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PageRank transfer within a site

A simple question

         

More Traffic Please

8:25 pm on Dec 19, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I think I know the answer to this question, but before altering my site, I want to make sure.

If I had an index page with 10 links at the top to my 10 inner pages, then each inner page would receive 1/10 of the indexes PR. If I then added 5 additional links at the bottom of the page to pages 1 through 5, I believe that the PR transfer from the index to each of the ten inner pages in my site would remain at one tenth per page. It's my understanding that if my index page links to the same inner page twice, it does not have the effect of transfering any additional PR. Am I correct?

Patrick Taylor

11:17 pm on Dec 19, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Try a Google search for "Google pagerank calculator".

More Traffic Please

12:50 am on Dec 20, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



The calculators I tried did not allow for multiple links on page A going to page B.

herewego

12:59 am on Dec 20, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I have read it here a long time ago (so I'm not sure exactlty where), that additional links out are ignored. So indeed, you are correct, it's only the same as the one original link.

steveb

1:46 am on Dec 20, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I haven't seen a definitive answer to this question, nor the related one of which/either/both/neither anchor text is used. My feeling is you are throwing away PR by adding the extra links instead of 1/10th of X you are passing 1/15th of X to each of the ten pages.

In any case, strictly from a SEO prespective and not user-friendliness, I would definitely try to avoid two links to one page on any page. Plenty of reasons to have two links user-wise.

kaled

11:37 am on Dec 20, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



You would have to conduct experiments to be sure and Google could change their policy at any time. Secondary links (with alternative anchor text) may be broadly beneficial.

If these links would make site navigation easier for your users, you may as well add them.

Kaled.

Marcia

12:53 pm on Dec 20, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



This is the question as I'm looking at it. If there are 20 links off a page, 10 to static pages which get indexed and 10 into a shopping cart that's robots excluded, then the PR passed on from the page still gets divvied up by 20. So half is being wasted, being sent off into a PR black hole.

Now, if there are 20 links off a page to other pages that do get indexed, 10 to pages 1 link each and 10 to 5 pages with 2 links to each, does the PR passed from the page get divvied up by 20 or 15, since 5 of the links are the same as 5 other of the links - in view of scenario one, where whether or not the receiving pages actually did receive PR did not matter, it was still divvied up by the number of outbound links on the page?

BTW, FYI you can "over-optimize" anchor text using internal linking. Been there, done that. Came up in the top ten for allinanchor: out of about 1,300 pages returned, with only about 6 or 7 external inbound links to the site altogether.

Very user friendly. Very over-optimized. Inktomi loves the site. Google hates it.

Yidaki

2:53 pm on Dec 20, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



If there are 20 links off a page, 10 to static pages which get indexed and 10 into a shopping cart that's robots excluded, then the PR passed on from the page still gets divvied up by 20. So half is being wasted, being sent off into a PR black hole.

That's something i'm wondering since ever. Is this PR Black Hole phenomenon confirmed?

kaled

4:22 pm on Dec 20, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



To be sure, use links that cannot be followed by Google. There may be other ways to do this, but I reckon using the javascript method document.write to create a simple HTML link is probably the best method.

Links that cannot be followed cannot leak PR.

Kaled.

PS To be certain, obfuscate the url in the source code.

Yidaki

6:23 pm on Dec 20, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Thanks for the js hint, kaled - but i'm still interested in the answer to:

Is this PR Black Hole phenomenon confirmed?

Js is a only available to js enabled browsers. Redirects are available to everybody. Do robots excluded redirect url's really pass pr - to a black hole / to the bin?

doc_z

4:10 pm on Dec 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



It's my understanding that if my index page links to the same inner page twice, it does not have the effect of transfering any additional PR. Am I correct?

Yes, currently multiple links are ignored.

That's something i'm wondering since ever. Is this PR Black Hole phenomenon confirmed?

Yes [webmasterworld.com] (see ciml's comments)

scoobontour

4:16 pm on Dec 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



never quite found that the PR indicator shows anything like the 1/10 transfered down idea. One of my sites has 10 pages, 8 are linked to from the home page. Every page has PR of 6 including home page.
Now of course the googletoobar PR thingy is unreliable but surely significant differences would be noticed.
Or have I missed something..it is the season to be jolly...

Yidaki

4:56 pm on Dec 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Thanks for the pointer doc_z, much appreciated. Sounds like a clear vote for jscripted links over redirect links ...

zgb999

7:43 pm on Dec 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



PageRank transfer is one side but what about anchor text?

