How to upgrade your site to an Information hub?

information hub google

[Beastie]

Whilst building PR is a popular strategy to give a rise in SERPs, I have also read on numerous occasions that if a large number of outbound links are present, then google will upgrade a site to an 'information hub' and thus consider it more important.

These strategies seem to be saying opposite things, so I am confused! Any ideas how these two strategies might work together? How many outbound links would be needed for Google to see it as an information hub?

[Mike_Mackin]

imho

If your site is the true information hub, it will happen [over time] automatically.

It must be the definitive source for anything widget. Widget news, widget fora, widget chat, etc.

[edited by: Mike_Mackin at 1:20 pm (utc) on Feb. 1, 2003]

[Beastie]

But, as it's on its way to becoming an information hub, I can imagine the PR will just get lower and lower as a result of so many outbound links. This doesn't seem to make sense - shouldn't Google consider each thing separately somehow?

I spoke to Ralph Tegtmeier about this and he tells me that PR is really not very important at all at the moment...in fact, he says linking out is more important than linking in!

[MHes]

Hi
I doubt your pr will drop much with more outbound links. The more links out, the less pr is transferred per link, but the pages pr is not effected. However, it is true that if each link out is carrying less pr, then the link you have back to your home page will be carrying less and may have a slight overall lowering of your index page pr.... but my guess is that this will be tiny.

Personally, I also think pr is becoming a smaller part of the equation. On theme links in from a pr4 is possibly worth more than a pr6 off theme.

[JayC]

may have a slight overall lowering of your index page pr.... but my guess is that this will be tiny.

I agree. Lowered PageRank shouldn't be a concern. And if you really are legitimately an "information hub," you'll naturally be linked to anyway -- maintaining PageRank should be easy.

Beastie, you have to realize that a collection of ougoing links, no matter what sites they point to, doesn't help much in determining that you're a "hub" if it happens in a vacuum. You have to have a great set of links coming it, too, as any good hub would. A hub that is not also an "authority" isn't worthwhile, and I believe that a balance between those two would be needed for the site to get any "boost" by being classed as a "hub." And I also believe that an uncharacteristic imbalance between those two scores might harm your rankings, not help them. :)