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After reading and participating in several other discussions, here are some basic questions I have not been able to get clear answers to:
1) Does adding link pages, listing links to the pages that already had one way links to us, hurt us in any way?
2) By linking to them, did our pr 4 site, in any way bring their pr below 4, and cause Google to stop displaying them as a link to our site? (Since we added the link pages, the number of links Google displays for us has dropped from 56 to 18 even though all these sites- and 300 more - still have a link to us.)
3) Would I be better off removing our link pages? If I would be better off, how do I stop Google from counting them? Do I just add them to my robot.txt file, or do I need to do something else? Each link page now has a META of NOINDEX, FOLLOW on them.
4) Which version of the link: search (with or without a space or with or without a www - ) accurately displays the links Google uses to determine pr? The different link searches produce very different results of 18, 46, and 766 links for our site.
5) If pr is really about relevance, shouldn't 300 links from pr1, pr2, and pr3 pages, that are on topic, have more weight than 10 links from pr4 or above pages, and does a site's pr and SEPR reflect this?
6) While it is fine to say that pr is insignificant, and those of us with Macs should just ignore it, if we link to pages with pro or low pr (because we can't find out their pr), aren't we hurting our own pr?
7) We have no control over how other sites link back to us. In our non-profit field, it is customary for a site to just list our name. Requests to sites, asking them to use a longer link, with keywords in it, have been ignored. Is there anything we can do to compensate for this?
8) Are links that are not reflected in the pr, used in determining the page's position in the SEPRs?
9) The Google robot visits our site two or three times a day. It used to spider all the new or changed pages on our site, each time it visited. (Our content is updated several times a week) Now it only spiders our index page, and occasionally a new page. We also occasionally get a visit from an ip that identifies itself simply as "google." Our pages do not use any tricks and rank well for their keywords in the SEPRs, does anyone have any idea what is going on here?
If anyone, expert or not, has this information, I would appreciate the answers to these questions.
Thank you,
Harris
Could someone please tell me if they are not worth answering.
By the way, the usual Googlebot ("Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)") still visits our site and spiders our index page two or three times a day.
However, the ip that just identifies itself as "google" has now started to slowly spider our entire site.
It is not asking for the robot.txt file, or obeying the meta robot tag on the pages.
Therefore, it is spidering pages disallowed in the robot.txt file, and pages with a noindex meta tag.
Will these pages wind up in Google's index?
Does anyone know what is going on here?
Thank you,
Harris
I can't believe that these questions do not have an answer, or are too silly to answer.
Perhaps the number of questions discouraged many people from answering :) Let me comment on those areas I know something about:
Does adding link pages, listing links to the pages that already had one way links to us, hurt us in any way?
The short answer is no, though I am sure that someone will chime in with a comment about "leaking" PR.
By linking to them, did our pr 4 site, in any way bring their pr below 4 ...
No. PR is additive, a link adds either a little PR or a lot, but does not subtract from it. I am not talking about the issue of "bad neighborhoods" here.
Would I be better off removing our link pages?
No. The web is all about linking.
If pr is really about relevance, shouldn't 300 links from pr1, pr2, and pr3 pages, that are on topic, have more weight than 10 links from pr4 or above pages, and does a site's pr and SEPR reflect this?
No. PR is currently mathematically constructed from the link structure of the web. It is possible that, at some time, it may be modified to take "relevance" into account.
While it is fine to say that pr is insignificant, and those of us with Macs should just ignore it, if we link to pages with pro or low pr (because we can't find out their pr), aren't we hurting our own pr?
No, unless you link to a "bad neighborhood" you will not be harming your site. Your outbound links have absolutely no effect on your PR.
Are links that are not reflected in the pr, used in determining the page's position in the SEPRs?
Google uses all the links it knows about in computing a single number, the PR. That number is used, together with on-page factors, to determine your placement on the SERPs.
I think Mohamed_E is not exactly correct.
I predicted, accurately enough, that "I am sure that someone will chime in with a comment about "leaking" PR". And "chime in" you did, exactly 27 minutes later :)
To be less facetious, I wrote "the short answer is no". I agree that some reflected PR is lost, and certainly I would not put 100 outbound links on my home page. But I believe that the answer to the original question "Does adding a links page hurt us?" has to be no.
This has been debated endlessly here, I had no intention of restarting that old argument.
Perhaps the number of questions discouraged many people from answering :)
I thought I would make things simpler by putting all my questions in one post. I had asked them, one at a time, in other discussions, but never got clear answers.
By linking to them, did our pr 4 site, in any way bring their pr below 4 ...No. PR is additive, a link adds either a little PR or a lot, but does not subtract from it. I am not talking about the issue of "bad neighborhoods" here.
Since so many of the pages that linked to us dropped below pr4 and no longer show up as links to our site, after we linked to them, I thought there might be a cause and effect in play.
Of course I am only guessing that their pr dropped below 4 because I have a Mac, and these pages still have the link to our site.
When I link to others I create a page which I don't consider as crucial to the pr of the entire site. This page I scarifice and have as many links from it to others as possible. Of course I link only to the those who link back.
Each of the four link pages I created, has about 100 links on it, and is on the third level of our site. In other words, someone must click on the site link on our home page, then on the links to the pages containing the backlinks.
Google uses all the links it knows about in computing a single number, the PR. That number is used, together with on-page factors, to determine your placement on the SERPs.
This is where I become confused. Do you mean "all the links it knows about" that are pr4 or above, or do you mean "all the links it knows about," regardless of their pr.
I hope others will take the time to answer some of the other questions.
I am especially concerned about who or what is spidering our site, not accessing the robot.txt file or following the robots meta tag.
They are going through hundreds of internal pages we really don't want available from a search engine. We would prefer people access them from the top level of our site.
The log only identifies whoever it is as "google"
Again thank you for taking the time to answer!
Harris
This is where I become confused. Do you mean "all the links it knows about" that are pr4 or above, or do you mean "all the links it knows about," regardless of their pr.
I wrote "all the links it knows about" and, (surprise!) that is what I meant. The "PR 4 or above" thing is related to displaying the links in response to a link: query. All are included in the computation. Many sites do thrive on a large collection of low PR links.
This is where I become confused. Do you mean "all the links it knows about" that are pr4 or above, or do you mean "all the links it knows about," regardless of their pr.I wrote "all the links it knows about" and, (surprise!) that is what I meant. The "PR 4 or above" thing is related to displaying the links in response to a link: query. All are included in the computation. Many sites do thrive on a large collection of low PR links.
Thank you! This finally explains our good showing in the SERPs while we have gone from 56 to 18 links displayed in a link: search.
Our site has over 300 backlinks that I know of, and I felt as if all that goodwill was going to waste because they did not show in a link: search on Google.
Once again, thank you.
Harris
