105 replies to this topic

[Scottie]

Split off anchor text questions...

Good call Brian!

[gototom]

Personally, I wish very badly that off-topic links did not count and did not help sites get to the top. I think it's wrong and unfair, and it sucks when sites get to the top simply because they join a linking network that gets them there.

Hi Jill,

I do not understand why you feel so strongly about this.

Does it also bother you when people buy links from PR9 sites? Or is it okay if they bought a link on a PR9 site and it was on topic, it would be okay with you?

Also if only on topic links counted people would just exchange links with on topic companies. Which people already do, because they think Google gives them even more credit for on topic links.

There are many details of SEO that would seem unfair and wrong to many people. E.g. someone who never studied or tried to learn anything about SEO have commented to me the whole concept and methods of SEO seem unfair.

[Cygnus]

I do not understand why you feel so strongly about this.
and methods of SEO seem unfair.

There are two ways to look at it I suppose:

1. Off-topic links do nothing to prove a site's relevancy and thus should not be considered in determining how a site ranks.

2. View search engines like any other mass-media, where advertising may not always play up to the specific audience, but nonetheless exists and causes no harm.

I'm in between myself; I don't care for the fact that I have to have off-topic links just to compete with some of my competitors, but don't think that my tenancity in obtaining advertising from non-traditional sources hurts the medium itself.


Cygnus

[dodger]

Who determines an off topic link.???
I have a commercial real estate site so everything to do with business is relevant - Govt links, removalists. lawyers etc etc all relevant but probably seen as off topic.

[Cygnus]

Who determines an off topic link.???
I have a commercial real estate site so everything to do with business is relevant - Govt links, removalists. lawyers etc etc all relevant but probably seen as off topic.

Perhaps that's the very reason everything is included.

I get links from debt consolidation to my payday loan site...relevant right?
I also get links from teaching sites to my payday loan site. On first glance, it's not relevant. Considering that teachers file for payday loans more than any other economic group might change some minds though.

Good point; it's cleared it up a bit in my head now too...bring on the "off-topic" links, except for the guestbook and FFA garbage.

Cygnus

[gototom]

I agree with Dodger. It is not black and white.

[Jill]

Does it also bother you when people buy links from PR9 sites? Or is it okay if they bought a link on a PR9 site and it was on topic, it would be okay with you?

It's okay with me whatever they do!

I just don't think it was Google's intention with PageRank to count links that are not actually a "vote" for a particular site.

Joining a linking network, does not a vote make, imo.

Jill

[torka]

It's very easy for "ethical" SEOs to say that you should only get links from on-topic sites. But the truth of the matter is that links that are off-topic do indeed work.

But the question then becomes, what is an on-topic site? And I'm asking this seriously, because I hear people saying this, and on principal I agree... except that when I begin thinking about how SEs would implement restrictions on "off topic" links in any practical way, my brain starts to hurt.

So, usually, I go out and drink a couple of hard apple ciders (don't like beer), and I feel much better. But now y'all are making me think about it again, and we're all out of hard cider.

Sure, there are clear examples at both ends of the spectrum -- when you have a site about a hotel with an inbound link from a site about vacation planning that specializes in the region in which the hotel is located, I think we'd all agree that is probably on-topic.

And if the same site about the hotel has an inbound link from a site about plastic injection molding equipment, I think most of us would believe that is probably off-topic.

(Except that maybe the injection molding equipment manufacturer is located next door to the hotel and the particular page on their site is talking about places that visitors to their plant can stay, in which case it could be considered on-topic... and that's when my headache usually starts.)

My gut feeling is that most links fall somewhere in between the two extremes, and many times it's going to be somewhat difficult to sort out which links are "on topic" and which are off. (Of course, I'm not talking about FFA sites -- clearly those are not "on topic" for much of anything, and I'm given to understand from reading other experts on this forum and elsewhere that inbound links from a link farm don't count for much, if anything.)

