106 replies to this topic

[Deverill]

It also understands, that a 'vote' from a site you control is not really a vote, as it is a vote for your , by you, so it devalues that vote. No penalty, just no or very little value.

This is a bad thing. For example, I host with the greatest host in the world. They have a section that they provide a little graphic to link back if you like to. The code won't be changed so everyone of their customers will link with the same anchor text. Why isn't that a good vote? (rhetorically) It's thousands of satisfied customers and in the real world there's no better vote.

Another is almost every directory I have submitted my site to uses the site name as the anchor text. I always type the name the same when sumbitting so by doing this I'm lessening my potential? Sad. These aren't FFA's but legit directories of outdoorsy things like hunting and fishing places.

I think this is another area Google's trying to stop spam but is falling into naturally occuring things too.

[castlebooks]

Could be OldWelshGuy -- Semantic analysis is very powerful -- I personally think its fractal analysis

[Ron Carnell]

I'm going to go against the grain here.

A link is a link is a link. I believe it doesn't matter whether the link is internal or external, on the same server or one on a different continent, reciprocal or non-reciprocal, paid or free. Where the link originates is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the value of the link. The very nature of the PR calculations makes them self-regulating, essentially insuring that the easy-to-acquire links simply don't count as much. However, if you have a client that links to you, and they eventually push their own PR to 10, that link to you WILL count just as much as would a link from the BBC front page. How you got the link just doesn't matter.

Of course, that's just Page Rank. For me, the jury is still out on whether the importance of anchor text is similarly independent of source. I suspect it is, but am not yet entirely convinced.

[BrianR]

Possibly Brian, you were there when Matt Cutts was discussing this weren't you? what was your take on it?

I have the same take on it as you, OWG.

G understands the business/marketing rationale for linking to your clients' sites or for asking them to link to you. However, Matt gave the distinct impression that the value of these links would be discounted. Didn't say by how much, but certainly said so.

In the same discussion, he also said that if the link anchor text for say 100 links was identical, G would be suspicious that the links were artificial. Again, didn't give detail about what would happen in these circumstances.

The whole thrust of his discussion was this: Make the site look natural from a user's point of view - ie. what are the chances of 100 different site owners using the exact same anchor text in 'natural' links to commend your site?

BrianR

[OldWelshGuy]

Question of the week had to be when someone asked the Italian guy (who had previously said that it was Ok to buy links from high PR sites) How much a PR9 link was worth. Th guy looked at Matt and said, what do you think $50 to $2,000 dollars a month?

Too Sweet for words. Good then that Matt said " hey you pay your $2,000 a month, you might not be getting anything from it, but go ahead and pay! he said it half jokingly, but he had aluded to links being sold, and certain measures to devalue links that were being sold.

[Craig B]

So, as I understand it, the concensus is that multiple text links from the same server (or IP range) does not effect SEO linking strategies to date but as it is an easy filter for search engines to apply, it may be best to use multiple servers to hedge against future changes.

Interesting comments!

thanks,
Craig

[Debra]

In the same discussion, he also said that if the link anchor text for say 100 links was identical, G would be suspicious that the links were artificial. Again, didn't give detail about what would happen in these circumstances.

If I remember correctly, this comment/answer was close to what we heard from the Google rep in Toronto SES Craig. I don't think they penalize when they find these links, they just ignore them.

I believe it's a good business practice (and expected) to put your tagline on the bottom of a website, but not sure it's necessary to place the link on any additional pages throughout the site. Authors put their names in the front of the book, not on pages throughout.

And as for link pop.. well...you'll need a TON of them to see any difference from an SEO standpoint.

[Craig B]

If I remember correctly, this comment/answer was close to what we heard from the Google rep in Toronto SES Craig. I don't think they penalize when they find these links, they just ignore them.

That's what I thought. Thanks for the reminder!

- Craig

[Peter]

Backlinks from totally unrelated pages which is often the case in footer links to the designer's website, don't do much good in any way. They´re not related and therefore are not counted, even if the anchor text of the link does say something nice.

I never saw and evidence that having lots of backlinks with the same anchor text would decrease the value of those backlinks. For instance, if a website sells t-shirts, then you can expect that majority of the backlinks say "t-shirts". That is not artificial, it is only logical.

As to same server linking. You should prevent creating a cross linked community with vere few in and out going links. It doesn't really matter if those links are all on the same server (thought that could be another reason to raise a red flag), in the end what counts is how easy it is to find you through following links.

If there is just 1 incomming link into a community, then the pagerank generated inside this community is fake because from outside the community there is just 1 link going into it and therefore the only pagerank that really counts for that community is generated by that 1 link.

You can benefit more from internal pagerank by getting more backlinks from outside the community. (could be that the same applies to a website as a website is a community of pages.)

Regards,

Peter

[Jill]

Backlinks from totally unrelated pages which is often the case in footer links to the designer's website, don't do much good in any way. They´re not related and therefore are not counted, even if the anchor text of the link does say something nice.

Huh? Says who?

I see hundreds of thousands of them that count.

Jill

[Peter]

I see hundreds of thousands of them that count.

Perhaps I should have said that it is my opinion and that Google's Topical Sensitive PageRank does not count backlinks from unrelated pages. That does not mean a penalty, it just depends on the topic of a page whether or not a backlinks is counted for a search query.

The ToolBar shows the total PR, but that doesn't mean all backlinks are counted for each and every search query.

Peter

[Jill]

That might be the ideal, Peter, but that's certainly not what's happening at this time.

[Peter]

Can you show me a webdesigner that ranks high just because of footerlinks in the website of his clients?

The topic sensitive PR system has been improved a lot since Google introduced it back in november. At first it had these radical changes where sites just dropped out of the SERPs. Now they made it work better, in my opinion by allowing each page to have its own topical PR scores rather than just a basic list of topics that are for everybody.

In any way,.. irrelevant backlinks don't work as good as relevant backlinks.

Peter

[Jill]

Peter, I'm pming you an example.

Jill

[MCP]

Can you show me a webdesigner that ranks high just because of footerlinks in the website of his clients?

The topic sensitive PR system has been improved a lot since Google introduced it back in november. At first it had these radical changes where sites just dropped out of the SERPs. Now they made it work better, in my opinion by allowing each page to have its own topical PR scores rather than just a basic list of topics that are for everybody.

In any way,.. irrelevant backlinks don't work as good as relevant backlinks.

Peter

We started our link building campaign last month and went from a PR 6 to a PR7. Before that we had 0 incoming links except footer text from our clients' sites. We didn't rank exceptionally well, but weren't completely off the radar.

Our link building campaign has produced OK results as far as backlinks go, and gave us a huge boost in the SERPs. Up until this month, almost all incoming links had the exact same anchor text.