Forum Moderators: open
As to your orginal question:
I've done very minimal outgoing links on my content pages in the past. I know that Google values outgoing links....I was thinking I would add them at the bottom? Is there any good tips on link text that people have?
1. Yes Google values ongoing links (so will you - in do course) have say, two unique outgoing links per page and never repeating the same links to other sites over and over again (unless the site is a perfect match to content on different pages).
2. try getting as many "authority sites" as possible as these outgoing links - the greatest reason > they are quite connect to other sites, who are connected to more sites, and so on, and along the multitude of these "link paths" many will find you - linking back.
3. Be very conscious to "page topic(s)" and attempt to match content to content also ntoing Meta Title, and Page Title as this match to link anchors and title attributes can be quite powerful.
Good Luck! :)
www.mydomain.com/page123.htm - 76k -Cached - Similar pages
Adding new links at the bottom is in vain, if you check your pages and it shows '101k'.
Forget about what benefit you will get for outgoing links but what benefit your users will get from those outgoing links.
Do outbound links help you or hurt you, strictly from the google ranking aspect.
Thanks
takagi could you give some proof that they will not index past that..
Hi Marval,
I just did a check on this [dir.yahoo.com] page in Yahoo! directory. I hope the moderators will allow this link here for some time, so you can see it.
It contains a list of companies, sorted on domain name in alphabetical order. On the SERP, this page in Yahoo shows '101k' for file size. The cache shows most of the page, but in the T-range it stops. I checked several domains on the list starting with a 'D' and all of them showed this page as back link. So Google can follow the links on this page. I also checked all 11 domains starting with a 'W' (i.e. after the end of the cache). None of them showed this Yahoo page, although 9 of them showed other back links; so the PR of these domains starting with a 'W' is high enough (1 showed no back links at all, 1 domain gave a time out).
Would it benefit my PR if I have a page of outbound links with all the manufacturers of the products I sell? Even if I don't have inbound links from the manufacturers?
PR is decreased, but ranking might be improved. Probably nobody can answer the effect on ranking finally. Even if, Google could change the ranking algorithm. Therefore, I would add a link if users are benefitting.
Marval, you might be interested in a previous discussion [webmasterworld.com] about the 101k limit.
He researched our main keywords about 7 of them, and formulated a link title
" widgets.com - provider of gey,white,blue widgets and other related services"
We bought 500 guaranteed incoming/reciprocal links. I don't think the guy delivered all of them, but we maintained a steady pr6. All of the incoming links (90%) had the same titles.
At the peak of the campaign google said we had about 400 links, since dominic it went to 108.
I recently went to alltheweb, which showed me to have about 1200 incoming links.
I found that tons of these link pages had Pr0, which means they could of been banned, since the rest of sites had a pretty high PR.
Over the past few days, I have found that my main kw was back, and now is popping in and out.
Once we all come to the conclusion that google is Indeed penalizing an over optimized incoming keywords "widgets",(allinanchor), what is our course of action? I am talking about coming clean?
Does this make sense? Or is an approach for the insane?
Step 1: Drop your links page
Step 2: Go to alltheweb, find everyone that links to you , contact them and ask to be removed " from bad neighborhoods" sites that have grey pr or 0.
Or was nobody aware that you could get penalized for using repition in text?
[edited by: jaffstar at 5:06 pm (utc) on July 3, 2003]
Mechanically speaking, links to your site can't hurt you, only outbound ones can if they're to mushy fruit or poisonous berries. But i would imagine that it might make someone scrutinize your site more heavily to see if you're playing by the book.
Compare apples with apples. This was not a $50 for 500 link campaign. The guy has one of the top seo firms out there and rated highly in the seo industry.
He delivered quality links from SOME decent pr sites. Most these sites are relevant, because I have been to them and checked them out. Some are however NOT!
The problem was that he used repetition in the linking text. Who was to know that this could get you penalized?
Think of this guy as someone who went to the supermarket, and hand picked your relevant items for you.
By google applying a pr0 to a site with too many links,is like removing that's sites "right to vote". So the if you 20 sites have been penalized for too many outgoing links, all that's actually happened is they don't have any score to hand out, so you might as well not have a link on them.
But I think that's the first semi-penalty, the 2nd would be for sites they used too many incoming links with the same text/keyword.
[edited by: jaffstar at 5:47 pm (utc) on July 3, 2003]
You bought 500 links, some reciprocals. Did you care where the reciprocals go to and where the links came from? No.
That is very bad SEO (in my opinion).
Imagine instead "that guy" gave you a list of 500 potential link partners, the topics of their sites, what is on the page that would link to you. You pick a few of those 500 as beneficial to the user and drop the rest.
That would be good SEO, as you are helping your visitors and your partners help their visitors.
