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Disclaimer: For all: this discussion does NOT deal with whether buying PR is "evil and a horrible sin", and any replies regarding this would be detrimental to the overall discussion... no purchase necessary, limited time offer ;)
If you had the choice to "buy" links with pagerank pointing to your new site, would you choose one PR8 link (with perfect anchor text for the keyword phrase) or 40 PR4/PR5 links (with reasonably good anchor text)? For purposes of simplicity, assume your link is the only outgoing link on those pages.
So, would only one link from a PR8 page to a new site's homepage be considered too suspicious by google's filters to give that new site a huge pagerank boost? Does google's filter "prefer" that you have at least a few other sites that link to you (as well as that sweet PR8) in order to get the huge pagerank boost from the PR8?
In conclusion, is one link with perfect anchor text from a PR8 to a very well optimized page for that specific keyword, enough to beat out multiple (let's say 40) links with satisfactory anchor text from pr4's pr5's to a very well optimized page for that specific keyword?
Sorry for the multiple questions, but I feel this will be a very interesting thread for many members.
As I always say, the game in no longer on PR. 5 (or less) PR5 links will easily beat a PR8/9 link in ranking for thw same keyword. TWO CENTS.
Of course if you are looking for more green fluid in your PageRank Termometer, then getting a link from a PR8 site would be better. :) But what's the point to have lots of money but nothing to buy?
Bet on 40 Links with PR4/5
With the gain in PR from the PR8 page you can easily create yourself on your very own site as many links as you want with whatever anchor text you want.
You can change the links whenever you want.
At the moment Google doesnt seem to care wether a link comes from other sites. (page vs site blabla).
However the algo may (will!) change.
If the PR8 drops your link for some reason, your PR is gone. It's unlikely that dozens of lower PR sites will drop your link all at once
However, get the high PR sites first to get your pr above 5
When your site is at a 6 or 7 the link-beggars will come out of the woodwork pleading for you to trade links with them. Pick and choose the sites that will add value for your visitors and have potential of gaining a higher rank in the future. Ignore the link-beggars from the garbage sites.
Spending less time link-begging to build link-pages that no one but the spiders care about means more time for building pages chocked full of keyword phrases and content that your human visitors can enjoy.
Using this method, you will have high pr, excellent page popularity, and great content – a potent combination indeed.
PR4 and PR5 links can be gained almost for free.
Anyway, even if the logarithmic scale is base 6, a PR8 link would be 216x more valuable than a PR5 link.
The link from the PR8 will pass a lot more PR than 40 links from PR4s and PR5s.
40 links from PR4s and PR5s to your home page will help your home page's ranking more than one link from a PR8.
A link to your home page from a PR8 will help your deeper pages more than 40 links to your home page from PR4s and PR5s.
Making good pages that people want to link to (deep, not just home page) will get you much better rankings and traffic overall. It's harder to rank for one, competitive phrase than for many low competition, high conversion phrases.
Besides, 40 solid PR4 and 5 links would probably send you more traffic than one PR8 link.
But I do understand what many people are saying here which is without those internal or external links pointing to your homepage with the correct anchor text, a very high pagerank for a page may still not be enough to rank well for a competitive keyword. However, I think people are exagerrating how "low PR" (PR 4) pages are beating "high PR" (PR 5) pages. When PR4-5 competes with a PR7, I really think that the PR7 is in another league of competition (even if it has only 1 backlink). But then again, I could be delusional and google and all of humanity could just be trapped in The Matrix!
I have some doubts about this (not the matrix part), because I simply can't see how a single PR7 page (with 1 backlink) will rank lower than a PR4-5 (even with maybe 40 backlinks) page, due to just anchor text being factored in? So, experts, what are your thoughts on this more specific concept? I'm all ears...
I am not one of the 'experts' round here but from my experiments, Internal anchor text doesn't seem to have any effect.
I would speculate that the anchor text effect comes from some formula of
1. number of external links
2. number of different domains these external links are on
3. PR of the pages with external links
At the moment it appears that 1 and 2 are the most important. And yes, the effect of 40 PR4/5 links with good anchor text should enable you to rank higher than a PR7. The algo may change tomorrow, though.
But, unless you have a one page site, re-read what ciml says about why the PR8 link is the best.
"Iguana, by expert, I meant anybody who's confident about their replies. :)"
(That's a compliment, not an insult!)
