PR7 link from Apple, yet no boost in search traffic

[osoamor]

About a week ago I got an inbound PR7 link from Apple, and despite the flood of traffic from them, I'm not seeing anything measurable from Goog. How long might it take to even see a 10% boost?

info: I have a relatively new site as of January this year, that receives perhaps 50 people a day in organic traffic.

Thanks!

[rainborick]

Even though Apple's site is certainly crawled extensively and frequently by Google, a week may not be enough for Google to have found this link yet and/or incorporate it into the rankings. You might also check to make sure that the page isn't blocked by Apple's robots.txt file, or the link itself blocked with a robots <meta> tag in the page header set to "nofollow", or a rel="nofollow" attribute in the <a>nchor tag for the link.

[tedster]

I once saw a link on a PR 8 page by Doc Searls do absolutely nothing to rankings for the target site. It did, however, bring in a lot of direct traffic. It was experiences like this that taught me to dig a lot deeper into Google's ranking algorithm.

However, you may yet see a boost. Make sure your page clearly offers exactly what the link says it will - and those are the search terms that might pop for you. Sometimes the positive effect of a link does a slow fade-in.

[maximillianos]

I think such benefits can take time to play out. Certainly it is a positive benefit, but just one link in the big picture of things if you have thousands of inbound links is not going to make a huge impact right away. That link may have some other benefits though. Like perhaps other big news sites pick up on your site and also link to you, or write about you, etc.

I would just be happy you got it, and not sweat the details... =)

[ponyboy96]

I once saw a link on a PR 8 page by Doc Searls do absolutely nothing to rankings for the target site. It did, however, bring in a lot of direct traffic. It was experiences like this that taught me to dig a lot deeper into Google's ranking algorithm.

x2

It may provide you some value, but I usually tell my clients it can take 3-6 months to see the full benefit. On another note, if that link is providing you traffic and some conversions, then it's a big win.

[cabowabo]

One thing it should help you with is the authority on the page or site if the link is to your home page. And an increase in authority always gives a nice boost to your internal linking power.

[directwheels]

I hate it when that happens. You get the best link one can get and it doesn't do anything for your ranking. But perhaps in your case, it will have some impact soon if you wait a little longer. please keep us updated.

congrats on the Apple link, you must have a great site for them to link to you.

[Hach3]

You need to look at the situation from Google's perspective. They have been taking advantage of by those who were trying to artificially improve rankings from 1 strong link.

You will see a benefit from this, but it may take some time. Google may place a certain time factor on new links. They look at the entire link picture and not just 1 link. It is the link portfolio that Google cares about.

I agree with maximillianos that you need to look at the entire picture.

So there will be benefits from this, but they may take some time to be realized. So keep looking for high quality links and you will see good things happen.

[anand84]

It depends on the niche you are in..One of my sites has several dozens of links from PR 7-8 websites...one link even from the New York Times..But because this is so heavily competitive, all my competitors seem to have similar inbound links and subsequently, the links do not show the kind of effect it would have otherwise...

[freejung]

I've seen cases where one link makes a noticeable difference, and cases where it doesn't, so there's no guarantees. I've also seen it take a long time, up to a matter of months, for the full effect to be felt.

I bet you'll get benefit from this in time.

It is probably better if the rest of your backlink profile is reasonably good - that is, if this isn't the only real link you have. This is just speculation, but it makes sense that one really good link in an otherwise lousy link profile is not going to do you much good, as that would be regarded as an anomaly of some kind, but a really good link backed up by other reasonably good links will probably count for something.

[wheel]

It is probably better if the rest of your backlink profile is reasonably good - that is, if this isn't the only real link you have. This is just speculation, but it makes sense that one really good link in an otherwise lousy link profile is not going to do you much good, as that would be regarded as an anomaly of some kind, but a really good link backed up by other reasonably good links will probably count for something.

The idea that some backlinks affect the viability of other backlinks, ouch, that makes my head hurt :).

[Webwork]

I got an inbound PR7 link from Apple

Does the page on which the outbound link to your site have any special weight or authority? For example, is it a page created and edited by Steve Jobs? I could see that as a page likely to deliver extra boost . . unless, of course, Mr. Jobs likes to crank out lots of such pages when he can't sleep . . :P

Is the originating page clearly within some version of upper managerial/editorial control? Again, more signals of umph and pizazz then perhaps the more . . (I hate the word) . . juice that flows? (Anyone know if there's more than 1 version of PR, such as PR of a page verses PR (as a variable) that is somehow transferable? In other words, a webpage may have a high PR BUT that may not be "PR of the type" that gets points/juiciness for subject matter authority, expertise and editorial control -> i.e., "transferable" PR, in the sense that "if there's an outbound link on this page then that REALLY means something extra . . .")

How many other websites benefit from ~similar "links from Apple"?

Is there any other reason for this link, to you site, to have any special meaning?

Does the type of link you received tend to have a temporal quality, that is, it was given not as a long time endorsement of your site's authority or quality but simply as some form of recognition that your site now exists? Or some other similar reason?

Is the page on which the link exists a type of page that quickly "gets buried or lost" within the Apple site?

