Proof that Outbound Links improve SERPs?

[Mike Lauher]

Theories abound about what works with Google and what doesn't.

One of the theories that have been bouncing around in different forums is the possibility that outbound links helps a website (page) improve its ranking position. Everybody seems to have an opinion on this, but I've been hard pressed to find any hard evidence one way or another.

So, I decided to conduct an experiment...

I've spent a lot of time studying the Hilltop paper and trying to decipher if its algorithm is being used by Google. The Hilltop paper talks about expert pages and authority pages as a means to return better results for broad query terms. Based on what I understand of the paper, I modeled my experiment on that.

My experiment:

I created three blogs to rank for the search term Nigritude Ultramarine. I designed the original blog to be a psuedo-directory for the term in typical blog fashion. I linked to various websites that I thought gave good information about the contest. My other two blogs were controls. Control A had the same posts and links as the original but I specifically excluded the term Nigritude Ultramarine from the outbound anchor text. Control B had the same posts as the original but no outbound links. This control blog was to determine if the original ranked just due to keyword density.

I had some trouble with Google's duplication filter and had to rearrange the wording on the two control blogs to bypass that. But, other than that, and what I stated above, the blogs are virtually identical

Here is how the blogs ranked this morning:

Nigritude Ultramarine News & Views: 351
Nigritude Ultramarine Control A: 588
Nigritude Ultramarine Control B: 587

Unless there is some flaw with the experiment that I'm not seeing, this seems to indicate that the outbound links in the original blog are giving it a scoring boost for the term Nigritude Ultramarine.

I didn't really set out to prove this point, rather I'm interested in testing a theory. Actually, for awhile there I didn't think there would be a scoring boost. By all means, if someone sees a flaw in the testing, please let me know.

The obvious possible difference is in the inbound links to the different blogs. I tried to control this as much as possible. Yahoo shows all the links as being the same, except for control B which also show a link to itself.

Edit: I checked the rankings through Googlerankings.com.

[happygolucky]

Originally Posted by Mike Lauher

Here is how the blogs ranked this morning:

Nigritude Ultramarine News & Views: 351
Nigritude Ultramarine Control A: 588
Nigritude Ultramarine Control B: 587

Unless there is some flaw with the experiment that I'm not seeing, this seems to indicate that the outbound links in the original blog are giving it a scoring boost for the term Nigritude Ultramarine.

Well it certainly looks like a scoring boost. Perhaps it is worth trying another control but with Nigritude Ultramarine as text replacing the anchor text on the news and views blog. Then you will know if it is really the anchor (ie outbound link) or the actual text that is giving a ranking boost.

[Dan Grossman]

Have you, or BlogSpot through any automatic indexing, created any links to these sites? Have you posted them in forums before analyzing the results?

[Will.Spencer]

How about another test page, but with JavaScript links?

[happygolucky]

Originally Posted by Will.Spencer

How about another test page, but with JavaScript links?

Good idea.

[ronniethedodger]

I think (IMO) you tipped your hand a little too prematurely. These sites are quite young and were only a couple of weeks old before Google went thru one of it's updates. You also mentioned you had problems with the duplicate filter, which taints the results or pushes the start time of those sites ahead further.

I think if you had started this test and followed it thru a few updates, it may have reflected different results (or may not have). As it stands now, your links are out in the open and people are going to fly with them and taint it further.

[incrediblehelp]

I agree Ronnie. Duplication definitely skews any results from this experiment. Google is bound to choose one site of the other two and give a higher value to it.

[dentalplans]

Every site you make should always have unique content and outbound links DO help your rankings. I have seen several of our affiliate sites with outbound links rank well.
Thank you,
Evan Weber, Dentalplans.com

[cbp]

have seen several of our affiliate sites with outbound links rank well.

How do you know they are ranking well because of the outbund links? The good ranking may have nothing to do with it.

CBP

[greeneagle]

I get 4s all the time on launch with just one solitary incoming link from my portfolio page.

Ken

[dentalplans]

Hey, good point, they are doing several other good things on their pages...

[pdstein]

Mike, thanks for posting the message about your experiment. It's very interesting. I hope you'll update this thread every once in a while and keep us updated.

IMO, it would also be interesting to see if the quality of the links matters. This could be tested by setting up another blog like the first, and making the text links go to some unlisted pages that don't have Nigritude Ultramarine anywhere on them.

[stevealmond]

Hi all,

The way I see it is that the techies at google, yahoo, msn, etc, aren't a slate short of a roof. Theses guys are intelligent and on the ball. So, they visit forums like this, find out what we all reckon will get us to number 1 today, and change the algo to suit. Meaning that what we think today will get us number 1 ranking could well be number 1000 ranking tomorrow.

