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Now my site is still very new (still stows PR0). I have some outbound links to some big conglomerates that certainly don't need some of my tiny bit of PR. So, do I lose PR via these links?
I think yes. For instance if a given page has 5 links to other docs on my site, and 5 links to these outside sites that don't need my PR, (like PR9 sites) then only 1/2 of my PR would be kept within the site. If I could block PR from leaving through the outside 5, (like plugging some holes in a leaky pipe), would more of my PR flow down through my site?
(FYI - Now I don't want to squelch PR from people whom I trade links with...)
I haven't seen anyone confirm or deny if PR actually leaves your site through outbound links, only that they receive it. ( I don't imagine the PR is copied to their site, I would guess it is transfered ).
Are my suspicions correct? TIA
Let's say my links page gets a tenth of my PR, as my home page has 10 links...
Now in my links page, i have 5 links to my reciprocating partners, and 5 links to some big guys who won't reciprocate, but I'm providing the links for the benefit of the end user, and to make my links worthwhile to my loyal web surfer.
If I make 10 static links, then each of my 5 reciprocators will get 1/100th of my total PR (a tenth of the tenth which that page holds)
If I make 5 static links, and 5 javascript generated links, then my partners will get 1/50th of my PR passed to them. (a fifth of the tenth)
I'd rather help my partners than the big guys who don't do anything for me.
Any holes in this theory? TIA
GG himself mentioned recently that linking to other useful sites will help you. I know from experience this is completely true.
If your 5 links to authority sites are javascript links, Google won't notice them - so you won't get the benefit of association
That's an exellent point. Any input on where it plays into the equation? Is it at the PageRank level, or built into the "Search algorithms".
In other words, has anyone noticed their PR increase when they've made such a changes (linking to more authority sites), or have they just seen their overall rankings improve, or have they just seen their rankings improve on the particular page that links to the authority site?
Your own PR will not rise as a result of linking to authority sites, but it gives your on-page optimisation a boost.
Remember, linking out will not reduce your PR, it just reduces your PR voting capacity.
:)
Is this really a better internet experience?
Google search results (although a little whacky at the moment) are usually much more relevant than the other engines. That is why they are so popular.
The PR is like an automated voting system. Reputable sites linking to reputable sites is the way it is supposed to work. When the system is imperfect, spam reports can be filled out, and adjustments made, but all in all, page rank works.
I am glad that they are starting to put less emphasis on page rank, but it definately has to be a factor. If link popularity weren't an issue at all, then we'd be left with only on page optimisation methods. Spammers could then write a program or a script to generate a thousand pages on the same topic, all with different combinations of optimization methods, knowing one of them would have to make it to the top of the rankings. Pagerank is a way to get human input (humans decide who to link to), but with the automation and speed of computer processing.
Just my 2 cents
Alot of webmasters have done some devious tactics in the past, its sad really, but in this world of making money, people will do anything.
Search Engine Optimization is manipulating search engines, I'm sorry, I thought you knew
As I said, though - believe what you will. If you violate the TOS of *any* search engine - then you are doing SEO. Sure, there are some things that are 'within guidelines' etc, but - the bulk of the stuff that will get you to the top in a competitive field - is against the TOS of any engine, including Google.
Me? I'm going to get back to manipulating search engines - it seems that, unless I'm missing the point of 99% of the people's posts here, that they would like to be able to rank well for their keywords, too.
A high rank - for a given keyword, isn't given it is taken. Good thing to keep in mind, when you are trying to take a piece of the market.
The fact if you decide you can not be devious and NOT violate TOS but your competitor will take advantage.
I think we forget in all forms of business off the internet people bend the rules as well. I dont think the search engines care, i am sure they know it is happening, as long as they have some form of control to stop mass abuse.
"This talk reminds me of a saying that, "your not cheating unless you get caught."
Alot of webmasters have done some devious tactics in the past, its sad really, but in this world of making money, people will do anything."
I really don't understand what you are refering to.
victor quote from (Google-opoly and the everchanging game)
I think the problem is that a lot of people are trying to use Google to make money.
But that is expressly against their terms of service:
Personal Use Only
The Google Services are made available for your personal, non-commercial use only. You may not use the Google Services to sell a product or service, or to increase traffic to your Web site for commercial reasons, such as advertising sales. You may not take the results from a Google search and reformat and display them, or mirror the Google home page or results pages on your Web site. You may not "meta-search" Google. If you want to make commercial use of the Google Services, you must enter into an agreement with Google to do so in advance. Please contact us for more information.
[google.com...]
There is absoluely no reason why Google should publish information to make it easier for people to make money using ther services, when we all know that is against the rules anyway.
Geez, I used to love Dangermouse... :)
This is in reference to that i know alot of webmasters who used to spam like crazy before the search engines picked it up.
Did repeated heaps of keywords everywhere in the title, description. Hidden text etc
This proved very successful and they did get top of the SERPs and made alot of money.
You may not use the Google Services to sell a product or service, or to increase traffic to your Web site for commercial reasons
Wow! That's quite something! Maybe I should post the following message on my website:
"Google may not retrieve data from this webpage and use it in any way, shape or form to further the success of their own business."
I think both Google and webmasters have a mutual understanding that each brings the other success. Paddy Bolger (Top Pile) has some interesting views on this.
A high rank - for a given keyword, isn't given it is taken. Good thing to keep in mind, when you are trying to take a piece of the market.
