Google Linking Strategy

Pick the low-hanging fruit first?

[Jakes Redding]

Have a new website for a small, legitimate, commercial business. Up two months, PR=0. Google shows no links to the site (index page). Yahoo shows 36 links, the majority of which is from internal pages.

Have begun spending a significant portion of my day-night requesting links from other sites. Regrettably can’t offer reciprocal links. Using my most popular keywords, search Google to find top-rated competitors and check their link-backs. Submit to all that are relevant. Have been finding some success.

Question: If I obtain the same type of link from the same page as a competitor, should it give my site the same relative boost/influence/whatever as it gives theirs? I understand every link is different, but I'm thinking in totality, these are known, good links, they seem to have worked for somebody.

Also, should the links that are obtained start showing up after Google crawls the site pages where the links exists?

[Quadrille]

1. Not necessarily; even if you had EXACTLY the same links, on page factors matter too; so you cannot draw that conclusion.

2. Not necessarily; Google rarely 'shows' all your links. But they do count (though how much is anyone's guess). If you have links, you have links. Just don't expect Google to always show them all.

[Komodo_Tale]

Sorry to say that the answers to your questions are generally no.

First, Google updates certain visible metrics such as the number of inbound and PageRank infrequently. You can find update histories on the Web if you search for them. Most people use Yahoo and Yahoo Site Explorer at the least, and usually a combination of different search engines, to generate more accurate statistics. I also suggest Google's Webmaster Tools. While no web site will show all back links (most of the time) you can be pretty certain that Google knows about it or soon will.

As for having the same link profile, even if you could get the exact same links, or even comparable links, you would not be able to duplicate the age of those links. That's right. The older the link the better. Also, many SEO practitioners agree that search engines take velocity into account, the rate at which links are gained. If the link building pattern seems unnatural or too accelerated you could loose credibility rather than gain.

Welcome to the wild world of SEO. :)

[decaff]

Question: If I obtain the same type of link from the same page as a competitor, should it give my site the same relative boost/influence/whatever as it gives theirs? I understand every link is different, but I'm thinking in totality, these are known, good links, they seem to have worked for somebody.

The simple answer is no.
The link relationships already established on one of your
"competitors" web sites has been there for some time..so age is a big factor...
Also there is a series of relationships established with the inbound links, the page content, and the outbound links as well...

So Google has already calculated the values for these and stored these away as historical figures for your competitors site..

Even if you do acquire the same type of link..you are starting from square one with how Google calculates this new link relationship....PERHAPS...over time (years) if the links remain stable...then you could see the same benefits that your competitor has seen...but I have me doubts because each web site (and its associated set of pages) is really a unique entity.....

Google effectively disabled their link command a couple of years back...so you will never really see how Google calculates your site for inbound links

[Jakes Redding]

Thanks for all the insight. Didn’t realize the “age” of a site had so much significance, but it makes some sense. However, in searching for sites to request links from, have come across a lot of really old links from dormant/dead websites that haven’t been updated in 4-10 years, and with out-of-date contact info. In a somewhat technical niche, these old websites are irrelevant, yet Google still gives them some love with PR from 3-6 and such. Guess like life, Google’s not fair, but what can you do?

Question: Are these older, “prominent” links likely showing up in Google because of their “age” and the consequence of Google disabling their link command years back, so they are legacy? In that event, it wouldn’t be so meaningful to chase after them, like they’re the Glengarry Links.

Komodo Tale, I’ll take your advice about velocity and work on the linking 1-2 hours per day, every day possible, instead of pulling all-day-and-all-night blitzes.

Thanks for everything.

[petra]

Didn’t realize the “age” of a site had so much significance

Not age of the site (although that is important too) the previous poster meant the age of the link.

Google factors in the age of the link to combat link buying, which makes complete sense.

The thing to focus on is creating useful content (text, tools, videos, images, etc...) that entices natural links. Link baiting if you will.

Promote it through Web2.0