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Looking at the web map I noticed that it just doesn't make sense when 10 sites selling widgets link to each other. If you go to Burger King, they don't tell you to go visit McDonalds or In&Out. Why would sites selling widgets recommend visiting other sites selling widgets?
The web is not built around themes. The web is built based on chaotic patterns of linkage. Let's say I have a site about tennis. But I also love reading literature, so I might throw in a page about my interests including links to a site about literature.
So now, when looking for links, I'm not restricting my approach to sites that are related - I look anywhere where I can get a link. Makes life easier too :)
Looking at the web map I noticed that it just doesn't make sense when 10 sites selling widgets link to each other. If you go to Burger King, they don't tell you to go visit McDonalds or In&Out. Why would sites selling widgets recommend visiting other sites selling widgets?
But in fact they do promote each other "by association". MacDonald's goes up - Burger King isn't far behind, KFC, Pizza Hut Taco Bell etc. Why? People tend to go where the closest product is... and if MacDonalds is 5 miles away (and a reasonable size market) and Burger King is 20 miles away - MacDonald has a competitive advantage and solid market share.
But really - you can't compare an off-line model to an online model or vice versus. e.g.
Let's say I have a site about tennis. But I also love reading literature, so I might throw in a page about my interests including links to a site about literature.
How many tennis courts have you built because you love to read? ;)
How many banks would back yours loans for this fool-hearted venture? :)
And how many marketable customers could you find locally (or willing the travel expense) to share in your vision?
These worlds are galaxies apart.
Time and space "online" is a blink - and I suppose the fact that the small investment (compared to your the offline analogy) allows a certain amount of adventurist entrepreneurship (no great loss if the book link doesn't work) adding... PageRank is PageRank.
But in reality, the philosophy suggests "company focus" not "market focus" -- or you like tennis and literature so everyone that plays tennis must (or might) and this simple is not true... they like the opera! ;)
This is one BIG thing I do like about the Google directory over the DMOZ one. Google allow to view by Page rank or Alphabetical. DMOZ only have alphabetical, which assumes the searcher knows the name of the site he/she wants. if they did, I'm sure they would simply type it in the address bar!
Dave
I deal in an industry that is totally cut-throat....there is no way on this earth anyone with half a brain is going to link to any of my sites that are in the same industry and visa-versa.......so we are all having to resort to finding other sites that are "somewhat" on topic and prepared to provide links.
I see no evidence that a PR6 link from a semi-on topic
site is any better than a PR6 link from a site that is marginally on topic.
In fact some of my better links for SERPs advantages are totally off topic!
[edited by: percentages at 9:15 am (utc) on July 25, 2003]
If you're promoting a product, of course you're not going to link to competitors. But that doesn't mean you can't link to other sites that are topical - in fact, that's exactly what you should be doing.
As a customer, I'm hardly going to be impressed if I go to MacDonalds, and find them promoting a car dealership, or a laWebmasterWorlder manufacturer. It's got nothing to do with what I'm after, and it'll make me think that the company lacks focus.
If, however, they're promoting information regarding healthy eating (heh), I'm going to gain from that, and that will reflect well on my image of them.
You mean they pad lock the main entrance :o)
The advantage I guess from linking to and from sites that are your competitors, is that you get highly targeted traffic. It also shows you have confidence in your own services and products.
Dave
from the Q&A thread: [webmasterworld.com...]
As answer to Marcia's question:
Should we be moving away from obsessing about Page Rank and moving more toward a more balanced approach of aligning ourselves with on-topic sites relevant to the theme of our own sites?
I'm not positive that I'm a huge fan of the theming arguments that people have made--some of the most useful links I've seen are from "off-topic" sites--but I would definitely agree that it helps users to link to useful, relevant, related sites. So I could see where someday we might our scoring to reflect that in some part. If you see tons of links flowing into a site and not a single link to the rest of the web, then as a user I might scratch my head a little bit.
That's just my personal take on things though. I guess my short answer would be that it's natural that we would want our scoring to reflect the real-world things that make a site useful. In an ideal world, webmasters would only worry about making great sites for users, and Google would follow that to find the best sites that users loved, and score those useful sites highly.
