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Which Link Counts?

         

jk3210

6:23 am on Mar 21, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



One nav link at top left of page links to index page...

One keyphrase in a mid-page table links to index page...

One nav link at bottom of page links to index page...

Which link counts toward index page's PR?

All?
Only the first one?
First AND keyphrase?

Brett_Tabke

10:50 pm on Mar 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



If the site has very many pages, and those pages are in a template - strip that away. What's left is the link that counts.

MeditationMan

3:02 am on Mar 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



They all would count towards your PR, but the "vote" from that page to the index page is simply split three ways.

Think of it as every page having one vote. If you link to three different pages you give 1/3 of a vote to each. If you link three times to one page, you give that page 1 vote. If you link once to that page, you give it one vote. There's no advantage to linking multiple times. If there were, then we'd all have 100 (or 1000) links back to our home pages from every other page.

How does it help your users to have three links back to your home page? Might you be best with just one link that contains your key phrase? At the moment you're diluting the relevance of the anchor text.

cwebb

10:01 am on Mar 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Well, that's a pretty common approach, especially if you have longer text, to reflect the basic navigation at the bottom of the page...

yetanotheruser

10:08 am on Mar 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



MeditationMan,

Is that the case - if PageA has 1 link to PageX and 2 links to PageY then PageY get's 2/3 of the PR dispersed? Dunno why I always assumed they'd both get 1/2.. Anyone know for sure?

Brett_Tabke

2:05 pm on Mar 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



You think template links are counting as much as the rest of the page? I don't.

Given some of the documents mentioning it from Google programmers, I think it's a pretty sure bet, template links are not being counted the way the rest of the page is. Where the page count line is at (how many pages does it take to determine the template code) is unknown, but I think its somewhere around a dozen.

GamblinTraveler

3:39 pm on Mar 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



in a template - strip that away. What's left is the link that counts

This means that if one uses the same anchor text on every page (in a template) to link back to the home page, this would be stripped away? I must have misunderstood this. In other words, if every one of my pages says <A href="/">Widgets</A> this will reduce / nullify any keyword/anchor benefit for Widgets?

Please tell me I misread that.

-GT

yetanotheruser

4:30 pm on Mar 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



GT,

That's the impression I got (but my post dissapeared? Damn IE ;) ) .. Brett - is that what you mean? - that google will ignore common links? .. would this not distort the distribution of PR around a site?

Do people think that having 2 links on a page would transfer double the PR (well not exactly double but.. ) to the page to which they link? or are all links from pA to pB counted as one?

Brett_Tabke

7:10 pm on Mar 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



>this would be stripped away?

Not entirely, but I don't think the full value is xfered. Some of those links are either directly discounted, or not credited in full.

It is very easy to determine a "template" mathmatically. It's a simple comparison to find the sequence. Once the sequence is found, in various locations, you know you have nailed the template.

If I can write one in perl in a few hours.

See those dicussions from last month on "why don't links at the bottom of the page count".

Birdman

8:16 pm on Mar 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



This is very interesting because I read other threads where the consensus was changing your home link from a graphic to text and not using "Home", but "Keyword" as the text would be of great benefit.

But here, you're saying that that link will not count or be of less value because it is in the "template"(same spot every time).

How is it possible to keep your home link valuable without moving it around the page and confusing the user?

Note: I'm not being a wiseguy, just contemplating ;)

Brett_Tabke

8:25 pm on Mar 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



If the code changes - the template changes.

jk3210

10:45 pm on Mar 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Actually, I didn't phrase the original question very clearly --I'm curious about the value of ANCHOR TEXT when a link isn't the first link between two pages, so here's another try:

1.) Top nav link with anchor text of "Index" links to index.htm...

2.) Link in mid-page table with anchor text "Foo City Hotels" also links to index.htm...

Will the value of the anchor text "Foo City Hotels" be lessened because this link is not the first link on the page between these two pages?

Brett_Tabke

11:23 pm on Mar 24, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Right JK. The anchor text won't count as much if it were the only link on the page. It will still "count", but it gets watered down.

jk3210

12:23 am on Mar 25, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



>>It will still "count", but it gets watered down<<

Mucho bummero.

MeditationMan

2:39 am on Mar 25, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



You think template links are counting as much as the rest of the page?

I can't say definitively, but for PR (which is what we were discussing) I doubt if it makes any difference.

I certainly wouldn't be surprised if internal anchor text was seen as being less important in establishing relevance, since it's so easily manipulable. I renamed 300+ links from "home" to "keyword" and while that may have had some effect it wasn't a stunning one.

Could you reference those documents, Brett? I'd be interested in seeing them.