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Then external links killed your sites, and everyone dropped them like hot potatoes.
Now, I seem to see a gradual move back to external links are good. Anyone else agree? And, more importantly, where and how to do it. Because I sure would be unhappy about throwing away PR from my main directory pages.
1. authority sites get crawled more often and your link helps produce this crawl status "through you".
2. authority sites link to a vast network of other themed sites - some of which can/could be linked to you.
3. sometimes authority don't know you exist with the exception of a click-through logfile referral. This often can produce a backlink from them.
The best direction is placing two links per page to authority sites based on the page topic. Not much is gained by repeated links to the same site -- so the more unique sites being linked to the better.
Thanks :-)
Two questions;
1) How do you know if you are linking to an authority site?
2) Do you still lose PR to these sites?
?
AFAIK a authority site has lots of usefull content related to a theme. A authority site has lots of imcoming links / back links since other webmasters acknowledge the site's authority. Normally a official organisation, a association, best if non profit, etc. is a good authority.
>Do you still lose PR to these sites?
Sure. You pass PR to them so you lose some of your PR. That's the game. Although if you only link to two external sites per page, the loss should be marginal.
Currently i'm "testing" this. Weeks ago i started to link to 2 to 4 external sites from my directory's most important categories. I can't see any boost in positions until today - no problem cause this wasn't my plan. My intention is to "open" my site. My guess is that in the long run, sites that are open and that link to good and highly relevant neighbourhood have less problems to remain at good positions (as long as the rest of the site is also ok - good content, no dodgy stuff etc.). People will give you credits for your good work. And se's will prob do the same.
And yes, like fathom said: some webmasters may not know your site and find you one day through log referals. If your site is usefull to them / their visitors they might link back to you. Win - win for all.
Basically you are linking to a page. Google says authority comes with Pagerank.
Reality is that any page could become authoritative soon.
Just use common sense and check the content for contents sake.
2. Do you still lose PR to these sites?
Yes, in the final event, when considering internal loop-back links, site-wise you most probably do. You should not be too worried about this though.
In general, chill-out on why/what/when/to whom you should link or not.
Just link to whom deserves it, in relevance to your site/page. In the long-term overall final analysis you will do better IMO.
Do you still lose PR to these sites?Yes, in the final event, when considering internal loop-back links, site-wise you most probably do. You should not be too worried about this though.
Absolutely, I just went though it, though there was no loss of rankings at all, in fact they improved a bit. Homepage is still PR5 but a lower 5 - the PR passed back from other site pages got reduced. All of the externals that had been added have now been removed but for two (two links each from two pages) and this should reflect update after this coming one.
If you are a ford dealer, wouldn't it be great if ford linked to your page? You deal in collector beer cans? It sure would be nice to get a link from the beer can museum.
BigDave, you don't mean the "definitions" i gave, no!? My definitions are by far more guessing / feeling than fancy SEO driven. ;)
Thanks for the input. I had an idea that goes like this.
I have an information site that basically, now, has all outbound links going via a robot.txt deny protected cgi click through script to stop the PR drain. What I could do is offer people I link to a true direct link in return for a reciprocal link (not on a link farm page).
BUT, instead of putting the link to them on the page, I build another page (just for them - a frames page that calls their site into a 100% window), and link to that from my directory pages. That way, I lose no PR from the directory page, still give PR to them, and get points for linking? Plus I get PR back!
What do you think?
Thanks, but I think that is bad advice. As, when the link farm Spam algo almost certainly comes, my site is more likely to get canned.
Also, by doing it my way, I have more pages and pass on more PR to the recipient site.
If you block the link to the hub site - google has no way to know that you link there. If the algorithm gives a benefit to your page when your pages links to a hub - you won't get this benefit.
There have been some funky ways of doing a script based redirect returning 302's so that out clicks can be tracked but still seen by spiders to be proper links on this board - Brett actually uses one - check any links that are posted in the messages. (aside: maybe he uses the redirect to stop spammers though).
I have no evidence either way that this type of linking works, and if you need to use text or image links. But at the end of the day google (or any SE) needs to provide search results that satisfy searchers, sites that aren't introverted brochures are better for the users in most cases - SE's will tweak their algorithms to encourage these sites.
Sorry mate, but you are missing the point.
> If you block the link to the hub site - google has no way to know that you link there. If the algorithm gives a benefit to your page when your pages links to a hub - you won't get this benefit.
That is why I like my plan. I only directly link with those that repay my PR. I do not need to directly link to every remote site on each page, just a few.
With this approach, you'll waste a lot of opportunities to add good spider food to your pages.
Well-chosen links and the descriptions you give them add value that can far outweigh whatever difference they might make to your PR.
