27 replies to this topic

[qwerty]

Bob, how many links do you have on your links pages?

If we're just talking about off-site links, I've got 17 on my own site and 55 on the modeling site.

[Scottie]

I'm not seeing that as a pattern, Jill. One of my directories has lots of links in ( a more popular industry) and the links page has a PR3 while the directory pages (one subfolder down) have PR2, just as they should.

On the other one, the links in are mostly from sites Google hasn't found yet.

[amabaie]

Jill, this is what I've been saying for some time, and it is 100% in keeping with what you and some others have been saying about common sense in SEO.

Has anyone else noticed that more and more links pages are showing PR0 these days?

"Links" pages are becoming less-and-less valuable for the exact reason that they are most often created just to exchange links and increase PR. While there are still some links pages offering resources for visitors, most are in fact "link exchange" pages fitting my definition of "link farms". My prediction is that these types of pages will be worth very little in a short while, as the engines adopt my common sense definition.

What to do about this?

Here's my take:

1. If the link is worthwhile for humans or for community (association with the website), go for it regardless of PR.

2. In looking for link exchanges, go for sites that have links spread over the most number of pages, and pages that have the highest text-to-link rations.

3. Look for links, not link exchanges.

[compar]

No, I'm not talking about a toolbar glitch.  It was happening too much, on too many of the same kinds of pages. 

Jill,

I wasn't responding to you. I was responding to the original question in this thread. That is where the quote in my previous message comes from.

As I said I have seen a lot of sites come up with a grayed out PR and then after you move around or refresh them the PR ranking suddenly appears.

[Debra]

1. If the link is worthwhile for humans or for community (association with the website), go for it regardless of PR.

Let me offer another way to think about this:

1. If you find a site with poor Page Rank or PRO and think it's a good link, watch it for a week or two. If the PR doesn't change, move on and find another in the same niche. A lot of times search results change with the PR so you can assume you'll see a dip in rank.

I'd rather be associated with a site that has higher rank all around because people searching will go there.

I want what's best for my client. If patience is all I have to exert, I'm there.

[ldcdc]

Hi.

I came to this webpage from the search engines (read Google ) so I apologize if I'm reviving an old topic. I just couldn't stop from replying.

Jill was talking about links pages with PR0 and I have to say this PR0 thing becomes a trend. I think I'll stop my "link exchanging" campain. (Side note: I love your newsletter, Jill.)

Here's a small sample of a PR0 links page:

At this directory which requires links back in order to get listed some of the links pages have PR0. (The whole website is composed of links pages. It's a directory.)

[Links deleted, please see the guidelines. - Jill]

Why not penalize both of them (the pages are very similar in length and number of outbound links), and why the homepage is still PR7 is something interesting indeed.

From now on I'll stop exchanging links. I'll just keep on adding new, useful content to my websites and "beg" for links. I bet it's going to be a lot of "fun"!

In fact, if most of the links pages will be penalized, most webmasters (and SEO professionals) will become professional "link beggars".

You want to create a "links page". You're free to do it, but you'd have link to valuable sites because no one would ask for a link on that page. The only reason for creating a links page would be (as it used to be before PageRank) to recommend valuable websites. And the websites would have a "links page" just to provide value to the visitors.

How many of us belive in the "recommended partners" pages? When was the last time you clicked full of curiosity on a link that was posted on a "links page"? Or when was the last time you clicked on a "Links" link to find new, valuable websites?

Most link pages today are built for one purpose only. To trick Google. Or, as some like to say, "to trick the search engines". It's not about the visitor, the client or whomever might visit that page. It's all about PageRank and Google. I bet that if it wasn't for PageRank, we wouldn't have one or more worthless "links pages" on every website like we do today.

And I wouldn't have found myself fighting and losing valuable time on getting that highly touted PageRank for my websites. (Yes, that means looking for sites to exchange links with, creating links pages, sending requests and managing this whole process.)

And who said that content is king? It's not! It doesn't get you free links. Why? Because everyone is afraid not to loose some of that important PageRank. In almost two years I received a single free link (meaning that I didn't ask for it) to a website that has plenty of content (not the one in my profile). I agree, one might get a free link if he asks for it. But is that realy free? Where are those webmasters from the 90s that were always looking for valuable resources to link to (freely)?

To put it short, I agree with amabaie. And i will start acting accordingly starting Monday! Why Monday? Because I have a new "links page" prepared. And yes, I hate myself for doing this, but i already spent two days looking for suitable websites. And I feel like yelling.

! That was longer than I expected. Thank you all for your patience and have a nice day! I hope this made some sense.

Edited by Jill, 08 November 2003 - 11:10 PM.

[Scottie]

Welcome to the Forum, Dan. You might also want to look at this thread for more discussion on links.

[ldcdc]

Thank you Scottie. I'm reading it now. I had actually read a part of it earlier today, but I concluded (before reaching the end) that buying text ads is OK (IMHO of course). I'm going to read the whole thread now.

[amabaie]

And who said that content is king? It's not! It doesn't get you free links. Why? Because everyone is afraid not to loose some of that important PageRank.

This, I believe, is a popular misconception. As I understand it, and others on this list who are far more experienced than I might know more, an outbound link does not loose a webmaster PageRank. Each additional outbound link might reduce the PR value for other outbound links, but it does not detract from the website on which the link is placed.