Hey, I'll take any off-topic link as well.
But isn't Google doing a bit of "theming" by giving value to the anchortext description?
My stance is that there are many levels of "theming" from the anchortext up to the "on-topic site" link. For me on-topic can be a relevant paragraph in an off-topic site.
For the webvisitor, a link with nice descriptive surrounding text, with a nice heading and title etc, is more informative and indicative of what your page might be about than a simple anchortext in a one in a dozen off-topic link collection.
So why not for the search engine in trying to categorise the vote towards your page? After all, isn't that a real world thing?
We know google puts value on the description of the anchortext in helping to categorise the target page, well I don't see what stops them from enlarging their horizon to check elsewhere on that page, or the pages that link to that page? (this is not the same as the site being on-topic).
I think its all moving too fast and the technology has not yet caught up. Sure there are algos that only some can understand, but nothing is as good as humanity when regarding themes.
Thats why whatever the algos do, people will still be able to fool them.
Slightly off topic, but hey.
So, keep themes on your sites and in your links and try to do the same when linking with others. With such approach - any time when a visitor comes - the first (entry) Web site will works as a filter and strip off all just curious... and all robots will also get the right guidelines.
Note: It is not a secret, that a top position may be reached with 50-60 backlinks only... Just keep them working.
So now, when looking for links, I'm not restricting my approach to sites that are related - I look anywhere where I can get a link. Makes life easier too
Yes I cannot agree more. Linking is a logical concept. But the natural links hardly follow any logic (my views only). I can suggest any website I like from my website. While getting links from related site is good I do not Fret too much over it.
As percentages said in many cut throat industries you never get links. Your alternative is to carry out a link campaign from totally unrelated sites and beat your competetion. Have done it. There are some very good advanced theories which we can utilize but those require some very serious amount of work. And getting links from non related sites is working right now. :)
As percentages said in many cut throat industries you never get links. Your alternative is to carry out a link campaign from totally unrelated sites and beat your competetion.
You mean that competitors getting not-themed links or they are more wise and have themed links where you could not get any?
However the physical inventory of this fast food place would justify links to soft drinks, bread makers, lettuce and tomato growers, plate & cup manufactures, janitors to clean the facilities, employment procedures, workers comp and payroll services, government regulations...
I look at links less as theming and more as stream of consciousness.
As a customer, I'm hardly going to be impressed if I go to MacDonalds, and find them promoting a car dealership, or a laWebmasterWorlder manufacturer. It's got nothing to do with what I'm after, and it'll make me think that the company lacks focus.
But what if they are promoting a new movie about Pirates? Certainly not related to food!
I find I like a site that uses links to expand upon the content. For instance, links might take me from sites about tennis to 12th century France to Monastaries to Midieval Text Illuminating to...well, you get the idea.
There is a theme hidden in that breadcrumb I suppose.
Back in the "good old days" one could get lost on the web following links. After a couple of hours I couldn't even remember where the journey began.
WBF
I noticed that it just doesn't make sense when 10 sites selling widgets link to each other.
Doesn't AskJeeves look for precisely these little communities, these clusters of sites related to a topic?
If you take a step back you will see clusters of these clusters, all related to each other. Anyone who was at the Boston PubCon will remember AskJeeve's presentation with the spheres that represented these Topic Clusters.
Now, move in the opposite direction, from macro to micro, you will then be examining an individual site. In this site you will also find these Topic Clusters. The micro view is a mirror of the macro view, just as an atom with the orbiting electrons and neutrons mirror the universe at large. You can micro view down to an individual web page and discover Topic Clusters in there as well.
Don't throw away the bathwater just yet, because this baby's not through with it.
After all is said and done, any link is good in my view. Utility of additional links seem to die down quickly after a few dozen links - there seems to be a law of diminishing returns.
I like and agree with that concept, kirby.
Why I still prefer to "theme" (even though there is no evidence of a direct Google benefit)...
