Forum Moderators: open
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
Another slick idea is to cloak your 'recipricol links page' so that only surfers get it, and not search engine spiders...thus, preserving PageRank even more :)
Its art, to achieve correctly, and through structure takes a long time to balance off PR throughout the website, and what will get the generalised competive keyword/page to a specialised kw/deep-directory ROI page buy. SEO at its finest, and still an art that i personally am always trying to learn.
Obviously you can take the term PR out of the equation and use link authority regarding the other SE's though the general idea is the same, show them the bright flashing lights and draw them into dim corners so that they can relinquish the cash.
Not only is that cheating the webmasters who you are benefiting from, it is against googles TOS. Very bad recommendation. Trading links isn't easy, especially when you have to deal with methods like that.
Some food for thought, though I agree - go against the TOS of any major site - and know that there could be consequences. ;)
Why should I be joking? It's a suggestion and not one that needs to be followed...
you can also use doc.write to include the links from an external javascript, and then forbid that file in your robots.txt...very few webmasters might notice that one, and you wouldn't be doing any user agent delivery and or ip delivery, which is the form of most cloaking that goes on.
I used to think PR was precious and swapping links meant giving it away and helping your competitors. Now, I'm not sure that's true.
I recently went from a crappy links page with 25 links on it, to making smaller, targeted (with proper title, h1's, etc) pages with not more than 3 links per page. I divided my links up logically, which helps surfers and wrote descriptions, which helps surfers too. Lo-and-behold: those links pages are now some of my highest ranking pages and virtually all are on page 1 / top 5 SERPs for their targeted two word search.
Did I really give PR away, or use it in a way that Google respects? By linking to respected sites, in a worthwhile way, I seem to have helped myself...
Suggy
PS: I totally disagree with the noindex / robots.txt scam recommended by some webmasters. Since hearing about this, I now always check for a robots.txt file or in the header.
Another slick idea is to cloak your 'recipricol links page' so that only surfers get it, and not search engine spiders...thus, preserving PageRank even more :)
interesting advice coming from a moderator.
I find webmasterworld to be a very informative, information rich website that is extremely valuable to its users. And at one point I read the very advice you are giving away and I followed it without thinking. But then I thought about it and realized how very wrong it was.
Look at it this way, even if you get away with it on Google, there are actually some webmasters with an ounce of grey matter that will see what you are doing. These such webmasters would immediately drop your link from their page and notify every single webmaster you link to via this method and inform them of your greed and deception. The result would be that you are now blacklisted.
I was given this advice when i first put my site up, and I followed it without thinking for a period of a month or so. I soon realized how wrong it was and mended my ways.
Don't get me wrong, I do have a couple javascript links on my site for affiliates where no link swap is made. They get the sale, i get the commission, PR stays where it belongs. But that's much different than intentionally misleading someone into thinking that a link swap with you would actually help them when it doesn't.
IMHO.
There are ways to get PR into your site without 'leaking it' as you call it. Link from your index to your links page, but don't put a link to that page all over your site. If your index has 10 links on it and 1 goes to your links page, you're left with 9/10 going to the rest of your site. When your link partners link back to you, you get that 1/10 back plus interest. The only time there's a problem is if you put their link on lots of pages of your site. It then makes your site look like it's a satellite of theirs.
[edited by: coolasafanman at 11:24 pm (utc) on July 7, 2003]
All I'm saying is that, if it drives your business success - then perhaps it is a technique to be considered?
Remember, thanks to the SearchKing lawsuit - Google said (in a court of law no less!) that Google's ranking of a website is an opinion of a website, and NOT a mathematical "algorithm" which arbitrarily ranks websites.
Consider carefully what Google's statement in that case means, for all of us as webmasters, before you go making blanket judgements on a guy who was just throwing out some ideas to help your thought processes along.
Besides thinking about conversion rates helps my sites more than 'PageRank' flow, but to each, their own.
I do not think that outoing links drain away your PR, It has not happened on any of my sites. If you set up pages that are just outgoing links, of course these will have a lower page rank as they have no real relevance, but if you have a paragraph on widgets and a link to widget world (I feel dirty for using the widget example) I cannot see that you would be penalised for that which is effectively what you are talking about.
Let's think logically.
Q: Why do you trade links with someone?
A: to help each other out.
Q: How would you feel if you thought you and another person were helping each other out equally, then discovered that they were doing something to deceptively shift the balance in their favor, so much that you get 0 benefit and they get full benefit?
A: Lousy
Q: If you felt lousy about what just happened upon its discovery, how would you react?