I guess what I'm asking is what is the real meaning and import(ance) of this link and this link giving? I'm sure there's benefits to being the beneficiary of links originating from high PR pages but maybe the page itself simply has a PR boost NOT due to anything of particular weightiness of the page but merely because it resides within the PR-bathwater of the Apple site.

<:P> Next time maybe you can ask Steve Jobs for a homepage link from the Apple site to your site, with the link surrounded by relevant words of high praise in bold. </:P> Now that type of link might really jazz your site.

[tedster]

ananda84:

It depends on the niche you are in.

That is an astute comment and probably the critical issue. The Doc Searls link I mentioned earlier used the anchor text "java application" - a bit tough even back in those days. But not nearly so tough as trying to rank for Apple-related queries today, assuming that is the kind of ranking being hoped for.

[Rlilly]

Is this link in the download section of Apple.com? If it is, I doubt it will have any significant effect.

[JonW]

Sure. I think it just needs more time.

I often put links to new domains on a page that's linked in the footer of my main site. That page has PR5. the linked domain usually get a PR4, with just a few other unimportant links (message boards, blogs comments, etc)

PR4 for a new site is halfway decent and can drive traffic for long tail terms.

Of course, a single pr7 link to gift baskets won't do you any good at getting actual natural search traffic, but if you have a chance a first page rankings, you should see some traffic.

gratz on an apple link.

[greenleaves]

What you need to do:

Get 1000s of crappy back links to that PR7 Page. Xrummer the h3ll out of it.

Nothing you can do will get that page banned (off site I mean), it can only boost the authority of that page. Also, start building links to your page, that aren't as authoritative'ish.

You now have a high-quality element to your link portfolio. You can afford to dilute it with a few lesser quality links so that you get the quality+quantity formula which google just loves.

[freejung]

The idea that some backlinks affect the viability of other backlinks, ouch, that makes my head hurt :).

I'm not sure I would exactly put it like that, but I suppose you could look at it that way. It should be noted that we're not talking about the "viability" (whatever that means) of the link, we're talking about what effect that link has on rankings. I think it's pretty well established that Google looks not only at individual links, but at metrics related to the entire backlink profile (that might include, for example, and this is pure speculation, the percentage of links of one sort vs. another sort, the growth rate of links over time, things like that).

If that's true, that the algo is looking at the entire profile as a whole as well as looking at individual links, then the effect of a single link would depend on the structure of the whole. That's what happens when you look at an entire system, not just at the sum of the parts.

[freejung]

Furthermore, wheel, there is one case where it is very well-established that some links affect the viability of others. Consider the effect of run-of-site links vs. the effect of a single link. I think pretty much everyone agrees that 100 links from the same site are not as valuable (all else being equal) as 100 links from 100 different sites. So when you get that 100th link from the same site, the "viability" of that one link is affected by the fact that you already have 99 other links from the same site; it doesn't make as much difference as it would if you had no other links from that site.

[osoamor]

Thanks for the insight..

Answers to questions: it's a clean link, with decent keywords, likely a keeper, and on an unpolluted page.

I think everyone is right in their comments. It will probably take some time to absorb into the algo.. AND my site lies at the lower end of an extremely competitive market. So it's possible I may have jumped in the index already - from page 50s to page 20s, thus with no realized effect.

It's just interesting that when I started, I got a PR2 & 3 link, and that immediately gave me 20-30 search visitors, and now the inbound effects aren't nearly as dramatic. Anyway, it's certainly a great point to leverage up for other inbounds.

[ecmedia]

Indeed that link is highly valuable but a website with just a handful of links will still be rated lower than one that has 100s of links, regardless of their PR.

Even in our normal life, I would rather trust 100s of people saying that something is good than just one expert saying something is awesome.

[Future]

osoamor you uprooted some healthy tricks :)

[Makaveli2007]

"Indeed that link is highly valuable but a website with just a handful of links will still be rated lower than one that has 100s of links, regardless of their PR.

Even in our normal life, I would rather trust 100s of people saying that something is good than just one expert saying something is awesome."

Very interesting - Whenever I thought about search engine algorithms and how they evaluate links as votes, I came to the completely opposite conclusion.

I think if you make the statement you made, you're not fully aware of the bull#*$! flipper machine most people are stuck in :-). Someone says something, someone else repeats it, and in the end everybody thinks they know what's going on. I see this in the real world on a daily basis...multiple times a day...

I think there's a proverb for that "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing", yet 95%+ of the people I meet on a daily basis have strong(!) opinions on subjects they dont have enough knowledge about to make an informed decision. And if you track their success record on those statements, they're wrong pretty damn often....

You might think I'm exaggerating, now, but here's an example (and I could give you many more):

If I'm a search engine trying to determine whether a site about SEO is good, would I rather trust

A) 100 sites that have nothing to do with SEO, and are not very authoritative....who say "this is great stuff"

or would I rather trust

B) someone who is an SEO (relevant) and a true recognized expert in the field (authority). For example martinibuster, when it comes to link building.

The only problem is that you'd also have to be able to evaluate if the one person could be lying to you on purpose. And that's something you can figure out by their behaviour in the past & wondering if they have any reason to lie (anything to gain from it, or would they risk their brand).

If I know someone personally and trust the person, and he has spent all of his life researching a topic and I know he's a highly intelligent guy..............Im gonna trust that person over 1,000,000 people who have never researched the field and are stupid.

:-)