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Also how to select good links for the purpose of ranking well - just choose those that are at the top of the SERPs?
I'd like to believe that, since it sounds logical, but is there any empirical evidence apart from the example Pedent gave above?
The theoretical papers on calculating page rank, which I have read, would say NO NO NO. But who knows?
If the links are helpful to your visitors you are doing good.
Google likes both relevant content and quality content for their users (aka genuinely helpful, relevant outgoing links).
when all else remained equal
Interesting how you got Google to stop all algo work while you tested this. ;)
I did nothing and some of my pages advanced as well.
When I look at the header from following this link I get:
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Is this 302 hijacking or something different?
in contrast - what if someone asked - "does incoming anchor text help my page rank better?"
what about including your keyword in an <H1>?
no debate about either of these.
the lack of evidence is starting to look like pretty good evidence. -if- the effect is there - it seems to be weaker than any of the other established things that effect rank.
no debate about either of these.Ever hear of the over optimisation penalty? I'm not a fan of it, but it would indicate that there is some debate on those points.
Maybe in the thread, but this isn't anything to debate. GoogleGuy has mentioned every page has a hub score and an authority score. Why would they calculate a hub score if they weren't going to use it? The idea makes no sense, and also it would make no sense to suggest that a hub score was a negative ranking, since it is in the same context as an authority score which certainly could never be generically a negative.
Outgoing links help the hub score of your page. It's just one element of the algorithm, but it is one element.
Not many people have used or even thought about outgoing links helping them rank better. But if you think about it, it does make alot of sense.
People for so long have been Trying not to give away their page rank by not linking out to other external sites. Alot of sites use javascript links to other sites because they are affraid they are going to lose the Page Rank of their pages.
So google just decided to reward sites that link out to other sites. Sites that link out to other sites with javascript and other ways that search engines can't crawl, makes it hard for google to calculate page rank the way it should be.
Of course if google wouldn't have scared everyone about linking to bad neighborhoods then this wouldn't have been such a big problem. But we're all hesitant to link to sites we're not sure about?
We could link to a "Good" site today and in a month that site could be a "bad neighbor hood"?
Then we get banned and don't know what happened?
Google has messed up by causing panic in everyone about linking which will cause their page rank to be un-accurate because nobody want's to link out to any sites anymore.
So now they reward you for linking out but ban you for linking to a "bad neighborhood". Where do you draw the line? What constitutes a bad neighborhood?
If google was more clear on their rules it wouldn't be such a big problem but they aren't. So everyone is scared to do anything anymore which is probably going to be google's downfall if they don't clear up some things for us webmasters.
What constitutes a bad neighborhood?
Seems to me to be an irrelevant question.
There are only other sites that you personally endorse, and there are other sites that you do not personally endorse.
A link -- a personal endorsement -- means you believe this link may be of value to your visitors.
If it isn't of value to your visitors, then don't link to it.
Your links will then be "on topic" or at least themed. That makes you a viable hub, and Google is likely to notice that.
Not many people have used or even thought about outgoing links helping them rank better. But if you think about it, it does make alot of sense.I've been doing it at least since Florida and there have been threads about it since before then. As far as bad neighborhoods, what victor said.
Therefore, I do think related outbound links currently help.
Put up 80 or 90 HTML pages with 30 - 40 links per page on every conceivable aspect of your subject area and NO ADWORDS. Nicely organized and thoughtfully arranged into categories and sub-categories. No recips and linked from the home page. Don't do anything else. Wait 6 weeks. You'll get a really big surprise.
The funny part of it is my site remained stable in the results. So I moved the outgoing links to interior pages and will await the results.From that post it seems like you are more concerned with your pr than with your rankings.
Not many people have used or even thought about outgoing links helping them rank better. But if you think about it, it does make alot of sense.
How about (G) from Brett's Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone [webmasterworld.com]. I'll go on record that I disagreed with him back then, but have since changed my mind.
No Powdork, I'm just curious why my PR is declining.Yes but you took steps to help your pr that could hurt your rankings. There are many reasons your pr could drop. It could be an across the board drop. Sites could have dropped your link. They could change it to an unspiderable format. Their pr could have dropped. You could be spreading it among more pages if you added content. An important link to your site could have been unreachable during the last crawl. Sites linking to you could have become unable to pass pr. If you linked to these sites after Florida, and your pr didn't drop until september, it is likely not the reason.
My link pages (a directory for top sites in my topic - no link trading) have improved in PR but I don't know how they are doing in terms of serps as they aren't something I'd been testing the keywords for.
Theese pages seem to have improved quite recetly. I took adsense off of them recently because it didn't seem that profitable. I wonder if there is a connection there. OTOH why would Google discourage AdSense?
Thanks Powdork, that is why I keep reading this forum.I forgot to mention one thing which you also already mentioned. Toolbar PR is screwy.
