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I'd like to know the pros and cons of large numbers of links from one site. For example, if I have a couple of PR7 links, some PR6 links, some more PR5 links and a pile of PR4 links from one site, will this resemble, from a search engine's perspective, having the same links from different sites? On the one hand a page is a page and a link from that page will pass on its PR, so each link could be construed as a valid independent link. On the other hand, so many links from the same site is obviously non-representative of the web as a whole, so maybe search engines take this into account. What say you guys?
Thanks for your help,
Regards,
Jeremy
>>a page is a page and a link from that page will pass on its PR
Don't be so sure about that!
>>so each link could be construed as a valid independent link.
Nope, in one case it's 500 links from one site which is not independent, and in the other case it's 500 links from 500 different sites, which are independent as long as they're not a cranked out domain farm.
>>so many links from the same site is obviously non-representative of the web as a whole, so maybe search engines take this into account.
It isn't representative of the web as a whole; we know it and they know it.
>>What say you guys?
I say people should put their checkbooks away and go get 500 links from 500 different sites. :D
Added:
There's more involved than just PR, other things are also significant. With 500 links from one site there would be 500 instances of the identical anchor text - which is definitely not natural and is way out of balance.
It does happen with web designers who get linked back to from all pages of sites they design, you might want to dig in and check out some of those past discussions.
There was also a discussion on this very subject within the past couple of weeks, see if you can find that one.
[webmasterworld.com...]
If you have the opportunity to get x links from one site then go for it! You never need to worry about how many and who links to you, only who you link to. Even without any PR transfer (which you should get) it will increase traffic.
Even if you're epinions and the inbounds are from dmoz? :)
Would 500 links from PR 3 pages be worth more than 5 links from PR 7 pages?
The more links you get from one site the more low pagerank pages you have a link from. Only few sites would have 500 pages with PR 5 or higher to link from.
So maybe getting a link from the 20 pages with the highest pagerank of a site might be better than 500 links from the same site (which would tell Google that there is some connection between the sites).
[edited by: zgb999 at 10:19 am (utc) on Jan. 21, 2004]
Would 500 links from PR 3 pages be worth more than 5 links from PR 7 pages?
Probably not as far as PR goes, but worth more for targetted traffic.
But what about the importance for a certain SERP? If you have 500 links with a certain link text this can help tremendously for that SERP.
But what about the importance for a certain SERP?
PR is one of *many* factors that determines your page position in the SERP's. If you omit the PR gain from links then there is little in your position gained from the links. The anchor text may help somewhat, but not much.
Pre-Florida probably, post-florida it depends :)
SEO is not exactly a science :)
Thanks for all the replies, I tried searching for relevant topics but your messages have answered my question spot on, so thanks.
I had an offer to advertise on large numbers of my inner pages, and wanted to clear up if this was really a good idea for the advertiser. It seems quite rightly as though it's probably not the best way to use resources, so that's that cleared up. Thx everyone,
Jeremy
