Forum Moderators: open
Is outbound linking, certainly to good sites - a bad thing in any way? does the total PR for your site drop if you have 20 outbound links to PR3 + sites? - i would have thought it would in fact be a good thing - as promoting linking is a good thing - both for visitors and for googlebot...
so should i be linking - are links pages a good thing - and should i stop trying to protect my PR?
Harley
The 'random surfer model' is the easiest way to explain it. Obviously, the probability to visit a page of your site is decreased if the number of outgoing links is increased. Therefore, PR for all of your pages is decreased.
In the context of the standard PR calculation formula, it's a kind of 'second-order effect'. The transferred PR from your link page to the rest of your page is decreased since the number of links is increased (due to the outgoing links). Therefore, PR of the connected pages are decreased. These pages have backlinks to that page thus also the PR of the link page is decreased.
This is a simple fact and it was explained more that once in detail. Do a site search. (or try a numerical or analytical calculation)
I agree (according to the calculator). I don't have the right sort of brainpower to work it out myself. I will agree with anything the calculator says.
This is a simple fact and it was explained more that once in detail. Do a site search. (or try a numerical or analytical calculation)
Can you site this? I can't seem to find it.
1. Outward links will decrease the PR of a page, other things remaining same.
2. On the other hand, outward link helps to increase the relevancy of a page for relevant keywords. This is calculated by looking at relevancy factors of the link page and the linked page. Contrary to what most think here, in my view, it is independent of PR. (So please stop linking to only PR10 pages. ;))
3. Anchor text might help somewhat but I think that its effect will be small in long-term.
Adding them, I believe that properly done outward linking, which helps the visitors, will increase the search ranking.
at least in the case the calculator was right. :-)
Here you'll find a previous discussion. [webmasterworld.com]
Half of this argument is talking about an equation.
The other half is talking about the effects of this equation applied to an entire system.
Night Patrick.
Let's say I have a one page site. I link out. Explain to me in terms of the PR equation how this would effect the linking pages PR.
[edited by: mfishy at 10:48 pm (utc) on June 10, 2003]
What is important is that your off-your-domains links can and should return value to you. It's simply ludicrous to say a link from me to Yahoo bleeds my pagerank if Yahoo reciprocates that link. I have a link almost exactly like that. I gave a major site a free link when they set up a new page on my theme. After a bit they gave me a link back, as a resource on the topic. It's not unreasonable to think that *often* situations like this will occur. Also, of course deliberate reciprocal linking brings direct, important results.
Sensible webmastering involves looking at the things we do in a global, wholistic way, not simplisticly or in arbitrary compartments. Outgoing links are one of the foundations of increasing your PR.
Off-site links are exactly like in-site links. There isn't some heebie-jeebieism about it. Me linking from mysite.com/page1 to yahoo.com/pageA and them linking to mysite.com/page2 is nearly infinitely better than me linking from mysite.com/page1 to mysite.com/page2. My link to them enabled their link to me, which increases my PR substantially.
He is saying it does, and in a limited way he is right. If instead of that off-site link, you created a new page, pagex.html, that did nothing except accept one link from your page and link back to that same page, it would raise the PR of that page a tiny bit... some amount greater than zero. Since instead of doing that, you link to somewhere else, you forgoe that tiny bit of benefit you would have gotten if that link swam your PR around your domain. However, again this is basically irrelevant. If your off-site link returns PR to you, it accomplishes the same basic thing as linking to your own page does. You can't consider one effect without considering the other effect.
Suppose you have a one page PR5 site. If you have ten external links on it, you still have a PR5 site, no changes -- *if no one returned your links*. If on the other hand you created ten sub pages and linked to those. They would all be PR4. Now you link all those PR4 pages to your main page, your PR would go up *some* amount, even if it is from PR5.2467 to PR5.2794.
But again, whether those are internal links or external links is completely irrelevant. If you have a one page site and link to ten external pages, and they all link back to you, your PR5 page will now increase in PR *some* amount... potentially even going to PR6 or PR7 if one of those links back comes from a higher PR site.
Paradoxically it will increase the PR of your page in many instances (and will never decrease it). If you were not linking out, you were wasting your vote. Now by voting, some other page's PR has gone up which will be passed on to some other and so on and some part of it maybe to you.
Is that really in the algo?
The main problem with the random surfer model is that it does not replicate the real world.
e.g. suppose there are 100 links on a page - the rs model assumes that a surfer randomly chooses one of these links with a probablility of 1/100 - Not true. There is nothing random about the choice - it depends on the location of the link of the page, the name of the link etc.
