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I guess I have been spending a bunch of time in forum 3 since I discovered this board about three weeks ago :-)
Still, am I correct in understanding that a link from a PR5 on-topic page/site is better for you than an off-topic PR6? Or, is a PR6 a PR6 regardless?
Don't tell me I've been turning down links for nothing.
...er, You've been turning down links for nothing ;)
Nick
Both of them can affect your ranking to various degrees. It is unknown how much theme related work Google has moved into the algo.
Going for on theme links over off theme links is a good thing because those links are more likely to drive traffic on their own. You are also more likely to have more off-page factors working in your favor.
Hanging round here can sometimes do harm to your operation rather than benefit it :)
As far as I am concerned at the present moment, a Link is a Link, from any quality site.
Look at links for a lot more than just PR, text links can provide AWESOME traffic aswell.
Shak
Naturally, I'd had a good look at their links to see if any were worth chasing, but the vast majority were rubbish.
I don't mean just FFAs, link farms or guestbooks, but even the "good" ones were completely unrelated to the theme of the sites and category.
The site that hasn't "lost" any links during this time was the one where the vast majority of incoming links were on theme.
So while there may be no off theme penalty as such, the "loss" of all these links has had an effect on the category, the former no.1 is at the bottom with no PR, with the on theme one now no.1.
> It is unknown how much theme related work Google has moved into the algo.
I would say:
It is unknown whether Google has moved any theme related work into the algo.
It makes a lot of sense to believe that, at some stage, relevance of links will be added. It is confoundedly difficult to measure such relevancy across the immense range of topics that Google searches turn up.
Neither Google Sets nor the "similar pages" are really ready yet for operational measurement of relevancy.
When I link to Google's homepage for having the best search engine, isn't that an off theme link since my website has nothing to do with search engines? It's not like I'm linking to the internal sections that list other websites that are similar or "on theme".
I am with you on this Mohamed_E. I am a big proponent of themes - I use them myself. But just because I like them doesn't mean that they are being used in Google's algo.
I have a few off-topics links pointing at my site. They've been there for over a year, and are still visible in my back-link count.
The fact that a few links links disappear, does not warrant the conclusion that they were off-theme. Another possible explanation is that their PR dropped. Generally links must be PR4 and up to show in the link count. Some PR4 links won't show, probably IMO because they are a "low PR4" on the toolbar.
The PR scale seems to have been shifting a lot during the last 2 or 3 update cycles. One can only speculate why.
As for linking and link-swapping, I'll link with anyone who has a decent site that I won't be embarrased to be associated with. I won't turn down an off-theme link, except for my preceding comment. I do focus my own efforts to find link-partners as being on-theme. My strategy is that at some point Google *may* be able to judge theme based on who I am associated with, so I am going to be more exclusive about who I plan to link with. But if a good off-theme link comes to me, I'll take it.
REPEAT- INBOUND LINKS ALONE CAN NOT HARM YOU IN ANY WAY. CONVERSELY, MOST OF THE TIME THEY WILL HELP YOU.
Google may, one day develop the technology for successful theming, but they have not done so yet. Top sites in almost every major category get hundreds if not thousands of links from totally unrelated sites.
I guess it's time to write up a linguistic web filter as an example, instead of always arguing that it can be done.
Ann
Okay, so I understand that any sites linking to you is good....BUT if I link back to off theme sites will that cause a problem for my websites?
Any site linking to you is not necessarily a good thing.
Think about what the concept of linking is all about. Linking one site to another was supposed to be relevant to the context of whatever was being discussed on the page.
If you are reading a book on gardening which references another book on gardening ... that is relevant and the reader will likely understand why it its there. If however, you are reading that book on gardening and see a reference to trains of the 1800's ... that would likely produce a big question mark in the readers' mind. Its simply inappropriate and distracting to the reader.
There is little or no proof that links to or from off theme sites is a bad thing ... but it really doesn't make much sense. Linking to same or related theme sites does make sense and is what the web is all about ... IMHO.
On another tack ... if you link to a PR0 site or many PR0 sites, it is possible that it could cost you for doing so.
I think the SE algos are in their infancy in regards to theming. It may not play a tremendously important role at the moment, but when that day comes (and it will) ... will your links be relevant?
