.

[brucec]

Good point, Ken, but how does that fare on the search engines. I know that your doctor linking to a car site from a medical site could intrigue him, but I am more curious about the search engines.

[Tupur]

50 on topic and 300 off topic you mean? Not a very good idea. Why do you want to dilute the power of your page?

SEs as well as human visitors like on topic, quality links. Arbitrary linking takes away the power of your page : there is no need to go for that kind of dilution.If you feel a strong urge to place some quality and off topic links, add a little bit content explaining the purpose of having them and club them together.

[DaveAtIFG]

In their webmaster guidelines, every SE suggests that a webmaster do things to benefit their visitors. They also suggest webmasters NOT do things to deceive the SEs. My interpertation of those suggestions is to use only "on topic, high quality links," and it has worked well for me for many years.

[pageoneresults]

My interpertation of those suggestions is to use only "on topic, high quality links," and it has worked well for me for many years.

Inbound and Outbound.

[jsnow]

I'm more talking about inbound links, obviously I can't give specifics but I am looking to offer a discount to our services in return for a text link on each page of the customers sites.

These sites are accross all industries and therefore will be mainly off topic, however there will be no return link