Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I have received several requests of reciprocal linkage from different websites. I have checked their PR and Link Popularity and some of them have a lower PR than mine but an higher link popularity.
I know that being linked with a site with an higher link popularity than mine could be fine, but what about PR?!? does have to be equal at least, or it doesn't matter at all?
Thanks so much,
tito
Shortly, you can't say PR of these sites, just what PR they had a few months ago. At present, they can have much higher PR than toolbar indicates. We all keep waiting for next toolbar update.
And you can't say much about their link popularity either, because link: command shows a little sample of all links known to Google. The best method to approximate link popularity is to perform link: search on MSN and Yahoo and assume Google knows about even more links.
Of course, these complications occur because Google doesn't want to be manipulated too easily by newbie SEOs.
Bear in mind, that raw links and PR strength is less important than good anchor text on inbound and outbound links to related sites. In the consequence, the best partners for link exchange are sites with not only good reputation (PageRank, link popularity, Trust Rank), but before all - with big relevance to your niche, your subject, your keywords. And linking to many irrelevant sites may hurt your rankings, even if these sites reciprocate from high PR pages.
I've noticed several times, that very high keyword density on site B sometimes helps site A (while A links to B with keyword in anchor text), even if this density (or other factors) already hurt rankings of site B.
So, there is more than PR to check, and although it is unlikely that site with PR6 would link to PR2 site from its main page anyway, you cannot stick to PR while deciding about link exchanges.
And first of all, link exchanges are the worst idea to boost your site rankings anyway.
Cheers,
tito
Regardless, you should be considering sites on potential traffic and relevance, not PR.
[edited by: lgn1 at 4:24 pm (utc) on Feb. 17, 2006]
I've noticed several times, that very high keyword density on site B sometimes helps site A (while A links to B with keyword in anchor text), even if this density (or other factors) already hurt rankings of site B.
I agree that related is the key but why punish sites for low or no PR? How is a newer site ever going to get going if some of us with established sites won't link back to them?
I also have a lot of one way outbound links to pages that add information to my articles. I do this generously and it doesn’t seem to have hurt me at all. Some of the quality inbound links to my site were based on the fact that I not only write informative articles but link out to more information, both books and web pages.
I'm not sure how to understand this? would an outgoing link from site A to related content on site B , would this help site A? how can it help site A when it's only linking outside?
Keep digging this forum, you'll find some threads about it. Even GoogleGuy once said, that if site links to relevant content, it's useful for users and so it adds value to the site, and if it weren't already included in the algo, it may be eventually.
Myself, I've found some situations where it already appeared to boost rankings, so I believe it to be true, and it's good for my users anyway and I make sites for users. But if you make sites for Google, remember that users give natural inbound links, so make sites for users. And if you make sites for Adsense, remember that users produce clicks and if they like your site they'll stay longer and produce more clicks, so make sites for users.
