A Stricter Algo

[mosley700]

I'm looking through the SERPs, and wonder if a stricter algo isn't a good thing? If Google dropped all the pages with less than 5 (or 10, or 15... or 20) inbound links, I bet that Google's SERPs would be pretty clean.

Remember what Google's PR is based on: "The uniquely demoractic nature of the web". Well, if a page is really worthwhile, it should have at least 15(?) or 20 (?) inbound links. No?

[Kirby]

>And, how does Google determine which sites are relevant?

Isn't this the whole point of Google?

[BigDave]

Before canning PR because a few sites sell PR. It might be good to remember that the vast majority of the top PR pages do all their linking freely.

Therer are only a couple of minor cracks in the PR system. As long as Google is careful, they should be able to keep those cracks small.

[rfgdxm1]

>Isn't this the whole point of Google?

But to specific queries of users. At the moment they don't do this between sites for every possible search term.

[Powdork]

And, how does Google determine which sites are relevant? There are ways to try and do this, but any attempt will have the problem of lots of errors.

Perhaps that is what we're all sitting around waiting for.;)

[rfgdxm1]

>Perhaps that is what we're all sitting around waiting for.;)

I'm not really sure that this would be a good thing. Those who advocate this generally do so on the argument that it would thwart commercial sites trying to buy PR. That it would be at least somewhat effective. However, when it comes to non-commercial sites, this would cause problems. Many personal sites are eclectic, and links reflect the interest of the owner. Such sites tend to freely link to content they feel is really worthwhile in many different areas. Making this change would mean that a site could only "vote" for another and pass on PR if it is on the same topic. That many personal sites don't even have a focused topic would make this impossible for an algo.

[Powdork]

Such sites tend to freely link to content they feel is really worthwhile in many different areas. Making this change would mean that a site could only "vote" for another and pass on PR if it is on the same topic. That many personal sites don't even have a focused topic would make this impossible for an algo.

I would think that pr could still be passed on, but if it was off topic it would be diminished somewhat. Comparing content of title tags, keyword density, human edited categories and descriptions, meta keywords (yes, I said meta keywords) incoming anchor text could give a relationship between two linked sites and how much pr could be passed on in either direction.

[John_Creed]

If artificial inflation of PR is becomming such a problem than all google has to do is remove the PR meter from its toolbar.

I dont think they have to go that far. But if it's really a problem, than that would go a LONG way too solving it.

[MrSpeed]

I would think that pr could still be passed on, but if it was off topic it would be diminished somewhat.

To touch on what rfgdxm1 some other similar posts say it is impossible to determine what an off topic link is. As an example on my classic mustangs web site I link to a really cool product that can restore finishes.

An algo could never determine that the link was on topic.

You can justify a link to just about anywhere from that mustang site.

"Going to the Mustang Convention? Click here for Dallas Hotels"

"Got a cool car but still can't get the chicks? Try some stacker2 pills"

"Like this site? Check out this other site I designed."

[MrSpeed]

remove the PR meter from its toolbar

Yeah I often wonder if they could go back in time would they reconsider that decision. At this point it doesn't matter. We're all pretty good at finding high PR sites without the toolbar.

[rfgdxm1]

>To touch on what rfgdxm1 some other similar posts say it is impossible to determine what an off topic link is. As an example on my classic mustangs web site I link to a really cool product that can restore finishes.

And, it gets worse with personal sites. What if someone on a personal site has a section on their amateur poetry, and on the links page links to a number of other people's personal sites that also have poetry? And, what if that amateur poet is a recovering alcoholic, and because of that links to some AA sites? Or maybe even that the owner of this site happens to like classic Mustangs, and because of that links to your site mentioned above? Personal sites often tend to be unfocused as to topic. Thus, there really are aren't any on topic links.

[dwilson]

The whole reason I switched to Google about 3 years ago was because it was superior for finding obscure stuff -- info on strange error messages and the like.

Just because a page is not popular, does not mean that there are not searches for which it is critical.

[rfgdxm1]

Thinking about what dwilson, if the bar was set af filtering all sites (not individual pages) with less than 20 links, wouldn't that mean dropping most sites from Google? What percent of amateur sites have links from 20 different sites? For that matter, how many commercial sites do? Both my amateur sites would get blown out of the index, because their topic is so obscure. This could even be worse for anyone starting a new commercial site. As others have pointed out before, info sites tend to find it easier to get more links because info sites are far less hesitant to link to each other. Competitors don't tend to want to link to other competitors. Currently, since there isn't a minimum number of links requirements this isn't so much a problem for commercial sites, because the competition also has the same problem with getting inbound links. However, this could be a killer to new commercial sites if they needed 20 links before they could get into Google.