There is a difference between being smart, and being devious. Yes, you're right, you have to work for positioning by doing research and learning techniques that work.
"Optimizing" a page is not devious. Most "seo" is simply looking at HTML and how it was designed to function. Why do <H1> headers work? Because that's how HTML was designed. Before there was Google, there was HTML and headings were a way to organize a page, nothing more, nothing less.
"SEO" is simply the language you use to speak with search engines. You speak their language, you rank.
Swapping links for PR is nothing more than what it has been for many years, only on a broader scale - think outside the box.
Intentionally misleading people is what it has been for many centuries. You can win the game by understanding how to play. There's no need to take advantage of others' good will.
I prefer to define Search Engine Optimization as helping search engines find relevant content. Manipulating search engines sounds pretty negative.
Wouldn't the Sitemap link be beneficial to the user if it were readily available from each page?
Design considerations - and user considerations - imho, are the best strategy to follow. The moment you fall into the trap of basing every decision based on PageRank - which may not be here tomorrow - you are lowing (imho) the quality of your site for a temporary gain.
The surfer / customer / vistor is everything focus on that, and your site will rise of it's own accord, in due time.
Just trust me on that ;)
Not sure which post you're replying to, but it's probably along the lines "don't put a link to them on every page"... If so, they're talking about external links to other sites.
I don't really understand PR even now; I had thought I had a pretty good idea, but this thread seems to generally think otherwise. I didn't think it took PR away from your own site to link to others-- I understood that very strongly, anyway. What I thought was that the PR you're giving away is divided up equally among all those you link to. Am I right? How many links you have doesn't affect your own PR, it affects the PR of those you're linking to. Which makes sense logically; a perfectly good site could have a lot of links, but an overstuffed links page does no user any good because it's so cluttered. So it's most likely spam or borderline, as no user can really appreciate it. Right?
Right on. I'm amazed at how many sites make "Links" an item on their menu template and show it on every page.
Is what I was referring to. This thread is growing so fast that 5 new posts are added before I can respond lol.
I rather doubt google would lose a lot fo sleep if either you or I or even several million more site mgrs. added
user-agent: googlebot
Disallow: /
to our robots.txt files. However, we all absolutely retain the ability and the freedom to do so any time we choose to not let google include our sites in their search returns.
Speaking for myself, exercising that ability doesn't even make page 6 on my long term to do list.
Design considerations - and user considerations - imho, are the best strategy to follow. The moment you fall into the trap of basing every decision based on PageRank - which may not be here tomorrow - you are lowing (imho) the quality of your site for a temporary gain.
I agree with you :-)
Good, so I don't have to figure all this out. :D
No, seriously, I have a vague handle on it, but I really don't have the time to spend focusing on it more than that. And I really like it when people tell me not to worry so much about it. I like how most of Google's policies simply encourage webmasters to follow good practices in designing their webpages... I hope that it continues to be the case that generally the best-designed, best-organized websites tend to rank highly, because I want to be found but don't have time to follow algorithm analyses. My head hurts!
Mighty poor philosophy. With the exception of the past ten weeks, a high rank in Google has usually been *earned*. Crap sites and garbage seo think in terms of "taking".
It's the eternal divide. Some folks use optimization techniques primarily to help them have the quality of their content judged well and fairly. Others just want their junk ranked as high as they can.
There is a huge difference in those things, and many discussions here will always break down between the folks who see the search engines as their enemies, and those who see the search engines as their partners.
Crap sites and garbage seo think in terms of "taking".
Let's play nice, eh? :) After all, if I started in on how those that aren't willing to think outside the box -> are shooting themselves in the foot in terms of revenue potential, it might be misconstrued.
As your statement above.
The web map, the interlinking among websites, isn't always, "the invisible hand of the marketplace" as in capitalism. Sometimes, it's the industrious webmaster, hard at work, reading research, building pages, and yes, getting as many links as possible.
Google will *never* know if the link to a site originated because that webmaster emailed another, or if the webmaster simply found the other site, thought it useful, and then decided to throw up a hyperlink.
So until Google has the capability to read my mind I stick to my claim: high ranks for competitive keywords are taken. I'm not about to sit on my duff & wait for my rankings to rise, or the conversion rates on my sites to increase or anything else that is under my control.
Neither would you, unless I'm completely off my rocker. :)
Some of us look forward to a day when search engines are able to objectively and accurately rank sites based on quality content. We "manipulate the search engines" by adding quality content. Other folks choose to do something as utterly worthless as cloak a links page. This brings no value to users, and breaks the search engine rules. And, more important, it leads to that site "taking" what it doesn't deserve, ranking it doesn't deserve. When that domain gets PR0ed and the webmaster starts crying, it is a good thing. Poor thief got caught, boohoo.
Again, some of us look at the search engines as partners and optimize within their rules to help the search engines see what quality we have. Others break the rules with garbage seo because they can't compete content-wise.
Others break the rules with garbage seo because they can't compete content-wise.
This is a bit harsh. The fact is only so many sites can be on page one, regardless of quality of content. Not even the Almighty Google can divine which ten out of? sites have the 'best' content because quality content is in the eyes of the beholder, or surfer.
Since my content is quite obviously better than the 5 sites ahead of me these month that have pushed me to page 2, if I can optimize/manipulate my way into the top ten, perhaps Im just correcting an error on Google's part.;)
SEO has gone way past clean html & intuitive site design. Like it or not, it is now an integral business strategy. How far you take it is up to you and the risks you are willing to take.