Mike mentioned the hilltop paper, which deals with expert and authority pages. Surely SE's are now tired with site A linking to site B with site B linking to site A. This really is just a meaningless exchange of links.

Surely SE's are now looking at links that are non-reciprocated, link farms excluded, and are giving these links a higher value. Thus making the site an expert or authority site.

So if a site has stacks of outbound links that are not reciprocated, surely the SE would give the site a higher PR value, i.e. an authority site.

Likewise, if a site has a whole bunch of inbound links that are not reciprecated, surely the SE would again give the site a higher priority, i.e. an expert site.

I strongly believe that non reciprocated linking is a very healthy way to promote a website.

Regards

Steve

[Mel]

Surely SE's are now looking at links that are non-reciprocated, link farms excluded, and are giving these links a higher value. Thus making the site an expert or authority site.

Thats an interesting idea Steve, do you have any data to show that this is happening?

[greeneagle]

That hypothesis is on every forum on the Internet between here and South Africa!, although I have not witnessed it with the reciprocal links I have between my clients and I. Maybe it is on a % Basis!
Ken

[Mel]

O/T
I see lots of similar messages in various threads, and seem to recall similar posts in the past, but:

Your homepage.
First:
remove one of your two page titles you only need one.

Second:
Cut your remaining page title down from several hundred words to not more than 15 and do not repeat any keywords.

Third:
Remove one of you meta description tags, you only need one.

Fourth:
Cut your meta description down from several hundred keywords to no more than forty and do not repeat any keywords if possible.

Fifth: Remove two of your three meta keywords tags, you only need one.

Sixth:
Cut you meta keywords tag down from several hundred words to not more than three keyphrases that youtarget on the home page, and target the others on other pages

Seventh:
Remove the 126 word spammy alt tag from the top of the page and replace it with one which uses not more than five words and has something to do with the .jpg its attached to.

Eighth:
Remove the spammy 667 word alt tag from the ransom.jpg and replace it with....


Sorry but there is just to much to be done to your site to furnish the details here.

I sugest that you hire a good SEO.

[incrediblehelp]

To ad to Mel comments the SPAM at the bottom on page is also terrible and should be removed.

[bruwmac]

celebrate

Why does the page reload to default.asp? Is there a benefit? Just curious.

Edit: Yikes. Two new posts while I was typing one line...Mel, Jaan - if he has a PR of 5, it seems all that keyword SPAM isn't hurting...am I wrong?

[ronniethedodger]

The guy is doing pretty good on some terms, but he is lucky so far that he has not been penalized for some of this stuff.

This page http://www.celebratelimo.com/?page=tests in particular (have to be quick with the stop button to freeze it). He has a font class named "Stealth" which is used throughout the page. It is also a page that I assume is a hidden frame also.

<STYLE>
.STEALTH { FONT-SIZE : 1PT; COLOR : #FFFFFF; VISIBILITY : HIDDEN; }
</STYLE>

This guy either knows exactly what he is doing, or some SEO dumped a time bomb on him and he needs some real help.

His site is showing a lot of pages with no titles or descriptions. They are using the mouseover event to trigger a redirect:

onMouseOver="location.href = 'http://www.celebratelimo.com/';

This is the same thing that got and SEO firm and all their clients (when they catch up to them) banned from the Google Index. There is a class action suit now being filed against this firm.

If this is the case, then this guy needs some serious rework to take place very quickly. Either way, it still needs to be done because Google is "sniffing" this out right now. And this one is easy to spot.

I suspect that that is why there is a redirect to the default.asp file too.

[Dave Hawley]

I cannot see that as proof, there are too many other variables in the mix.

IMO, the only way to prove if outbounds links help would be to do this.

Purchase a new domain (any one).

Make it a 1 page site, that is a hompage only.

Have one other related site link to it.

Leave it until it is indexed, ranking and settled down in Google. At least 1 month.

Then, and only then, place a link to another high PR site.

Wait until the next PR update and see.

Personally, I think it's a waste of time. If not, all a software site needs to do is link to MS and many other high PR pages.

I cannot see any logical reason why linking to a high PR page would make a site more relavant to Google. On top of this, it's just too easy to be manipulated.

[Dave Hawley]

The way I see it is that the techies at google, yahoo, msn, etc, aren't a slate short of a roof. Theses guys are intelligent and on the ball. So, they visit forums like this, find out what we all reckon will get us to number 1 today, and change the algo to suit. Meaning that what we think today will get us number 1 ranking could well be number 1000 ranking tomorrow.