But of the remaining links, those from non-FFA-type sites, at what point on the spectrum do you decide that they're no longer "on topic"? Would there be some sort of sliding scale: "this link is 80% relevant, so it will pass through twice the PR of this other link that's only 40% relevant"? Or do we cut it off cleanly: "any link that's less than 60% on-topic doesn't count toward your PR at all"?

If you're a SE algo, how do you determine the degree of "on topic-ness"? Is it based on the overall site topic? (And given that many sites actually have multiple topics, how do you determine the "main" site topic to begin with?) The topic of the page on which the link resides? (Again, how do you determine this?) The text of the link and/or the text immediately surrounding the link?

I'm so confused...

--Torka

[Scottie]

The way I understand it, I think they are moving towards rewarding on-topic links more while still counting all links.

Local Rank will reward pages that have links from other pages in the same SERP. That's about as on-topic as you get.

They aren't doing it today, but I believe they will.

[Cygnus]

I'd imagine that on-topic will be decided by the categories you find on the G Toolbar? If so, they do indeed have a lot of work to do in order to get that part of the algo working properly.

Cygnus

[Scottie]

Well, think about this:

If you are optimizing for a business, other similar or complementary businesses are on-topic, meaning they will probably appear in the same search results.

If that business also does business locally, other local businesses will likely appear in the same search results.

What is defined as on-topic are the other pages that will appear in the same search result. SO, if you are optimizing for a wide range of phrases, you would be looking at a wide range of link partners as well.

Try and get deep-links to the specific page for that term. It will make a differnce as the Keep the Faith When the Algo Changes- it can't hurt for now.

[Cygnus]

I can already see a way to manipulate this if on-topic links are more highly regarded than off-topic links: create a few similar domains that cross-link for essentially the same keywords. *I'm assuming it's okay to post this since this type of algorithm isn't currently employed*

I don't know...I still don't like any attempt to determine "how" relevant a link is. From the teachers -> payday loans example I used above, that correlation is extremely high...much more so than mortgage applications and payday loan applications, even though they may appear in the SERPs for "loan application."

Hopefully someone from the Googleplex will read this thread and take that issue into consideration.

Cygnus

[serenapeterson]

Hi all,

I'm a new member and I appreciate all of your comments and ideas. My interest picked up when Cyngus said:

I can already see a way to manipulate this if on-topic links are more highly regarded than off-topic links: create a few similar domains that cross-link for essentially the same keywords.

I have three e-commerce firms I work for that all sell the same product just with different prices and identities. We do this so that we can target different customers based on price and promotion.The problem with making a "reciprocal" link page is that we don't want to send a potential customer out of our store once they visit. By all means, you want to keep them in there reading, clicking, searching and shopping.

As a side note, I work very hard at getting text based links in place on a variety of industry-related sites and am making good progress in securing them. That combined with keyword copy and good header tags seems to make a significant difference. (Read Jill's fantastic "Nitty-Gritty" guide for more details!)

But let's say I had a link at the bottom of all three stores on the index file linking to the parent company like this:

"Developed and Maintained by "NAME OF WEB DESIGN COMPANY"

Then when you visited the link you would see three links to our stores:

Store1.com
Store2.com
Store3.com

Would this be considered spamming or unethical? Any penalties for using this method? This would mean four sites all pointing to one another in total, three completely in sync in terms of content and keywords. I don't want to "manipulate" page rank in any way. I just want our stores to support one another if they can. I have had this in the back of my mind for quite awhile but have been worried about the implications.

Hope you all don't consider this question to be silly but it may have a desirable long-term effect.

Many thanks,

Serena

[qwerty]

Hi Serena. Welcome.

If you've got three sites selling the same products at different prices for different audiences, I think the search engines should be the least of your concerns regarding linking to all three from the same place. Do you want the potential customers of one of these sites to know about the other two?

If I knew of three places where I could just as easily get the same product and I knew that the only meaningful difference was the price, there's no way I'd make my purchase from anything but the cheapest one.

Am I misunderstanding the situation?

[Jill]

Yes, I was thinking the same thing as Bob.

Won't that be confusing when they click on those links and see different prices for the same stuff?

Jill

Oh, and welcome, Serena! Glad you found the Nitty-gritty useful.