1. It benefits my sites' organisation. Interior and exterior anchor text is more focused on the core message of a particular area.
2. It makes my sites more "believable" to the viewer/consumer and avoids links like "Our recommended <insert favourite drug here> partner"
3. Important link partners in my areas are more likely to link to me if my subjects, including my links, are on-theme.
4. I can become a resource in an area, leading to one-way inward links, especially from .gov and .edu sites
5. Stream-of-consciousness theory, as above, can provide some lateral thinking about themes so it's not as limiting as some seem to think
6. Reciprocal linking isn't a perpetual motion machine - in every swap there is a mathematical winner and a loser (which is why I've never understood the fascination with it). Therefore I won't chase swapped links unless it gives other value to the site.**
7. I consider that "theming" - whether or not it provides any immediate benefit - is similar in nature to what engines seem to consider important - and to want to consider important in the future, and especially in their insistence on user experience.
8. It doesn't hurt, it's not hard, and, if it ever does become an important part of any algo, there is an element of "future-proofing" to it.
** Point 6. Of course you're all going to say "Well you wouldn't turn down a reciprocal link request from a PR7 Hannibal Lecter fan site, would you?" and the answer would probably be "No, I wouldn't". But I would try to find a way of working it into the site so that it made sense ("Famous people's connections to Anytown" or "A widget as a murder weapon, its use over the years" - something like that).
Edited for grammar.
You mean that competitors getting not-themed links or they are more wise and have themed links where you could not get any?
I mean me getting non themed links and beating the competetion ;)
The micro view is a mirror of the macro view, just as an atom with the orbiting electrons and neutrons mirror the universe at large. You can micro view down to an individual web page and discover Topic Clusters in there as well.
That is such a beautiful explanation! (were you by any chance a chemisty student?) :)
When all you guys are talking of themes I would like to delve a bit into the original way in which sites were supposed to be ranked. The Democratic way. Now there are many different ways in which democracies are run.
As in society we have our own influence , sites can be ranked on their own influence (links). If I am a carpenter it is not necessary only carpenters would know me. I may have influence in a wide sphere of circles. So should sites who have thousands of links pointing towards it. Hence what we are finally left in the index are pages with extremely high no of links pointing towards it like the home page of Google , Yahoo , Dmoz , Nasa etc. These form the top echeleons of the index. And at the bottom we have innumerable pages which are linked only once from any other page.
So how do you incorporate links from non related sites? That is what your job is. Figure out a way. It depends on what type of SEO you are doing. Not all sites need links from non related sites. But many do especially in very competetive fields.
the above thoughts are just my views. Don't take them too seriously ;)
The chairman of the Japanese flower association most probably gets voted by the individual Japanese flower association members. Not by a Dutch welder dropping an irrelevant link.
Google introduces the fact that the Dutch welder could help the chairman into his seat. I'd say nothing wrong with that if its weighted appropriately, even better if the vote is well motivated and documented.
I'd still go for the votes of the individual flower association members though....also this reranking [webmasterworld.com] through peers comes to mind, as layed out nicely by Claus [webmasterworld.com] (how themed is that?)
Google must like it because I'm #1 for my main keywords and top 10 for a bunch of others. Users must like it because my aggregate referrals from these sites on an average day easily outnumber my referrals from Google even with the high rankings. And this traffic converts just as well as the Google traffic.
Why? Because every click-through that I get is automatically highly targeted because of my title, anchor text, and description. For example, If I'm interested in red Corvettes I'l click on a well-written link to a site about red Corvettes every time. I don't care if the link is on a site dedicated to purple Volkswagens or green Hondas. Of course if I'm not interested in red Corvettes I won't click the link at all.
If we create our own "theming", that automatically makes every link "relevent". If I place a well-crafted link on a site about yellow apples, there are sure to be lots of yellow apple lovers who are also interested in my widgets. They'll click the link. The ones who aren't interested in my widgets won't. And given the facts that the links are free and Google gives credit for the link for PR and ranking purposes, I'll take a link on ANY quality site on ANY theme that meets my moral standards.