If blahblahblah.html was in first place as a link and thebestwidgetsintown.html was in second place, and thisisthesiteyouwant.html was in 100th, the one in second place would win everytime. So the random surfer model is not a true reflection of what actually happens.
The links chosen do not have the same probability of occurrance.
I know and this is all my point was meant to be.
If you have a two-page site, with no incoming links and both pages link to each other, you can calculate a maximum raw PR for the site as 2. If one of those pages has four outbound non-reciprocated links you can calculate the raw PR for the site has gone down to approximately 0.53.
site has only a few inbound links (mostly my own sites) but started with PR 5 about 8 months ago and held this level till today. about 300-400 incoming hits from google a day...
i cant see any PR leak here... but perhaps there is some bonus for directory-like sites?
Ad
...I'm crawling around and come across a website with 50 outward links and 48 of them are links to sites about widgets. Without looking at anything but this site's outward links, I could already determine that there is a good chance it has something to do with widgets...
Let's say I have a one page site. I link out. Explain to me in terms of the PR equation how this would effect the linking pages PR.
mfishy,
if you have read that thread, you'll see that I'm always neglecting dead ends in the discussion. A one page site with no outgoing links is a dead end. Therefore, I analyze a two page site (index & links).
If you add n outgoing links to your link page the PR of the index page is decreased because less PR is transferred from your link page to the index page. Therefore, PR of the index page is lowered. Of course, this will also decrease the PR of the link page. Thus both pages lose PR.
For a one page site, you can argue that PR will stay the same after adding outgoing links (or is even increased as explained by IITia). However, in this case you simply transfer PR to the other page which was wasted so far. Simply add a second page and the real PR of your index page is approx. increased by a factor of 1/(1-d^2) (which is significant and not 'some amount greater than zero').
After a bit they gave me a link back, as a resource on the topic.
That's true, but that wasn't the point of the discussion. Also, the effect of link exchange was discussed in detail in the other thread. If you'll benefit or not mainly depends on PR relation of those pages. (By the way, if both pages of the link exchange have the similar PR (before adding a link) and number of links, the effect will be non-significant.)
The main problem with the random surfer model is that it does not replicate the real world. ...e.g. suppose there are 100 links on a page - the rs model assumes that a surfer randomly chooses one of these links with a probablility of 1/100 - Not true. There is nothing random about the choice - it depends on the location of the link of the page, the name of the link etc.
This is a model for the PR calculation - not for a real surfer. One way to explain the PR calcualtion is that 'random surfer model'.
i cant see any PR leak here...
Yes, because ToolbarPR is an integer on a logarithmic scale.
Of course, I have a number of outgoing links on my site. I know that PR is just one part of the ranking algorithm and that you could improve your ranking by outgoing links. I just want to answer the question if outgoing links will lower PR. (Yes.) Also, I didn't say anything to the order of this effect because it depends on many factors. Normally you won't see the effect of adding a few outgoing links.
doc_z: "If you add n outgoing links to your link page the PR of the index page is decreased because less PR is transferred from your link page to the index page. Therefore, PR of the index page is lowered. Of course, this will also decrease the PR of the link page. Thus both pages lose PR."
Interestingly, the page with the outbound links ends up with a higher PR than the index page! So this would suggest the index page is where to put your outbound links.
Interestingly, the page with the outbound links ends up with a higher PR than the index page! So this would suggest the index page is where to put your outbound links.
No, the page with the outbound links (normally) will have a lower PR than the index page. You have to take the effect of incoming links and the damping factor into account. (Normally the index page have more (important) incoming links. Thus the index page will have a higher PR. And it's better to place the outgoing links on the link page.)
Oh, man. This is getting bad here. If you are a newbie and stumble upon this thread, please read the link development section of the forum for some real advice.
Show me one site where the PR is higher on their links page than on the index page. You know why you can't? Because PR is calculated by inbound links.
BTW, who the heck cares about the raw PR for the site? Basing any REAL linking strategy on this won't make you much money since PAGES not Sites are returned in SERPS. Not to mention, basing your strategy on linking out from your home page to somehow preserve your PR is absurd.