Re-read what Marcia had to say in Message #6 about what happened to her ranks even though her PR went down a bit. That's what reeeeally matters here!
missing the point was too strong ... as mentioned by Marcia and others - the point is to gain better rankings for your pages on certain key phrases. I think you're chasing a side issue - PR as a metric for search performance.
What I could do is offer people I link to a true direct link in return for a reciprocal link (not on a link farm page).
...
I lose no PR from the directory page, still give PR to them, and get points for linking? Plus I get PR back!
It all depends on the details of how google's algo works:
eg.
Your site - widget site.
Your directory - other widget sites - blocked robots.
Your page - blue widgets - links to your page on blue widget authority.
Your blue widget authority page - (finally) links to the authority.
So (if) google gives a bonus to your page for providing an on topic link to an authority page the benefit will go to your "blue widget authority page".
Does the google algo pass back the bonus to your optimised blue widget page? Does google pass back the bonus through the site like a reverse PR system?
Who knows... will google tweak the algorithm on a (to us) random basis? - Yes.
Huh?
If your issue is you want to link to a bunch of link farms then you might want to talk about that instead.
DUH!
If my "issue" (why do you use such negatives) was linking to link farms, I would have said so. Please keep to literal interpretations.
Thanks, but I can see no loss, only gain from having outbound links running from special (each page individually dedicated to each particular link) link pages.
If I put them on a directory page, I have fewer pages, plus something that might resemble (to an algo) a link farm page.
Why are you afraid of being seen as a link farm? In general Directories and Links Farms are two different things. Running a valuable directory where the links are "hidden" through a jump.cgi / robots.txt is pretty safe and a common practice. To open your site and to give google a better understanding of your site being a hub, making 2 additional links per category is perfect. If you don't play reciprocal games, you shouldn't be afraid of running into a link farm filter.
I would stay away from framing external pages - most people don't like this and many of them will complain about you. You win nothing - but you may loose alot. The PR loss is sooooo minimal if you just link to 2 external resources per page that you shouldn't worry at all. Don't get pr crazy! ;)
A lot of the sites I give links to have really low PR's. My directory pages have typically 30 outbound links each (at the moment, through cgi scripts). If I simply point to 2 (the best, most authoritive sites) directly, that is not fair right?
I do not want to lose all of my PR, but I want to be fair. Having frames page links is hardly going to worry anyone, as they will get 100% of the target site. My other option is to use pages off the directories, with small write ups on the recipients / target sites, and then putting their URL link there.
My experience is that 2 outbound links does take a lot of your PR. As I intimated at the beginning (hence the subject), I could see outbound links starting to make a come back. But I want the best of both worlds of course.
I am worried about an algo seeing me as a link farm IF I run a central directory for links as someone suggested. As I am thinking "Only give direct links, where the other site reciporcates". After all, the purpose of my (indirect cgi) links on my site is to allow users to find these sites, not help these sites over mine.
>Re-read what Marcia had to say in Message #6 about what happened to her ranks even though her PR went down a bit. That's what reeeeally matters here!
Hmm...makes me wonder. I just got a request from a webmaster with a new site wanting to exchange links. Currently, all my link exchanges are on the home page, which are to the other major sites on the topic. My site is PR6, which is for this topic is all kinds of high. This new site is on a related topic and a link to it isn't unreasonable. As a new site, it is gray toolbar, and I really never would expect it to be anything major. However, it turns out that if I refuse flat out I could generate some rather significant bad will with the people involved with this site, which would be bad PR in the public relations sense. Thus, what I was thinking of doing is creating a new reciprocal links section, linking to that off my home page, and linking to that site there. Obviously at the moment this would be bad from a Google PR perspective. However, it occurred to me I could use this text around this link to add some keyword rich text to my home page in natural way that might boost hits since I'd be doing better on some keyword searches I am doing poorly on. This new reciprocal links section also has the future potential that I could in the future try to solicit reciprocal links from other sites on the broader topic, which could not only in the future help PR, but also generate some inbound traffic from these other sites, which could be material. The specifics of my site is it is an info site exclusively on the very narrow topic of blue widgets. However, there are tons of sites out there about widgets in general, or other specific colors of widgets. Thus there is a lot of potential for reciprocal links with these other widget sites.
I'm beginning to wonder if I have been worrying a little to much about Google PR implications and linking? I've got PR to spare at the moment, and could afford to lose some in the short term, in pursuit of doing better in the long run. The is more to the game than just thinking in terms of maximizing PR.
My feeling is, having only reciprocated links may well be storing up future trouble, I like to keep my recips below 50% of outgoings.
It is only a hunch though ;-)
