3 replies to this topic

[perthmatt]

This is not so much about how my website will be harmed, but others I link to. See, I've got a blog about my city (Perth). It's about a whole range of different subjects related to the city -- what it's like to live here, how it's changing, what the people are like, interesting landmarks, etc. So aside from it being a local blog, it's not extremely nichey.

One thing I'd like to do is interview interesting people who live here and publish those interviews on the blog. Since so many people have websites themselves, I plan to offer a link or two back to them in the body of the post as a thank you.

But I'm worried about relevance. I know that Google is penalising site links for being irrelevant these days. So I'm worried that this tactic might prove to be a harm rather than a hindrance to these people.

For example, there's a woman I know who's a fashion designer. I want to interview her about the local fashion scene, including a link back to her (very new) site for her label. Considering she's got no backlinks at all, the last thing I'd want to do is start it off on the "wrong foot" so to speak.

So, will such links harm or help her and other interview subjects SEO-wise? Or have no effect either way? Any thoughts the members could give me on this would be greatly appreciated.

[chrishirst]

But I'm worried about relevance. I know that Google is penalising site links for being irrelevant these days. So I'm worried that this tactic might prove to be a harm rather than a hindrance to these people.

Google is not "penalising" irrelevant links, Google really doesn't know what are "relevant" and what are not, their algorithm may certainly be able to decide if some words fit into a certain lexical map, but it can't tell the relevance from a real perspective.

lead is relevant to pencils, plumbers, marketing, detectives, nuclear science, all manner sports and dogs.

What Google "penalise" are links that are there purely for "link building"

[torka]

Remember, search engines rank pages, not sites.

The page on which the link will appear will have an interview with the person whose site you're linking to, right? That makes that page on your site very relevant to that person. The fact that other pages on your site aren't as "relevant" (or at least may not appear on the surface to be as relevant) is, well... irrelevant.

Absolutely, link to the designer's site (and the site of anyone else you interview, and the sites of the restaurants and attractions you review, and other blogs about the city, and "official" city websites, and anywhere else that makes sense within the context of the whatever article you're posting that day).

--Torka

[perthmatt]

Torka, Chrishirst, thanks for this input.

Good point to remember about Google ranking pages, not whole websites. Was forgetting that.

The interview will always have lots of relevant info. It can only help them, even if just a little.