With any link campaign always ask yourself, why are you doing it - to help yourself (PR, rankings, traffic, whatever) or to help your visitors?
Mozart
[edit]
Oh, the original post was edited, and your reply sound like you did screen the sites yourself. Well, then it's more on the side of good SEO.
[/edit]
i.e. sites that involve green widgets, sites that involve manufacturing widgets, sites that promote widgets.
I did NOT screen sites one by one!
I went to alltheweb After the fact and after I got educated and found things I did not like, i.e. sites that were NOT related.
I wanted to point out that this seo guy wasn't a fly-by-night, but I agree that he did not do a good job.
Yes, bad Seo! Had I known back then what I know now, this wouldn't of happened, but we all start off somewhere
So now that we agree its was a credible seo who did a bad job, should I drop the links pages? Would this somehow get rid of an over optimized campaign. If it was an unfair practice, surely it can be undone?
Do we know that using the same text in your links to you will cause an issue? Or am I misunderstanding the discussion. It seems to me that most sites (mine included) will have their site name for their text link and that most of their links would be identical. I would really appreciate it if someone could clarify this for me, I am working on my reciprocal links right now so this could be critical for me.
Thank You
Main keyword used in links seems to be facing a semi-penalty.
Step 2: Go to alltheweb, find everyone that links to you , contact them and ask to be removed " from bad neighborhoods" sites that have grey pr or 0.
There is no credible evidence that I have seen that Google penalizes you for who links to you. Otherwise I could destroy my competition by submitting their sites to bad neighborhoods.
Using the same logic, there shouldn't be a penalty for the anchor text. Google likes 'natural linking' which means I find a site, 'ABCwidgetmakers.com" that I like or think would be a valuable addition to my blue widget site for the sake of content. I word the link, 'blue widgets'. ABC has no control over this and shouldn't be penalized for over optimization of anchor text they cant control.
This thread [webmasterworld.com]
<<You won't get any direct Google benefit at all from outbound links>>
I disagree with that, because if you word the links carefully and give them well-written descriptions, you can add tasty spider food to your own pages. The new content can strengthen your own theme, or introduce new vocabulary that helps you show up in searches where you formerly had no presence. That seems like a pretty direct benefit to me!
Elisabeth
You are 100% right. There is an advantage from variety of text used in the links. I get tons of traffic from outbound links & there is also merit in a reciprocal linking.
The disadvantage is the leaky bucket syndrome, every link is potentially a leak where someone can leave your site.
Its pretty much a balancing act.
But back on topic.... outgoing links are hyperlinked text that is read. You do inefficiently use your pagerank by linking to NASA, but you increase your page relevance for a search for NASA. There are tradeoffs in everything.
Outbound Links – Authority Site Linking [webmasterworld.com]
I disagree with that, because if you word the links carefully and give them well-written descriptions, you can add tasty spider food to your own pages. The new content can strengthen your own theme, or introduce new vocabulary that helps you show up in searches where you formerly had no presence. That seems like a pretty direct benefit to me!
Furthermore, if your links are placed into categories with good page titles, the category pages can bring traffic to the site. I've even seen some sites do site reviews, and the site reviews sometimes rank higher than the site itself!
The disadvantage is the leaky bucket syndrome, every link is potentially a leak where someone can leave your site.
It's important to devise a strategy that maximizes the benefit. If you create a folder called "directory" with no outgoing links and then create subfolders for each category, keepiing the number of outgoing links to about 10 per page, and then link all the subcategories together with the "directory" folder, chances are you'll be pleased with the results.
I haven't heard much about strategies for building navigation in this thread, but I think this may be a very important key to a successful strategy for outgoing links.
Finally, by all means DO NOT place outgoing links on your most important pages. If you are going to do that, it is best to use javascript or server scripts. Keep your outgoing links in your "directory" folder and use scripts for the rest!
Well placed outbound links help you become perceived as a portal by Google (which = boost).
Disagree
I do not think same same inbound text links are presently creating a semi-penalty. I have seen the MASSIVE link meisters in my industry use the exact same text each and every time. They are still page 1 of course. Although I think it is wise to have a flexible approach to how you get people to describe your site in their links, and also which pages they link to ;-)
Well placed outbound links help you become perceived as a portal by Google (which = boost).
As this almost brings us full circle to the original post, would you expand on this? At what point does Google consider a site a portal and what would be considered well placed?
I'm a newbie to the search engine world but keen as mustard to learn.
From my limited learning, Google will never penalize a site for inbound links, simply because the site owner has no control on who links to them. Is this correct?
The 'ideal situation' that was mentioned a few times in this thread that "The ideal situation is to have no outbound links and loads of inbound links". This would seem to hold very true, for example, Microsoft would have very few links pointing to external sites, yet would have millions pointing inward to it.
Dave