I know about "pages" and not sites. And I'm excluding incoming links in what I'm saying, though of course they can be thrown into the calculation too. All I AM saying is that the raw PR for the whole site and for each individual page can be calculated (it's not a matter of opinion - like someone said it "bounces around before it leaks out" - but of instant calculation), so that the page and link structure of a site can be optimised - spreading the raw overall PR around the various pages. It's surely a useful thing to do and it can give interesting and sometimes unexpected results, like the example I gave, where it might be thought at first glance that the link page would have a lower PR but in fact in that example it doesn't. I don't actually calculate it myself... I'm hopeless with numbers. I'm using a Google PageRank calculator based on a fairly good guess of the algorithm. And I know this doesn't give the real Google toolbar PR - it's just a sensible tool for planning or testing the site structure.
I'm in agreement with Patrick_Taylor that outgoing links decrease PR (and that's the important point). There is another other point (mentioned above) where we are in disagreement.
Again, you are talking about PR for a site, when I am talking about individual pages. I get the fact that PR is spread through a site as does everyone here!
To say it in simple words: outgoing links (for a 'normal' link structure without dead ends) decrease the PR of the link page as well as the rest of the pages of your site as well as the total amount of PR of your site.
BTW, who the heck cares about the raw PR for the site? Basing any REAL linking strategy on this won't make you much money since PAGES are returned in SERPS not sites.
My explanation never based on 'site' arguments.
The only serious argument against a decrease of PR were given by steveb. However, the influence on other users to link to your page or to remove a link because of additional outgoing links on your page/site, is a different discussion. These effects are hard to estimate. On the other hand, the effect of adding an additional outgoing link on a page of your site (while the rest of the system is unchanged) is a simple mathematical problem with a definite answer which was already given.
If I'm wrong, then thats what it should be in my opinion.
Surely you only leak PR if the outbound link is non-relevant. I thought thats what it was all about; relevancy of information from site to site.
PR has nothing to do with relevancy, ranking criteria looks at relevancy. :)
PR has nothing to do with relevancy, ranking criteria looks at relevancy. :)
So you are saying that someone who has a higher PR because of non-relevant backlinks, will be ranked higher on G, than someone with relevant backlinks, for the same search term?
If this weren't correct, the entire model would break down, as it is based on a probability. If you could pass on PR without actually losing it, you could create PR. It makes no sense.
To say it in simple words: outgoing links (for a 'normal' link structure without dead ends) decrease the PR of the link page as well as the rest of the pages of your site as well as the total amount of PR of your site.
A bit narrow on the vision.
Three points:
1. Yes each outgoing link distributes PR "off-site" which would have been distributed "on-site"... however, in the case of a reciprocal situation that so-called "PR leakage" is transferred through adjacent pages therefore you receive a bit more than you did before.
2. In the case of outgoing "one-way links" and in many cases to an authority site - the same thing can occur. Link by proxy e.g. your link to authority > their link to other > another > another > another > and somewhere along the link path > your PR gets transferred back to you.
Note: a referral in the logfile is often a reason for a webmaster to look > and if that site/page adds value to their site > often a link comes back > not linking guarantees never being found in logfiles.
3. Links page > outgoing reciprocals (a ton of links) on one page > yes > helps to reduce so-called "PR leakage" from important pages > at the same time > helps to reduce your received PR.
In addition, a link never clicked on is a bigger deadend > back to that logfile thing > if you have a link burried on a links page guarantees again never being found in logfiles.
The more interconnected you are the more PR you will receive > that's the bottom line. Don't get lost in the "small brain appreciation" for why Google developed this as a method to determine page "importance"... connectivity is touchpoints and the more touchpoints you push out the more touchpoints you get... "think... I need connectivity, not I want to keep my PR".
Suppose you have a one page PR5 site. If you have ten external links on it, you still have a PR5 site, no changes -- *if no one returned your links*. If on the other hand you created ten sub pages and linked to those. They would all be PR4. Now you link all those PR4 pages to your main page, your PR would go up *some* amount, even if it is from PR5.2467 to PR5.2794.
doesn't all PR comes from inbound links? how you distribute it is your business, but you can't increase it?
otherwise anyone could get to PR10?
<added> not necessary to explain thanks - this is getting far too complicated. webmastering was far easier before PR came along. I think i'm gonna spend more time in the content forum ;-) </added>
I used to joyously believe that the Internet was all about masses of links and the more off your site, the better for everyone, but now I see it as a more of a selfish exercise (unfortunately), where you make your miserable calculations about whether somebody else deserves your vote, because it costs you. And if you can get away with it, you write most of your outbound links as unspiderable.
