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It boosted my ego a lot this morning seeing it go up, even if it's not meaning a lot :)
But I realized one thing: on a rather new site where all pages a treated equally when it comes to links, one sub-page stands out. It's a page linking to a very high PR site that is very much on topic.
Maybe that's a new idea from G to keep people from hoarding their linking power and transforming the "web" into a bunch of unlinked islands?
External links should not boost position in SERPs.
I know that's what the PR alg is all about. But I have no idea why this single page shows higher PR than all the other pages. Maybe somebody linked to it. But who would link to an SEO page without asking for a backlink?
And how do you know that this wasn't due to something else, including some general change in the Google algo? This is roughly equivalent to if I added a comma in a sentence on my home page, and my rank went up, arguing that adding commas improves ranking. Also note that adding a link will necessarily change the on page text, and that is one of the factors in ranking. Thus you could never be sure that it was the additional link that caused the improved ranking.
If that is true, all you have to do is put 1,000 links on a page to high PR pages and your page would be #1 ranked.
I've got a win-win situation for anybody that wants to try this theory. I'll give you my site name and you can link to me. If the theory is right you win. But regardless I get alot of good incoming links and I don't have to give a reciprocal link. I like that deal.
>If that is true, all you have to do is put 1,000 links on a page to high PR pages and your page would be #1 ranked.
Right. I'm not saying this isn't possible. None of us know what ideas they may cook up at the Googleplex. However, this idea doesn't make sense. If it were true, and it became common knowledge, people would be gaming Google by adding links to high PR sites just to get to the top of the SERPs.
Can outgoing links improve my pagerank?
yes, if you're doing reciprocal with a better pr than you ;)
Not necessarily so. If we swap links, and I add your URL to my "links" page, it is the other sites I link to that get less PR. My site doesn't "lose" PR by adding that link to you. However, I will pick up at least some extra PR from your link to me.
To be certain, you will need to do this with several pages.
If 8 test pages work then the odds are 256:1 that the theory is correct. To make the pages slightly more identical, perhaps link one page to high PR sites and one to low PR sites. Perhaps also try a third page with links to non-existent sites.
Kaled.
I believe, that the PR leakage 'loss' is outweighed by the beneficial effect of the on page outbound anchor text - i.e. the page will rank higher - but obviously won't have a 'higher' PR
Is that what you actually did the_nerd?
PR leakage 'loss'
I thought there was no PR loss for the current page when linking out?
I think outgoing links could be a factor just like H1's or something, where they matter, but obviously there's a limit. If you added 1000 outgoing links you should not be automatically #1, but having a few links ought to help as much as anything else you can write on a page.
Correct. However, your site as a whole loses PR because the link on that page back to your site transfers less PR the more links to external sites that are on the page.
I have been trying to figure out this outgoing link thing myself. Happenened to notice that one of my pages went down in ranking when I removed some outgoing links from the page. Could be of some other factor (like some people here mentioned) but Iīm not shure yet.
What I was thinking of is the "authority-hub" theory. Could linking to authority or high ranking sites within the same theme help your site? I have seen some sites using this technique - donīt know if it works, but at least some people do.
Would be nice if someone did test this.
Also discussed here:
[webmasterworld.com...]
P.S. Have you heard anything about affiliate links (afiliate tracking links) and that they could have a negative effect on your ranking? I see some logic behind this, but havenīt seen any comments about this...
Also would suggest link to a site if you think it will benefit the end-user and its safe to do it with a redirect - e.g. [webmasterworld.com...]
I believe, that the PR leakage 'loss' is outweighed by the beneficial effect of the on page outbound anchor text - i.e. the page will rank higher - but obviously won't have a 'higher' PRIs that what you actually did the_nerd?
No, I wasn't referring to ranking - just to toolbar PR. I just can't understand why one inner page should have the same PR as the home page and all other inner pages have one less.
The only explanation I could think of was the outgoing link to a PR 8 SEO site.
But maybe it's something totally different: before the last PR update only the homepage and the page with the outgoing link showed PR, all others where "too young" and had PR 0. Maybe it's a question of time? Slightly lower PR for a newer page? That could mean a page goes from 0 to n-1 to the real PR over time (yes, I know, toolbar PR is a log function..., just to keep it simpler)?
But probably it was just a nice guy linking to my page :) - and since it doesn't influence ranking, maybe we all should go back to work...
If Google treat internal and external links separately then outward links may have zero negative impact on internal PR. Just because the original (published) algo was page-orientated that is no reason to believe that the site (domain) does not feature in the current algos.
In any case, it is SERPS that count, not PR, and outward links (with keywords) may be considered beneficial. This is especially true with information sites.
Kaled.
It does not leak your PR. Your PR is totally dependent on the incoming links to the page. It does reduce the amount of PR that you can recirculate to your other pages and sites.
I have not seen any evidence of the PR or quality of the target page affecting the ranking of the current page. However I do find it quite funny that many sites link to Google.com even when it is not relevant to the page in the expectation that google will favor them for this :-)
why one inner page should have the same PR as the home page
Another domain may be directly pointing to an inner page. You can check using alltheweb as they do not filter the link: results like Google does.
It's a page linking to a very high PR site that is very much on topic.
My experience is linking to a high PR site with your keywords in the anchor text definitely helps your position in the SERPS.
It is one of the prime SEO techniques I use.
It's also one of the oldest. I'm surprised this thread is producing varying responses.
TJ
My experience is linking to a high PR site with your keywords in the anchor text definitely helps your position in the SERPS.
TrillianJedi, do you think it is necessary to link to a high PR site? My experience says otherwise. Have you tested this?