1) leave their link in place, do nothing
2) drop their link, do nothing
3) drop their link, think of methods to retaliate
A: you tell me.
Q: Knowing Google's TOS, would you trade links with a site that blatantly violated TOS?
A: No
Q: If you are trading links to boost PR, would you
1) trade with sites that have PR and therefore are not currently in violation of TOS
2) trade links with anyone
A: 1.
Q: When you trade links with a site, do you take a 5 minute look at it to confirm that it is at least what it says it is?
A: You'd be a fool not to
Q: If you're trading links to boost PR, trade with sites that have PR and spend 5 minutes to confirm they are what they advertise themselves to be, are you doing anything wrong?
A: No.
I'm not an SEO pro, just a logical guy. Do what you want folks but what goes around comes around.
Q: How would you feel if you thought you and another person were helping each other out equally, then discovered that they were doing something to deceptively shift the balance in their favor, so much that you get 0 benefit and they get full benefit?
A: Lousy
It is highly unethical, in my view. If somebody does this to me, I am going to spread the word around about that person as quickly as possible.
Screwing people over is so much fun!
...woops, did I just say that outloud?
Just kidding of course.
If that's your thought process please don't offer any more ideas.
when you show the links to the surfers you are doing exactly what the recips were originally done for years ago...traffic trading. It had nothing to do with helping each other except for traffic, which you do preserve in this case. Otherwise you are only doing it for PR.
PR is traffic trading my friend. the whole idea is you cast your vote for a site saying that it is what it says it is. you let google then determine where to put these sites based on your votes and that determines how much traffic they get.
PR is simply more efficient than having a list of links and hoping someone sees yours in the list. Rather, they go to Google and look up what they want and presto there it is.
Nothing wrong with it as long as you correctly state what their site is.
1. How P/R works, does it flow in a "cut and paste" manner, or a "copy and paste" manner. I would assume "cut and paste". I would think that if it were copied, then by design, with all of the interlinking of the web, they would run the risk of PR spreading like a wild forest fire. So it may sense that if you only have a certain amount of PR, that you can only give out that much PR.
I want to re-clarify, as i did in my initial post that i was wondering about clamping off PR to my really big links that don't need them... like MSN, etc.. The suggestion of dynamically creating those links with java script is a great one (I'll just have to go and learn how to do that). I will then leave static links for my link trading partners. The way I'm looking at it, if I clamp off the PR that is flowing out through the MSN type links, then more will flow to my internal links and reciprocal links (people whom I am forever grateful to).
2. I think my second goal was to find out how to build the MSN type links so that the PR does not go to them (the link is only for visitor convenience) - I guess this wouldn't be the forum for the technical specifics, but from the posts i gather this is done with java script, so i will start a thread in a javascript related forum for that. I may have been hoping for an easier way, like a "robots no follow kinda flag in the link", but i guess i was pipe dreaming, lol.
P.S. As for Jeremy's post (and let's not re-open that can of worms). This forum is to share information, and good or bad, it is good to know what the different tactics are. The tactics he mentioned were very shady... but i can't complain about gaining any knowledge of any such "sly tactics" that are being used. I can use this information to help protect myself against the use of such tactics. Thanks to everyone for their input!
However, there's a lot to be said for the hub theories. And linking out is a fundamental aspect of the web, so it's hard to say whether not linking out would do you harm or good.
TJ
The PR score for a page determines how it may vote for (link to) other pages.
The trick is to do smart linking to target pages. Try not waste any votes, since each time you vote, your available voting power is reduced.
Essentially, people that create PR0 pages for reciprocal links (for fear of losing their own PR) don't understand PR. This is a shame, as noone they link to will receive any benefit! If only they had spent more time conducting research, eh?
There are ways to get PR into your site without 'leaking it' as you call it. Link from your index to your links page, but don't put a link to that page all over your site.
Right on. I'm amazed at how many sites make "Links" an item on their menu template and show it on every page.
I also avoid linking to a Links Page from the index page, because it naturally accumulates so much PR and often has a lower number of links, siphoning away too much PR at once. I'd rather circulate that big stream of PR< and give the Links Page its share a little bit deeper into the site.
So PR that is sent to them is gone, most of my site PR would have leaked into these 99,999 links.
As far as I can tell, but that is what this discussion is about, so comments are most welcome. If I'm wrong then please let me know.
So PR that is sent to them is gone, most of my site PR would have leaked into these 99,999 links.
yes that's correct, that's why you make a links page. see above comments... :-)
