18 replies to this topic

[Pianist718]

We have a site (medical site). WOuld it benefit us to have a Resource page and link to only 3-4 sites that are related to our field and are PR8+ like Medicare site and so on?

Thank you.

[Jill]

No, but it seems like those good sites might be of a benefit to your site visitors.

[Pianist718]

Jill .... you sure? Absolutely no benefot? Even 2% ? None? Nada?

[RyanBlank]

you sure? Absolutely no benefit? Even 2% ? None? Nada?

There is no benefit to you when linking to another site, other than providing something useful to your users. The only other entity that receives benefit from what you are wanting to do is the site you are linking to.

[torka]

Now, if you could somehow get a few PR9 sites to link to you, on the other hand...

--Torka

[Jill]

Yes, I'm quite sure.

But there are some who do think that linking out gets you somewhere in the rankings. I just don't happen to be one of them who believes that.

It doesn't hurt you though, I'm also sure of that.

So in other words, if you feel it will be useful to your site visitors, then absolutely positively go for it! If not, then don't.

Even if it did provide some sort of magical SEO benefit, you wouldn't want to link to something that you didn't feel provided a benefit to your visitors, would you?

[randfish]

I don't know about helping you rank, but it's certainly my belief that who you link to is taken into account for things like topic classification, quality of site, etc.

For example, if I had a site about SEO that linked to my sites about Shoes & Financial Services, I would predict lower rankings in general than if that same site linked to HighRankings.com and SearchEngineWatch.com - it's just common sense and it's part of what search engineers are always seeking - additional ways of spotting higher quality sites and pages.

If you didn't link to anybody vs. linking to a few top resources, I also don't know if it would have any positive impact, but it certainly wouldn't be negative. The one thing I certainly wouldn't do is to link to anybody simply because they had high PR!

[Leann_Pass]

Randfish, I absolutely agree.

I have always (and I mean always) believed that a site that does not link out at all looks/feels/seems weird. Linking is afterall what makes the web in the first place! No site should be an island, in my opinion.

Now, who you link to is strictly your business, but I think linking to authority sites is a good thang! If nothing else, it shows your visitors (and maybe - who knows- the search engines) that you have good taste and that you understand the value of providing authoritative info.

I know many authoritative sites have a very high PR, but there are many that don't carry that 9. I would suggest (as I think everyone probably has) linking to sites that your visitors will actually find useful (regardless of their PR). There is really no way you can lose there.

Leann

[amabaie]

Yup, I agree with both Randfish and Leann. Find sites that rank highly for several of the top search terms for your page. Industry associations for your sector are also good. Teoma lists pages it considers authority pages (although some of them are just plain weird). Most importantly, make sure you use link text that reflects both the search terms you are targeting and the text used on the linked-to page.

If the search engines are checking the quality of websites based, in part, on whether they link to related (read "useful") information, linking to authority sites that are obviously (to the search engines) on-topic can only help your rankings. If this is not happening now, it cannot be far off.

[Randy]

Oh, I could go on and on about this subject. Especially when one looks back at the original concept behind what Larry and Brin had in mind when making links such an important part of what would become Google.

Let's just say that I believe that there are some benefits to linking to well established, authoritative sites for your particular niche. It may not garner you an immediate ranking improvement, but there are reasons why some sites never seem to move much no matter what changes in the algorithms go through.

How do you make your site an Authority? Partly by linking to other authoritative sites, partly by being referred to --via links-- as an authority. At the very least.

Without both of those you can never be an authority.

[Redouane]

It definately helps linking to authorative sites from your same niche, it happens that one of my sites was #40 in google, after linking to 2 high quality sites in my same niche, I realized after 3 weeks that I was among the first 20 spots...! Was it because of that or getting more backlinks???

Anyways try it and hope for the best

[Jill]

Redouane, be careful of mixing up cause and effect. I highly doubt that your linking out caused a higher ranking.

But ya never know...

[flyer]

Why don't you find some nice PR0-2 sites and link to those? They need your help much more than some PR8-9 giant does, especially a gov't site like Medicare.

[Jill]

Good point, flyer!

[lligocki]

I would like to add my anecdotal observation.... I operate a web site for takeout & delivery food in the Vancouver, BC area. When I noticed that many of our visitors were ordering food from apartment suites & basement suites, I added some local apartment rental sites to our Links page, for the benefit of our visitors. Very soon after, I was Googling for more sites to add, and was surprised to find our Links page ranking in the top 5 for "basement suites Vancouver". I suspect it was because of the text descriptions included with the links, since this is what appears in the search results description.

Edited by lligocki, 05 August 2005 - 01:55 PM.