Let me go a step further, since I like predicting things. The biggest way folks like us try to tip the scales in our favor right now is through massive link exchanges, many of them totally automated. Expect the search engines to counteract by discounting anything that shows a very uniform pattern.

What does this mean for outbound links? The more unreciprocated links, both inbound AND outbound, the more likely your links are legitimate "votes" and the less "cooked" your results will be in the eyes of the search engines.

I confess that most of my own outbound links are either through exchanges or are affiliate links. But I also have several that are unreciprocated, just because they are good for my visitors and fit the page's theme.

Again, there are others here who might know more than I on this, but I believe that unreciprocated outbound links will be to a website's distinct advantage a year from now.

[Scottie]

Just to throw in another thought on outgoing links... I have 2 niche-industry directories. They have tons more outgoing links than incoming links. I have no idea what the pagerank is on either site. I can tell you they have #1 rankings across the board for every keyword we were targeting and regardless of how things change in the algos, they are likely to stay there.

The outgoing links have a very narrow focus (one industry only) and there are other content-rich resources on each site. I'm not worried about losing pagerank or rankings on either site. The more I add to the useful content, the more unasked-for links we get and the more spider-friendly pages there are for the spiders to pick up.

I don't believe in trading links with irrelevant sites and I don't believe in hiding outgoing links to preserve the "votes" only for internal links. I'm not saying those tactics don't work- they may or may not- but I am saying there are always other ways to look at adding value to a site.

[DianeV]

I know what you mean, Scottie.

I don't run any directories, but I have a different take on links pages on regular websites; personally, I think they look tacky. There you are, trying to sell a service or product, and then you've got this links page that has nothing to do with anything. I'm not sure what visitors might make of this; I simply feel that it puts the site in a poor light (while trying to send visitors somewhere else). This is not my best scenario for selling.

I do have *one* page where I've recommended various webmaster/designer tools (the ones that I use), but that's pretty much it for the entire site except for a *one* page article discussing the pros and cons of one type of software.

As to "links beggars", well, in the old days, one had to manually submit to search engines and, of course, directories (which still generally require a hand-submit). I remember *having* to check up to a dozen search engines monthly to see which pages may have fallen out -- and keeping written track of all this as well.

I suspect that the fact that Google finds sites fairly quickly *and* drives a lot of traffic has made this seem unnecessary and outmoded. Doesn't mean that it is, particularly in view of some of the changes going on in the search sphere.

[ldcdc]

As I understand it, and others on this list who are far more experienced than I might know more, an outbound link does not loose a webmaster pagerank. Each additional outbound link might reduce the PR value for other outbound links, but it does not detract from the website on which the link is placed.

I definitely agree. And I never meant to say the opposite. I'm sorry if it sounded like I did. The issue here is that most webmasters try to keep the PageRank within their website. Looking at a site like being a bucket that gets filled with PageRank from links posted on other websites, every link to another website is like a whole in that bucket. Why? Because you could always use that "voting" power to your own direct benefit, by linking to your own pages (new pages) and even distribute the PageRank as you like it across your website.

And... here's a thing that i've been thinking lately... Isn't Pagerank (at least in theory) supposed to be a pyramidal type of thing? What i mean is that at the foundation should be lots of low PR webpages (PR1) which are nowhere to be found, or at least are not as numerous as they should be (IMHO).

Foe as much as the original Page Rank theory goes, considering the initial voting power X for a certain webpage (meaning if a single outbound link is on the page, the voting power is X), if two outbound links are on that page, it should distribute the voting power equally, as X/2.

I feel that's not the case though. Why? The best example that comes into my mind right now is to consider those spammy networks of sites owned by the same person/company, linking between them like crazy (pardon my bluntness). Usually there are very few links comming from outside "the network". So PR is generated almost entirely by internal means. Strangely, I've seen no pages with PR1 on those websites. All of them are above PR3. (I've seen such networks in action when i was fooling around with the idea of building a website about contact lenses.)

There are also guys like Michael Campbell (so-called internet marketing gurus) who were able to prove that the minisite networks do work (PageRank wise).

The ultimate proof for me however is the lack of PR1 pages on the web. Or maybe they're hiding or something.

Or... maybe I'm just wrong in my supposition. I'm ready to learn. :learn:

[Scottie]

I think they do work... today. The question is, are you prepared to rebuild everything when it doesn't work anymore?

I just see things like mini-networks as short-sighted "solutions" to getting rankings. When your customers get trapped in them, you lose credibility and sales. A lot of people are a little gun-shy about purchasing things on the internet anyway... would you purchase from a site that had a bunch of links to mirror sites?

And I don't think I'm giving people too much credit here. I've observed user behavior on the internet a lot, watching different types of people. Trust me, if it looks unprofessional to you, it looks unprofessional to them. I'm not saying it scares everyone away- plenty of unprofessional sites drive sales- but they tend to get less repeat sales and they could be capturing more sales from existing traffic.

You can advertise your business in the newspaper, or you can sneak over to the mall parking lot when security isn't watching and put flyers on windshields. Both methods may drive sales... but what do they say about your business?