51 replies to this topic

[Phil CK]

it's about creating partnerships... and long term relationships

So nicely put Debra, and something people often forget. It really should be beneficial for both parties else why should they link.... apart from being bluntly paid for a link !!!

[Debra]

Agree - and thanks for all the nice comments.

Yes, I will be at SES in San Jose in August. The Advanced Link Building session is on Thursday, August 21 at 3:00 p.m.

Looks like I'll be with a guy from Google, Ask Jeeves and WebGuerrilla.

......hummmmm sounds like a sitcom in the making - " three guys, a girl and a link topic"

[HorseCove]

Debra,

Excellent description of the link building process. Thanks.

I think your final statement about link building being marketing needs to be emphasized. That changes how we should approach link bulding in general.

[netwants]

Firstly I'd like to thank you Jill for this excellent, far reaching forum which I read about in your fab newletter.
Also thanks Debra and you other "forumeers" for your thoughts.

I've just looked at Alexa and seen that my incoming links amount to 253, many of those from Search Engines and Directories.

My problem is that my site, apart from being unique in being an only "wanted to buy" classifieds site, is virtually free, meaning that I have to have a "real job" to pay the bills, and can't find the time to find incoming links, which, due to the nature of my site seem to be hard to find as most prospective link sites have their own ads.

- long sentences were always one of my worst traits - if you've made it this far - THANKS ! !

I get around 30,000 visitors/month but would like more to help my advertisers find what they're looking for, but I seem to have reached a threshold and know that in-links would be the best way to go, but I've run out of ideas and would love a shove in the right direction please.

Cheers,
Andy.

[Gary Bagshawe]

IMO reciprocal linking or not you have to weigh up the effect that outbound links are going to have on your google pagerank, (when google gets round to fixing that bit) the more outbound links that you have the more dilute your pr becomes. If you have a pr of 8 and are getting reciprocal links from a site with pr1 or 2 then that aint doing you any favours. I think that it will not be long before people with sites with high pr are going to be selling links on their pages if they aren't already.

[netwants]

Thanks Gary, talk about "lateral thinking " - you had me going for a while but I see what you mean. Why would any site give you a link which isn't reciprocated is what I think you're saying and you make a lot of sense ( sorry all of you who hadn't thought about this ).
Mind you. I have no idea of my page rank and seem to remember Jill wondering about it's value some time ago.
I'ts a very interesting topic though and I'm looking forward to reading some more posts after I've had dinner and a few hours sleep ( it's 8.50 pm in Sydney and I'm starved ! )
Cheers,
Andy.

[Running Scared]

Why would any site give you a link which isn't reciprocated

Well loads of reasons actually and almost all of these can be summed up as they are useful to your visitors. If you help people find there way around the net, they will keep coming back to you. Your site can not be all inclusive and if I were running a SE I certainly would look at who people were linking to and why.

There is also more to Google than PR

[dragonlady7]

Outgoing links don't dilute your PR, as I'm sure many others are going to say quickly, and incoming links never hurt.
What you want is links for traffic first-- imagine if there were no search engines, and think of how people are going to find you.
Good PR comes from that, and along with it goodies like Googlebot spidering your site daily and catching your new updates almost immediately and the like.
But, I'm sure greater experts than I were on their way here to say just that.

[Gary Bagshawe]

If I could point you to the following articles http://webworkshop.net/pagerank.html
http://www.webworksh...calculator.php3
and yes there is more to google than pr but pr (when it is working) is quite an important factor for google. Outgoing links from your individual pages do dilute your pr and that includes your internal linking structure, the way you link your own pages together can have an effect on pr. Try the calculator and see for yourself.

[Jill]

IMO reciprocal linking or not you have to weigh up the effect that outbound links are going to have on your google pagerank, (when google gets round to fixing that bit) the more outbound links that you have the more dilute your pr becomes. If you have a pr of 8 and are getting reciprocal links from a site with pr1 or 2 then that aint doing you any favours. I think that it will not be long before people with sites with high pr are going to be selling links on their pages if they aren't already.

No, Gary, this simply isn't true.

Outbound links are fine and dandy and DO NOT dilute your PageRank.

Never, ever, ever be afraid to link to sites that you like and that will be of value to your visitors. NEVER! It can only be a good thing, never a bad one.

Jill

[HorseCove]

Gary and DragonLady are both right – depending on what you mean by dilution.

Let’s go back to the basics. Google says links are like votes. If a site links to another site, it is in essence a vote or endorsement that the site is a good site. PageRank is part of Google’s page-scoring algorithm and is a measure of page value.

Having outbound links does not affect the individual page’s PageRank. Your PageRank on a page is the same whether you have 1 link or 100 links. So DragonLady is right when she says outbound links do not dilute PageRank. It doesn’t for the particular page.

However, Gary is right also because when you have outbound links, you are passing votes to remote sites that could have been passed to an internal page. It’s like an opportunity cost in economics. It’s what you give up to have the outbound link. You give up passing a vote to an internal page.

Additionally, the value you pass on through the outgoing links on a page is directly related to the number of outbound links on that page. For example, if you have a page with 50 links, the PR is spread between all 50 of the links, so the link isn’t worth as much as a page with only 1 outbound link.

And Jill, you are right when you say it is a good practice to link to sites that add value to your readers. People can get carried away with linking rules. If you do what is best for the reader, it usually is best all around.

[HorseCove]

Can you tell from my post I'm a peacemaking middle child? Ha! Ha!

[Mel]

Hi Gary:
you're right, I have recently noticed that some of the really competitive online businesses with good financial returns are doing just that, buying links.

Nothing wrong with placing a paid ad on a related site, of course but how about a text link from every page of a 3,000 page electronics site to a viagra site? Or from an online bookshop to a casino?

[Gary Bagshawe]

ouch, :doh: that put the cat amongst the chickens didn't it. I think that I didn't make myself very clear did I. I am not saying that you should not link to another site unless you can get something in return for it. If the link is going to be of use to your visitors then fine go ahead it's what the internet is all about, but to use reciprocal linking just for the sake of it can do you more harm than good..... And I did say IMO.
I am yet to be convinced that outbound links DO NOT suck the pr out of your site but I am not saying don't do it, that would be stupid. just dont link for the sake of getting a link back.
P.S thank you horsecove you eplained it much better than I ever could have.

[Mel]

Hi Horsecove:
sorry to be pendantic but this is a pet peeve of mine -
PageRank is about pages only and thus has nothing to do with how you manage the overall linking in your site. I believe it was Alan who proposed the concept of SiteRank to make this a bit clearer.

For those who think that they are losing SiteRank when they link out to another site, you should consider the possibilty that there are billions of page out there that the increased page rank of the site you are linking to may in turn link to and some of these link back to your site. This is not an effect that can be seen with a PR calculator which makes many assumptions that are not correct in real life.