According to ciml if we have 9 links pointing to one page and 1 link pointing to another then both of those pages get 1/2 of the pagerank.

But what about the anchor text.
- If each of the 9 links has a different anchor text will the full 1/2 PR be attributed to all those 9 anchors?
- If all 9 links have the same anchor text will the page linked to be seen more important for that anchor text as if there was only one link to it? (If we forget about a possible penalty for having 9 links with the same anchor on one page.)

Pagerank alone doesn't bring visitors. Anchor text still plays a major role.

sullen

8:02 pm on Dec 22, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



scoobontour - I'm afraid you have missed something!

If there are 10 links on a page then each gets 1/10 of the available page rank, but the available page rank is not the same as the page rank itself - a "damping factor" is applied first.

I have to say that in my experience, more than one link on one page to the same page does have a very small boosting effect, but it hasn't happened often enough for me to rule out coincidence as the real cause of the boost to the pages concerned.

doc_z

4:15 pm on Dec 23, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



- If all 9 links have the same anchor text will the page linked to be seen more important for that anchor text as if there was only one link to it?

No. (... at least currently)

zgb999

10:53 am on Dec 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



So the conclusion is:
If there is more than one link to the same URL on a page then each link should have a different anchor text in order to gain from it.

steveb

12:22 pm on Dec 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Not at all. You're just wasting a link.

Marcia

1:02 pm on Dec 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



>>You're just wasting a link.

Not necessarily Steve, from the standpoint of convenience of the user. Which we'd all be better off thinking of before other things, people would more easily stay out of trouble.

If there's a link on the top of the page and also on the bottom of the page going to the same page it's helpful to the site visitor, who doesn't have to scroll back up. So it is useful.

But links back to the homepage, for example, do not have to be in two places in global navigation, plus in the alt text of a linked header graphic, plus in a clickable link from the copyright statement, plus from the alt text of another image, and within the body text, and possibly I few more places I can't think of at the moment - all with the same keyword stuffed anchor text - if you get my drift. We do NOT want to do that.

But repeating anchor text isn't the same thing as talking about PR transfer within a site.

Added:
Just thought of another place to over-optimize link text. In the link= attribute of text links and using link= in addition to the alt attribute of image links.

More:
Yet another: drop down lists.

And that's all white hat over-optimization. There must be some grey hat techniques we don't know about yet to mis-use HTML coding as well.

steveb

2:42 pm on Dec 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Lots of reasons for multiple links, but that isn't what the thread is about. Pagerank and anchor text you're just wasting a link. Plenty of other reasons to have multiple links.

zgb999

3:03 pm on Dec 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



If I have a page about green widgets from regionXY why shouldn't it help if I place two links (on the relevant pages) to that page,
- one with green widgets and
- one with widgets regionXY as anchor text?

Both anchor texts would get their part of the pagerank from the page the links are placed on. Instead of one search phrase beeing pushed we would have two phrases to attract searchers.

Of course the links have to make sense for the visitor but as a side effect Google will increase the relevance of the page the links go to for both phrases.

steveb

3:20 pm on Dec 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



"why shouldn't it help"

Why should it? Why should a search engine look at fifty links to one page with different text any different than one link with the same pile of text? It shouldn't be a surprise that Google will not look favorably on one type of stuffing compared to another. Whether it is two links or fifty links is the same.

doc_z

9:40 pm on Dec 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



So the conclusion is:
If there is more than one link to the same URL on a page then each link should have a different anchor text in order to gain from it.

I know that (currently) there is no advantage for PR in case of multiple links. Also, there is no advantage for anchor text in case of multiple internal links to the same page with the same anchor text. Most likely there is also no difference (for Google) between two links to the same page and one link with the whole anchor text (e.g. <a ...>click</a> <a ...>here</a> vs. <a ...>click here</a>).

zgb999

2:26 pm on Dec 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I have a menu point widget and a menu point gadget. Both menu points are in form of a text link with widget and gadget as anchor text.

Under the menu point gadget there is a subpage about widget for gadget. On this page there are two links to the widget page:
- the menu point with anchor text widget (as on every page)
- a link in the content: more information abaout widget

So what you are saying is that cross linking of pages like that helps the visitor but it doesn't help at all with Google as only one link to a page is taken into consideration.

Is this really what your studies are saying? (It doesn't make sense to me but maybe Google doesn't make sense in thise case).