Site-wide backlink vs single link experiment. One link is better.

[AnonyMouse]

Hi,

I just thought I'd share the results of a little experiment I tried out recently regarding the effect of a site-wide link on Google SERPs.

I have access to a site with a lot of trust rank. I placed a site-wide link to an orphaned nonsense page on another domain, and a single link using the same link-text to a second, identical, orphaned nonsense page on that same other domain.

The single-link page is #1 in the SERPs, and the site-wide-linked page is an indented result.

Conclusion? One link is indeed better...although a case study of 1 is hardly conclusive! Has anybody else carried out a similar experiment?

[idolw]

I am seeing siteiwdes work well in my industry if a site has enough trust. Just a few sitewides from nice related sites do they job lately.

[daveshap]

AnonyMouse - Were both links in the navigation, or was the single link in the text? I think link location could also play a factor.

[AnonyMouse]

I'm not saying that site-wides don't work, and I've used them myself from the same site to a non-test site. However, it appears that given the choice, just the one link appears to result in better rankings.

It would be interesting to see how internal link navigation wd effect that, i.e. link from one of the test pages to the other.

daveshap, good question! The single link was in a side bar, not even in the content. (The site wide was in the footer.)

[minnapple]

I have always had better results with a limit of four outbounds from a site, with each going to a different page.