[edited by: airpal at 5:08 pm (utc) on Oct. 30, 2003]
my slight lack of confidence is because my first experiment was just pre-Dominc update time and not more recently. 1600 of my main pages all had links to their sub-pages - anchor text like 'websites', 'products'. I changes them all to 'widget websites' 'widget products' - thinking this would improve rankings for the term 'widget'. In nearly all cases these sub-pages were only linked to by my main pages and not from any external sites.
The resultant effect was absolutely zero.
More recently (post-Dominic) I added 1400 extra pages. Each of these pages had a link back to one of my main pages with the anchor text 'widget' - result zero.
I also put a panel on the bottom of each page with 'most popular pages' and listed 10 pages with anchor text of 'widget' - result was only a very small rise in the SERPS dor 'widget' probably due to an increase in PR of the pages.
I simply can't see how a single PR7 page (with 1 backlink) will rank lower than a PR4-5 (even with maybe 40 backlinks) page, due to just anchor text being factored in?
Because anchor text is the fundamental ingredient in google's ranking algo.
A link (and transfer of PR) is just a "vote" for that page. But the anchor text tell's google that it's a vote for that page "on this topic".
More is better. PR is less relevant now than it has ever been, but it's not completely been dismissed. Ideally, you want both high PR and plenty of anchor text inbounds.
If the 50 PR4/5 sites and the PR7 site are *not* on topic - I would take the PR7. and use it to lever my PR (without expecting much benefit from doing so). If the PR4/5 sites are all on-topic, I would go for those any day.
Also worth remembering that this game isn't just about doing well in the search engines, it's primarily about getting quality traffic.
TJ
would only one link from a PR8 page to a new site's homepage be considered too suspicious by google's filters to give that new site a huge pagerank boost?
And what filter would that be? PR transfer penalties are hand jobs. 40 links from PR5's is better because it is more natural, and will not draw the attention of those in charge of issuing hand jobs.
will not draw the attention of those in charge of issuing hand jobs.
You might want to rephrase that Greg!
TJ
links from a similar topic-related page will benefit more than links from any wildly off-topic page.
I was talking about user-traffic, not search engines. You will get high quality traffic through links from on-topic websites.
A contradiction, because the best traffic comes from the search engines themselves. :)
I would disagree with that. The best traffic comes from well regarded on-topic sites linking to you. The *most* traffic comes from search engines.
My point is, don't ignore one over the other.
TJ
Internal links pass PageRank just as links from another domain (assuming none are penalised).
Internal links have less anchor text weight than links from another domain (assuming none are penalised).
For a large site (especially if it has a deep navigation structure or dynamic looking URLs), more PR can lead to more pages being crawled.
But it's difficult to be sure what is happening on a live site. I may find that my failure to rise in the SERPS was due to other algo changes (and my changes actually stopped me dropping)
In a real life situation, they're also likely not to be identical and will probably help you rank on a greater range of phrases. In a set up situation, they should not be identical.
For instance, one website I am linked to is a PR8 on their index page, but, on their "links" page of the website is only a PR5. So, does that mean that I am actually on a PR8 site or is it only a PR5 that I am linked to? What counts, the "links" page or their index page?
Thanks to anyone who can clarify this for me.
Chris
That's definately a bummer! I also have a PR6 direct link to a PR9 site that I just found out about a couple of days ago. I wish that the PR9 counted and not just the individual link page.
It must be really difficult to get a significant page rank. I don't really try to ask people for links. I just add content and the links have just popped up. There are only 2 websites that I directly asked for links on and they were only PR5 and PR4 but they were totally relavent.
Thanks alot!
Chris
This is a no brainer. With one PR8 link to your domain, which gave you a PR7, you could spit out hundreds of PR5 (many of which would be PR6) pages. Getting forty PR5 links is completely dwarfed in comparison to the point of not even being worth talking about it.
Having 40 PR5 links is only better than one PR8 link if you then slip into a coma and don't do anything else. But any non-comatose person should make 40 PR6 links off the PR7 index page, and then make 40 PR5 pages off all those PR6 pages.
Why would anyone chose 40 PR5 links when you could have 1600? (And notice the external versus internal anchor text issue is 100% irrelevant since you could create these 1600 PR5 pages on other domains.)
However, I must play devil's advocate and ask about a final, significant point a few reputable members mentioned... which is that anchor text from internal links counts much less than (or does not even count at all) compared to anchor text from external links. I disagree, and think, at worst internal link anchor text counts very slightly less than external link anchor text, but I would like your viewpoint on this issue also steveb. If you can grace us with another insightful reply, I would really appreciate it. Thanks!
