Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Q: What is the max number of outbound links a PR5 homepage can have? I've heard, if you have too many outbound links on the homepage, then none (or, only some) get followed by google.....I've also heard 10 is the 'magic' number.
Andy
re [google.co.uk...]
"Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100). "
fatpeter: how many outbound links do you have on your homepage?
I used to put outbound links on the homepage, about 12 of them, hoping they would help but I got tired of them one day, so I moved the links to a links page, and doing this didn't cause me to drop in the serps, in fact the PR went up.
Why would anyone want a bunch of outbound links on the homepage? It's gotta be the quickest way to bleed your PR. True?
i heard if you have more than a dozen or so 'unrelated' links on your PR homepage, no PR gets passed to the 'unrelated' websites
There are some situations where PR doesn't pass -- but that doesn't mean the links don't get followed, they do. Two different questions, in other words.
Now in what situations, exactly, does Google say links shouldn't pass PR? That's not a question I can definitively answer -- but as examples, I've seen blog links not pass PR. And I don't just mean links in comment, but even content section links from the home page of highly prominent authors. I also see hidden links not passing PR, and I believe even zeroing out the PR of the target page (internal links in this case).
In general, not passing PR (or anchor text and other link influence) is a very effective tool that Google can use to protect the heart of their algorithm.
But even if PR and anchor text influence don't pass, the links do get followed -- all the search engines want to uncover as many pages as possible and have a BIG number to brag about.
all the search engines want to uncover as many pages as possible and have a BIG number to brag about.
I agree with this, but not completely. If they wanted to index any and everything they would, but they don't. That is clear from the numerous posts about 'getting indexed in....' alone........if this were true, maybe the SE's would just access the whois DBs and visit/index every domain listed....
ok...i'm going to modify one of my previous questions a little...
Q: i heard if you have a single BL from a PR5+ website, your new website will not get thrown into the 'sandbox' and can expect to be indexed in no time at all. Now, if that PR5 website is selling about a dozen BLs off the homepage to various 'unrelated' websites, is there a point where google says 'OK, you have too many links to unrelated website on your homepage, we are not going to follow them - and may penalize you for using spammy techniques'?
You may wish to view my post including a theory related to the number of outbound links on a page, msg #:217 on this thread:
[webmasterworld.com...]
Its just a theory or guess if you wish to call it ;-)
Thats interesting indeed - so from your testing, i could potentially have 49 outbound links and 50 inbound to give me a OBL/IBL ratio of 0.98 and should not get penalized (or viewed as a link farm?....now, I know you said this is just a theory of yours....have you got any additional results since your June posting regarding this?
Thanks reseller...
>>....now, I know you said this is just a theory of yours....have you got any additional results since your June posting regarding this? <<
Not really. But let me put it like this. Since then I haven´t met a case which contradict what I wrote.
However, one should be more careful when dealing with a site front page when it comes to outbound links. IMHO a front page should include as few as possible outbound links, and there are several reasons for that. Usually (not allways) the front page is the one (or one of the pages) which carry the higest PR on a site and one should be careful not to pass many votes to other sites out of that pages. Traffic-wise, it wouldn´t do your site any good to send visitors of your front page to other sites (unless you are well paid for of course). Moreover, It seems the folks at Google give more importance to a front page (read what Matt Cutts wrote recently in connection with reinclusion requests) etc..
In this connection I wish also to mention the alleged Google´s "Spam Recognition Guide for Raters" document which focus, among other things, on outbond links (especially affiliate links).
I hope this helps.
the alleged Google´s "Spam Recognition Guide for Raters" document which focus, among other things, on outbond links (especially affiliate links).
Some ineteresting stuff in there.....
I think for now, I'm going to consider the notes in the Recognition guide in addition to your theory of OBL/IBL ratio when designing and placing links on my homepages...seems to make sense...
Thanks for your insight on this reseller!
