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Lets say we got 3 sites, Alpha which we link from, and Beta1 and Beta2 which we link to. These three sites have 5 pages each, including the front page. Based on this, there are several methods we may use to link from Alpha to the two Beta sites.
A) Link from the front page of Alpha to the front page of Beta1 and Beta2, using anchor keywords.
B) Link from every page on Alpha to the front page of Beta1 and Beta2, using anchor keywords.
C) Link from every page on Alpha to every page on Beta1 and Beta2, using anchor keywords.
The method we choose will effect how much pagerank is transferred from Alpha to Beta (and also the amount of pagerank flowing internally on Alpha), - but for this discussion I'm more concerned about improving ranking based on anchor keywords.
As far as we know, pagerank is page specific and is transferred between pages on different sites equally to the way it's transferred between internal pages. However, as I understand it, anchor keywords from external sites carry more weight than anchor keywords from internal links.
So, what concerns me is:
- would 10 links on a single page on Alpha pointing to 10 different pages on Beta carry the same weight as a single link on a page on Alpha pointing to a page on Beta?
- would 10 links, one on each page (10 pages), from Alpha, all pointing to the homepage of Beta carry the same weight as a single link on a page on Alpha pointing to a page on Beta?
Watching the SERPs I have noticed that for some sites ranking high for competitive terms, most of the backlinks often comes from multiple pages on a single external domain. For instance, a site widgetA.com may have 100 backlinks, but 95 of those are from pages on domain widgetB.com. This leads me two believe that 100 links from one domain count as much as 100 links from 100 different domains, something which strikes me as a bit odd.
Any thoughts?
No. each of the 10 links from a single alpha page transfers 1/10 (* .9) of the PR to its target beta page. ( the 0.9 is ciml's estimated decay factor, if I remember correctly).
You also asked,
- would 10 links, one on each page (10 pages), from Alpha, all pointing to the homepage of Beta carry the same weight as a single link on a page on Alpha pointing to a page on Beta?
No, the 10 incoming links focussed on a single Beta page, has 10 times the value of a single incoming link.
But all of this assumes that all the Alpha pages have approximately equal PR.
I guess what I'm wondering about is if, when it comes to anchor keywords, there is any benefit in using additional links with the same anchor keywords beyond the first link. In other words, would 10 links to Beta from Alpha do as well as 10 links to Beta from 10 different domains?
I'd think they'd begin by keeping a list of all the anchor texts pointing to each URL, and the PR transferred along with each anchor text. (They could potentially also store the external or internal domain URL that gave the link, or a flag or weighting factor for external links.)
When a keyword phrase is searched, maybe Google finds the subset of anchor texts that contain the phrase, calculates their keyword prominence, and weights the overall result by the amount of PR involved. Whether or not they modify the calculation based on internal or exteral domain link sources, is also a guess... My guess, is that they don't bother with internal/external domain differences, when it comes to anchor text relevance analysis.
Anchor text relevance analysis might also include checking if nearby text or headings or titles also reinforce the keyword phrase of the anchor text.
Your question is quite sophisticated. If anyone can offer more evidence or alternate guessing, that would be great. Based on my guessing, I'd answer your latest question by thinking there would be no difference between those 10 incoming links from internal page alpha, compared to 10 incoming links from external domains... assuming their PR and anchor texts are the same.
But since you can control the 10 internal link anchor texts, and whatever text/headings/titles that MIGHT reinforce their value, maybe the internal links end up being more valuable in practice.
However, this is not only about the weight of anchor keywords in internal vs external links. It's also about anchor keywords & multiple links coming from a single external domain. As I mentioned, when checking external baclinks I've noticed that quite often the majority of those backlinks are from different pages on the same domain. Example, out of 100 external incoming links, 95 are from pages on the same domain.
This would suggest that I could add a footer on all my 50 pages on my Alpha site with 10 one-way links pointing to my Beta1 - Beta10 sites. Then my Beta1-10 sites all would have 50 incoming links. Pagerank would not necessarily be great or any different, but would the weight of anchor keywords be capped somehow? Or would Beta1-10 get points for anchor keywords from 50 links, even though all the 50 links are from the same domain?
To further spin on the question, should those links from Alpha point to the homepage of Beta, or to different deep pages? And if the weight of anchor keywords is capped somehow, is it capped per domain or per folder - because if it's capped per domain that would mean problems with anchor keywords in links from Geocities or other large sites/portals.
With all these great discussions about hubs and reciprocal linking, it seems to me one-way linking is hardly discussed at all. Please jump in members :)
