Forum Moderators: martinibuster
"What if" Google were to pull down that greenbar from its toolbar?
1. The whole text link ad industry will come to almost a standstill.
2. Knowing if a site/page is indexed in Google will take a little longer.
3. Knowing the importance of an individual site/page will be more difficult if not impossible.
4. Knowing if a site is penalized will be difficult (Kind of a site that has hundreds of IBLs, but is a PR0)
In the absence of TBPR, how can one go about measuring the importance of a page? [Relevancy being a common denominator]
My list would include these, in order of importance -
a. Alexa Rank (With all its anomalies)
b. SERPs that the site/page enjoys for its target keyword/s.
c. Quality IBLs if any (such as dmoz)
I am sure there are many other metrics, but will be difficult to measure for each new potential link.
Now, please add, debate, ridicule... :)
In short, I don't dispute that pr is a poor measure. But it is a good measure of the amount of backlinks a site has. And if it has a lot of quality backlinks, then it's well integrated into the fabric of the web, and a place I want to get a link from.
I'm also not certain that text link companies are dead if toolbar pr is withdrawn. People still want links don't they?
I'm also not certain that text link companies are dead if toolbar pr is withdrawn. People still want links don't they?
Without TBPR, text link companies will be like grocery merchants without a weighing scale.
Without the TBPR, toolbar users have no reason to opt for the advanced features which allow the toolbar to "call home". This "call home" is a HUGE advantage to Google because it allows G to collect a HUGE amount of user data.
It helps them find new pages to spider
it helps them track user behavior after clicking on a link in SERPS
Identify affiliated sites
Identify page popularity regardless where the visitor arrives to the page from
and on and on and on
There is no real incentive for them to remove the TBPR indicator because no one will allow the toolbar to phone home if they are not getting something of perceived value back.
Displaying TBPR costs Google nothing (even it it has no real value now), gives them a certain bit of control, and gives them access to vast amounts of user data.
Identify affiliated sites
How does the google toolbar do this?
This "call home" is a HUGE advantage to Google
Is? Was? Google Accelerator [webmasterworld.com]. No more need for toolbar? Maybe the end really is nigh.
a. Alexa Rank (With all its anomalies)
b. SERPs that the site/page enjoys for its target keyword/s.
c. Quality IBLs if any (such as dmoz)
I'd consider who else the site links to, and who those sites link to.
More work, yes, important, could be.
This "call home" is a HUGE advantage to Google because it allows G to collect a HUGE amount of user data
But what % of people install a toolbar, leave alone with advanced features? The lack of it can easily be compensated by other initiatives such as "Search History", "Google Accelerator". They are already a domain registrar which will help them in establishing affiliation. They may even become a low cost web hosting provider too, giving them a lot of data.
I'd consider who else the site links to, and who those sites link to
Interesting suggestion. But aren't you doing that anyway if there is a TBPR or not?
But what % of people install a toolbar,
You can leave out all Mac users.
You can leave out all Mac users
Anyone who use Mac or haven't installed the TB, can share with us how they go about getting links?
PR does show on a Mac though... Firefox has two (or three) installs. and, we from the 'other side' have widgets too =). At least one is recommended by Google and I have XP for Mac (yes, it's just like windows on a PC, I can run and crash anything a 'real PC' can) so about once a week I double check for accuracy. Haven't seen any difference yet.
Justin
Many people will know all this, but maybe some don't so I'm going to lay this down for those who may find it helpful:
There are probably loads more checks you can do. Anyone else care to add?
I would put my money on developing a Toolbar which gives near indication of the existing Google TBPR. Make no mistake :)
I would put my money on developing a Toolbar which gives near indication of the existing Google TBPR.
The way to do it is to take the criteria I have listed above and have a program automatically query it.
But I'm not sure I would trust a toolbar that would query whois for me then algorithmically score the ownership information on a 1-10 basis then fold that into the score for backlinks etc... and generate a number from one to ten. This kind of information I would like to view for myself.
One way to automate the process is to take the criteria I listed then generate the results in a one page report.
But more importantly, does anyone have additional criteria to add? I'm looking for metrics. There are others metrics for judging a link partner that I have left out. So let's have them!
I always check if the site is cached in all the major SEs, and if the page my link will be on is as well.
Also I would check for a robots.txt banning the link exchange pages, rel=nofollow tags and other tricks.
