22 replies to this topic

[compar]

Yes, it is unsatisfactory - but it makes it more fun!

But my uneducated guess is that it that good external links have to be worth at least three times the relevancy value of either crosslinks or internal links.

I would agreed that you are probably correct. Now if you agree that the extra value makes external links more relevant can you explain why it would be unreasonable for Google to list them in the order of relevance?

Can you suggest how that would give web masters an unfair advantage or would be tantamount to Google publishing their Algorithm?

[RayBat]

Hi all,

Perhaps I missed something but when it comes to relevancy of links (looking at GOOGLE) I found the following:

Only external links (incoming and outgoing) and the number of web pages inside a web site can increase or decrease the amount of PageRank of a web site. Internal links on a web site just "take" the whole amount of PageRank and divide it between the web pages of the web site.

So external links create PageRank, and internal links transport a given amount of PageRank to the web pages of a web site. If this is true you can't compare internal and external links by guessing a "3:1 relevancy ratio".

I found this information here: Google's PageRank and how to make the most of it

If this is true, them I'd like to "crosslink" to another idea :

There was a discussion about themes in this forum (Themes here)

If an internal link does not create PageRank (or "relevancy" in general), then this could be a good reason why themes do not work inside of a web site (see the tiger and coffee example). And it is not violating the fact that e.g. Teoma is working with themes, because Teoma is concentrating on external links in order to identify communities.

Am I right, have I misunderstood something or is this just fantasy? :halo:

[Jill]

I think you're misunderstanding. Every page has it's own PageRank that it can pass to other pages -- both of it's own domain and outside domains.

Jill

[ChrisB]

Google assigns PR based on the page, not the site. They care nothing for external, internal, cross, incoming, outgoing, or any other type of link because those are all defined on a site wide basis.

There is no real way to define a site, some sites span multiple domains and some domains span multiple sites. So as far as ranking goes all that matters is pages, not sites.

We however make up all these different link types because, unlike Google, we're concerned about our sites as a whole and not just single pages.

When you're working to improve the ranking of an entire site as a whole a link from third party site is better because it'll bring more PR into your site. However if you're just working on a subpage of that site then an internal link is just as good as an external one since you're at the page and not the site level.

Many have speculated that Google will discount cross links, or links from the same site, or links from the same IP address. They fail to account for the fact that link exchanges are valid and easily found, that some hosts put hundreds of sites on the same IP, and that discounting internal site links would make it just about impossible to appropriate rank internal site pages. Nevermind the fact how hard it is to actually define "site" from a programming perspective. Plus you wouldn't really fix anything since people would just adapt, get more domains, or more ip addresses.

In anycase I have sites with number one rankings that are entirely reliant on cross linking or internal links and as long as these sites are ranked such I'll know that Google still cares about pages and not sites.

[compar]

Back to the original question of 'how much linking is too much'. I think the answer in this case is that you cannot get too much of a good thing.

I am promoting a online drug store and one of my keyword phrases is 'order prescription medication'. I am very pleased because after just a couple of months of ongoing work this page now comes up in 7th place in Google and online pharmacies is a very competitive business.

I have managed to build 113 internal and exteral links that Google reports and my home page has a PR5. I know that isn't very many links so I was interested in how many links the pages above me in SERP had. I went to MarketLeap and used their excellent Link Popularity Checker and one of the pages above me has 4,050 links reported by Google and 206,786 links reported by alltheweb.

This particular site shows up well on just about any pharmacy or prescription drug search you can think of. So I would conclude the more links the better.

[dzinerbear]

This particular site shows up well on just about any pharmacy or prescription drug search you can think of. So I would conclude the more links the better.

The only thing that makes me uncomfortable with idea is that it puts a site's ranking potential into the hands of the site's owner and not the search engine. Because essentially, I could hire someone to sit down at a computer and create hundreds of links to my site and thereby improve my ranking.

So, while I agree that if a million legitimate websites decided to link to your, it'd be a good think. I'm not so sure we can make a blanket statement that more is always better.

Tomorrow, if I were to put up 500 pages on site A and 500 pages on site B and each page had a link to the other site's index page, would I get into trouble? I think I probably would. But where's the threshold, that's my question.

Dzinerbear

[compar]

Tomorrow, if I were to put up 500 pages on site A and 500 pages on site B and each page had a link to the other site's index page, would I get into trouble? I think I probably would. But where's the threshold, that's my question.

Dzinerbear

What makes you think so? You seem to be asking and answering the question. What experience or evidence have you got for this?

[edited... - Jill ]

Edited by Jill, 03 September 2003 - 06:43 PM.

[ChrisB]

The only thing that makes me uncomfortable with idea is that it puts a site's ranking potential into the hands of the site's owner and not the search engine. Because essentially, I could hire someone to sit down at a computer and create hundreds of links to my site and thereby improve my ranking.

Its not that easy.

A new page by default only has 0.15 PR. We don't know how much you need to get a 1, but we know a 2 is roughly 5x greater than a 1, a 3 is roughly 5x greater than a 2, and so on.

Lets say you need a 10 to get a "1" (as reported by the toolbar. You'd need 66 pages to get a PR of 1. You'd need 333 to get a PR of 2, 1666 to get a PR of 3, it gets worse.

Plus that isn't even taking the dampening factor into account. The dampening factor will basically mean that all those dummy pages won't be passing on their whole 0.15. It is also pretty substantial.

And you must pull all this off while keeping unique content and not tripping any spam filters at Google, or getting reported by a competitor.

The minimum PR score is low enough that manufacturing PageRank in this manner is very difficult.