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Google has to give more weight to relevant incoming links

Its become a linking competion

         

nervous_seo

2:04 pm on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Link Popularity has become a BAD JOKE!

It seems that the more incoming links you have the higher you rank in Google, regardless of RELEVANCY.

Surely Google should give more weight to relevant incoming links?

New domains are popping up everyday now and webmasters swap links with whoever they can and VOILLA - great listings.

Content and uniqueness mean NOTHING!

Affiliates are taking over the web!

Setup 100 domains - get the SAME links to each domain with keyword rich links, sign up with an affiliate and thats all you have to do.

IT SHOULD NOT BE THAT SIMPLE! BUT IT IS!

Googleguy any comments?

vitaplease

2:21 pm on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



There is some truth in what you say and I am sure this is one of Google's priorities, checking similar domains, linking paterns, checking whois info, and possibly builing in some neutralising effects [webmasterworld.com] etc.

It's not all that simple though. Having many domains does not mean they all carry an important Pagerank and therefore linking power.

Also these other domains will have to link-out to other independant sites to not be immediately trapped in a link-farm penalty. If you link out, you spill PR and SEO the independant sites.

nervous_seo

2:33 pm on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Each domain has its own links page with basically the same linking partners.

As long as the inbound links have keyword rich text in them and there are more incoming links than the next guy - then that website will rank higher (nothing to do with PR).

So - really its just a linking competetion and guys with more domains have a HUGE advantage over someone like me who operates a single DOMAIN.

vitaplease

2:49 pm on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



As long as the inbound links have keyword rich text in them and there are more incoming links than the next guy - then that website will rank higher (nothing to do with PR).

Yes, more incoming links than the next guy, will always "beat", but one quality link (everything to do with PR) can off-beat several low PR links (although IMO it does not follow exact Pagerank weighting).

I also have one main domain - at the moment.

The question I ask my-lazy-self is, is it worthwhile to get an extra domain, set it up, manage it, go link hunting for inbound links, check statistics etc, or just go for an extra link from a real independant site. What's quicker? Whats cheaper? What's less hassle? What's less risk? What forces you to make better quality content?

However, you are right that the described effect is not enough neutralised in Google's algo at the moment.

and you can always go for that extra Widgets history domain....

nervous_seo

2:57 pm on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Yes One good link is better than many lower qulioty ones , but it is FAR easier to get 500 crappy links than 10 excellent ones.

Google GUY - I wish you could comment - where are you?

mfishy

3:53 pm on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



nervous,

If that's all you have to do. Why not do it?

It's as though you are saying "I figured out the secret to getting top rankings on Google and it was not the answer I was looking for".

If you really think it's easy to get tons of Google traffic on competetive terms, you should go after it. If a page is beating me because it has more links, I would certainly try to go after those same links and more.

figment88

4:36 pm on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



IMHO what needs to save link popularity as a quality criterion is not relevency or theming but addition of the site as unit of analysis.

Right now it is my understanding that PR is almost exclusively computed using individual web pages as the unit of analysis. Websites that have a few incoming links to multiple pages are almost always better than sites that have lots of incoming links just to the homepage.

jamesyap

4:49 pm on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



For me, I will put all my effort in one domain, I am too lazy (time and effort) to start building another.

why_nigel

5:00 pm on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



do you really lose a lot of PR by linking out

troels nybo nielsen

7:53 pm on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Welcome to WebmasterWorld, why_nigel.

The short answer is "no". A longer answer may go like this:

You do not loose any PR at all by linking out. But your internal links loose some of their ability to transfer PR to your other pages. A link may be considered to be a vote. If page A links to page B, that's a vote for page B. Page A does not loose any PR, but page B gains some. If page A links to pages B and C, page A still gains PR but not so much.

why_nigel

8:49 pm on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Alright thanks I just wanted to make sure I wasn't hurting my site at all by having a lot of outgoing links.

charpress

9:02 pm on Jan 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Some of the highest ranked sites in my field are directories. They are nothing but links to other sites.