Links from off-topic sites

any help at all?

[steveb]

I have an incoming link now from a very popular site that is completely unrelated to my topic. Do I get a page rank from this?

I ask because I have a second website also completely unrelated to my main one but it is high traffic and has a page rank of four (my main one is six). I could just add a link from it's index page to my main site. Would this off-topic linking be significantly helpful? (I don't care about giving away page rank from the other site.)

[bateman_ap]

Use your main keywords as the link text and I can't see why it won't be beneficial to you.

[zeus]

well Im not sure if it gives you a better PR if the page linking to you have a other topic then you.

Im not sure of this, but a interesting question.

zeus

[bateman_ap]

I think Teoma pays more attention to site topic rather than google.

Anyway, how would you say define a link on the front page of the bbc? Off topic and not worth it, I'm sure a fair few here would sell their granny for a link there!

[Chris_R]

Yes.
No.

Yes - you get PageRank regardless of subject matter - that is part of what PR is.

No - it won't help a PR6 site out much if you have a PR4 site linking to it. It depends on various factors, but in general - you should expect less than a 1% increase in your PR from such a link.

[zeus]

A link from BBC could be great but maybe not as a boost for PR, but I dont know if a off topic site boost a site, if it does, a have a lot to do today because my PR su.., I just thought that the theme of a page should fit the site being linked to.

Ones more Im not sure of this.

zeus

[Chris_R]

It all depends who you are competing against. Off Topic links can help. On Topic links are better as they can help "themeing". Even bad press is good for your PR - example would be a news story that said:

The owner of example.com went to jail today for eating widgets outside without a permit.

[zeus]

Chris thats also what I think, but how much would a good (off topic) site PR give?, the same as a page with same content as yours without thinking of the theme in a page.

I dont know if you know what I mean.

zeus

[ciml]

Chris_R:
> On Topic links are better as they can help "themeing".

Do you mean link text and near link text, or something more? I've been waiting for Google to use something similar to 'related sites' and/or following two links back; but I see no signs of that yet.

zeus, in terms of PageRank, it doesn't matter at all. The link text makes a significant difference to your ranking in the results, just not PageRank.

[Chris_R]

I put themeing in quotes as Google seems to use close text and other stuff like that - such as title. Not true themeing (if there is such a thing).

As far as PR Boost goes - What Calum said.

[WebGuerrilla]

I'm with Calum and Chris on this one. I've been patiently waiting for Google to take the content of the linking page into consideration, but I still haven't seen it. From a strictly PR point of view, a link is a link.

[pvdm]

IMHO, in the short term, a link is a link. The pagerank of the linking page, and the number of links on it are defining the PR transfered to your page.

In the middle-to-ling term however, theme or context will become more important in the algorithms of all SE's. So I would still prefer a strategy of 'themed' and 'contextual' links than a mass of links without a common interest.

Depending on the purpose of the site, short term or long term could be the better choice today.