See also: The Dark Side of Exchanging Reciprocal Links [webmasterworld.com]
But I'm not sure I would trust a toolbar that would query whois for me then algorithmically score the ownership information on a 1-10 basis then fold that into the score for backlinks etc
Right. Can get the tool to display only which is quantifiable. May be have a toolbar that gives the importance of a page out of quatifiable metrics and then have an add-on feature "Know More", which lists the important factors that one would like to know about, such as -
- Whois
- No. of sites hosted on the server
- Where the server is located? (May be useful for travel and real estate sectors?)
- www.domainname.tld search result in Google.
- The Wayback Machine snapshot
- No. of IBLs, classified by domain TLDs
- Mention of links from Dmoz/Yahoo
- Ratio of links to inside page v/s index page
- Alexa Rank
- robots.txt, <META NAME="robots", rel=nofollow status.
- Page size
where the toolbar pr is for a quick look at the importance before deciding to dig deeper and for link monkeys. "Know More" feature for advanced info.
If I were the developer of this tool, I would have one unique feature in it. I would create a feature which allows you to match your site and the potential link page w.r.t content and IBLs and come out with a numerical value that gives an estimation of relevancy. A 50%, 40%, 90% match kinda detail.
I'd consider who else the site links to, and who those sites link toInteresting suggestion. But aren't you doing that anyway if there is a TBPR or not?
Yes I am doing that, and I don't bother with the TBPR when deciding if I'll post a link or not.
It usually isn't that time consuming, but then I'm not posting a bunch of new links everyday.
But you can bet that a lot of webmasters aren't doing this sort of checking at all. I think that's probably not in their own best interest if they aretrying to build a site for the long term.
Don't know if it can be automated, but I would add:
- Number of sites hosted on the IP address
- Number of sites interlinking on the IP address
- Number of sites with the same ownership on the IP address
Added: - Number of sites in the same niche on the IP address
Justin
Number of sites in the same niche on the IP address
That's a good one and easy to overlook, thanks for bringing that up.
In the absence of TBPR, how can one go about measuring the importance of a page? [Relevancy being a common denominator]My list would include these, in order of importance -
a. Alexa Rank (With all its anomalies)
b. SERPs that the site/page enjoys for its target keyword/s.
c. Quality IBLs if any (such as dmoz)
Uh...traffic?
Yep, that's it. Before that little green bar we thought about the potential for traffic. All things being equal, I still want a link that brings n traffic. Few links pages do that, at least in my niche.
Using Opera, I have not looked at the G Toolbar in quite some time. This has not impeded my efforts to improve my rankings.
WBF
In the absence of TBPR, how can one go about measuring the importance of a page? [Relevancy being a common denominator]
My list would include these, in order of importance -a. Alexa Rank (With all its anomalies)
b. SERPs that the site/page enjoys for its target keyword/s.
c. Quality IBLs if any (such as dmoz)Uh...traffic?
Alexa. How would you otherwise know the traffic potential of a link?, I mean quickly.
I'm a Mac user, and find the SP results a pretty good indication of a site's linkage from a thematic POV.
If most are on topic, that's pretty good indication they're not "messing about" in linkage schemes.
If you get no results, something, somewhere, is wrong.
The question is how would you evaluate the value of the link now.
Suppose a site links to you from 7th page of their link directory. Is it of any use if you cannot see the PR.
I think that the focus of link building will shift from page based linking to site based linking.
We will now not be able to evaluate the page that the link exists on but the site on which the link exists.
Some of the measure to evaluate a SITE BASED LINK ( SBL) are:
1) Backlinks to the site as reported by google, yahoo, MSN.
2) Alexa rank
3) Presence in DMOZ or yahoo directory
4) Presence of linking page in SE cache( only page related factor)
5) Theme based
6) Age of the domain ( whois database)
Any others that can be thought of?
Since PR is based on links, any site that has a tools for "link popularity check" is useful, specially if you can get a link popularity history/trend report.
I noticed a correlation between Page rank and the link popularity trend.
To be honest I wouldn't need to know the page PR to get a pretty good idea of its value ;-)
If those pages don't have outbound links on them, check to see if the page promotes a resource/links/directory page/section on the site.
If it does, check those additional pages/sections out.
It's might also be wise to remember that the highest ranking, highest traffic page might not send the best clicks.
A more focused paged, further into the directory, might send much more qualified traffic. There may not be as much traffic, but it might convert much better.
The question is how would you evaluate the value of the link now.
The same way I always have. If the site is relevant to my target audience and it is possible that it will bring just one quality lead, then the link has value.