The most appropriate way for the SE's to deal with linking in regards to PR values is to ignore those links which are not relevant to the topic. So why bother collecting them? Penalties for linking to an off theme site seems silly to me and I doubt they will bother. It would just create more chaos.
I said that Google uses anchor text as a form of theming. Also, I am not doubting that it can be done- to some extent. What I am saying is that the only theming currently being used is related to anchor text.
To say that off theme links to your site can harm you is absurd. Any webmaster who wouldn't gladly accept links from unrelated PR 5 an above sites is losing significant ranking and potential buyers.
There is unwarranted near paranoia with regards to PR0 and theme issues that does not serve webmasters (especially new ones), visitors, or the engines.
Does sticking to a theme make sense for our sites, our visitors, and the SE's? Of course.
Can utilizing themes bolster our rankings? Perhaps.
Does maintaining a fanatical stance of only linking to on theme sites serve us and our visitors? Absolutely not.
There are countless reasons to consider an off theme link, so long as it doesn't overwhelm the focus of your site.
If you want to support a charitable cause by linking to them from your website, regardless of whether it's related to your site's theme, you shouldn't even have to think twice... and I can guarantee that no search engine is ever going to penalize you for it.
The HungerSite has thousands upon thousands of inbound links from hundreds of different niches besides those devoted to philanthropy. This is as it should be.
If you want to link to a business that you have a good relationship with, whether it's on theme or not, you shouldn't be afraid to do so.
SearchEngineWorld has a "Friends and Family" section. As you'd expect, most of those sites are on theme, but some are not. The only "theme" is that they are maintained by folks that are close to the community. This is as it should be.
if you link to a PR0 site or many PR0 sites, it is possible that it could cost you for doing so.
If you link to a penalized site it could cost you, and the vast majority of PR0 sites are not penalized.
Should you be conscious of who you link to? Of course, but this needs to be tempered with reason.
If we are concerned about linking to penalized sites, it's our responsibility to learn enough to discern the likelihood of such things, without assuming that every PR0 site is the carrier of some highly contagious Deadly Google Penalty Virus.
If you want to avoid sexually transmited diseases... abstinence is certainly the most effective means.
As for me, I prefer taking a more liberal approach tempered with awareness thank you. ;)
I think there is themeing being done by the search engines, but as the programmers understand that themeing will never be perfect, what they consider to be "on theme" will only help you. "Off theme" links will not hurt you.
The biggest reason to stick with themeing with any link campaign, is that those are the easiest links to get, and they are the links that will make the most sense to your readers. They are links that you can work into your true content pages instead of stuffing into some hidden away "links" page.
But I have to admit to having no experience with any sort of linking campaign. The only people that I have a reciprocal linking policy with are the members of my site. All other links are freely given if they are on topic, and all incoming links are freely received. Every backlink that I know of, either through "link:" or through referers is on theme and was put up because we were considered worth linking to. Most of them never even contacted me. As I expect to be up to top 5 on all SERPs that I care about after the December update, I see no reason to try any sort of link trading.
My arguments about themeing are mostly academic. There are too many people involved in the argument that have never done any statistical coding. Car salesmen write like car salesmen, they do not write like geologists, teen agers, toy salesmen, or even your average motorhead website. There will be some similarities between them, but you can give this factor weight.
Sure your site has to have a theme, but that is not what we are talking about.
The other search engines in my opinion have put in theme based criteria for inward links' pages into their algos and un-necessarily complicated their formula. That is the reason they are throwing up irrelevant results. Google is obviously run by people who have common sense (as can be seen from 100% of their output) and this same common sense come through in all their work. I wouldn't worry too much about this themeing of inward link websites at all.
While whole-site theming, in the classic sense, may not be a current reality, especially with PR considerations, some of the individual elements that would normally give a site definition as being themed are definitely giving a boost in ranking to some pages that incorporate those elements. And it's not just limited to inbound link text, there are several factors involved.
We're not seeing theming used in the macrocosmic sense, but in a microcosmic fashion, where individual elements are being used that help to improve rankings. That's enough reason to build themed sites or incorporate those elements, imho. While off-topic links don't hurt, thematically and contextually consistent inbound and outbound links can help, though they're certainly not the only components in defining themes.
Hi Marcia,
This sounds like useful information. Would you please elaborate on the specific individual elements that you are referring to?
-egomaniac
Themeing and Context [webmasterworld.com]