Too true! I think all those particapting in Nigritude Ultramarine game are only showing Google how they (they ones playing) are manipulating the SERP's. I for one would NEVER want to attract the attention of Google for that reason!

[Dave Hawley]

Likewise, if a site has a whole bunch of inbound links that are not reciprecated, surely the SE would again give the site a higher priority, i.e. an expert site.

I like this guy! Someone is actually thinking rather than parroting and taken the most popular theory.

Steve, you may not win many friends with your statements, but you have won me (lucky you) :)

[happygolucky]

Originally Posted by stevealmond

The way I see it is that the techies at google, yahoo, msn, etc, aren't a slate short of a roof. Theses guys are intelligent and on the ball. So, they visit forums like this, find out what we all reckon will get us to number 1 today, and change the algo to suit. Meaning that what we think today will get us number 1 ranking could well be number 1000 ranking tomorrow.

They will surely not change the algo because some of us are getting high rankings. They will change their algo if it gets more relevant results though. They may wade through these posts to find errors, problems, unsual or strange results and the like.

[happygolucky]

Likewise, if a site has a whole bunch of inbound links that are not reciprecated, surely the SE would again give the site a higher priority, i.e. an expert site.

It might keep Pagerank but i think the jury is still out on this one.

Originally Posted by Dave Hawley

but you have won me (lucky you) :)

Indeed Lucky you Steve ;-)

[happygolucky]

Originally Posted by stevealmond

I strongly believe that non reciprocated linking is a very healthy way to promote a website.

I agree with you Steve. It is a matter of personal preference though if you want to trade links. If you don't (and I don't on at least one of my sites) then you have to find another way of getting links into that site.

[Mike Lauher]

Originally Posted by ronniethedodger

I think (IMO) you tipped your hand a little too prematurely. These sites are quite young and were only a couple of weeks old before Google went thru one of it's updates. You also mentioned you had problems with the duplicate filter, which taints the results or pushes the start time of those sites ahead further.

I think if you had started this test and followed it thru a few updates, it may have reflected different results (or may not have). As it stands now, your links are out in the open and people are going to fly with them and taint it further.

All very good points, and quite possibly true. My understanding is that Google updates SERPs through everflux and that the "updates" now are only to change the tool bar green bar and backlinks.

There was fluctuation yesterday afternoon in the SERPs. Yesterday afternoon the sites ranked:

Nigritude Ultramarine News & Views: 489
Nigritude Ultramarine Control A: 587
Nigritude Ultramarine Control B: 586

This morning they were close to what they were yesterday morning.

Nigritude Ultramarine News & Views: 355
Nigritude Ultramarine Control A: 591
Nigritude Ultramarine Control B: 590



Assuming someone doesn't screw with the experiment by making unequal links to the sites, the only thing I can think of doing is to take "nigritude ultramarine" out of the anchor text of the original blog and see what that does with the SERPs. [edit: done]

I appreciate all the comments, pro & con.

[Mike Lauher]

Originally Posted by Dan Grossman

Have you, or BlogSpot through any automatic indexing, created any links to these sites? Have you posted them in forums before analyzing the results?

I don't know enough about BlogSpot or what links it creates, so I can't answer this question.

I have discussed the experiment and linked to the original blog in another forum and in this forum in this thread here. The thread in the other forum has been cached, but the thread shows a PR0. The thread in this forum does not show that it has been cached.

I have checked the backlinks to the original blog in many major search engines and they do not show a backlink to this thread or the other thread.

Is this a possible contamination to the experiment? Yeah, it is. I hope by removing the term "nigritude ultramarine" from the anchor text of the and seeing if that does anything with the SERPs for the original blog, I can determine if it is the link from the forums causing the scoring boost or if it is the outbound links.

The upside to this possible contamination is that it might offer some evidence that forum links might boost SERPs.

[paulduffield]

I can have busy well ranked sites pointing to ones with poor content and it doesn't seem to help their rankings much at all with a plain url link so (content is a first port of call of course).

However, add some descriptive text to the outgoing link on the busy site to the not so busy one and the ranking start to creep up.

I now have a few words (inc rel keywords/phrases) on all of my outgoing links pages and this seems to pay dividends on the poorly ranked ones so presumably helps the better ranked ones too.

Sites I have that have links pointing towards them from busy sites still don't get decent rankings even after time. Even with good content. If there is no descriptive text to back up the link. (relavency?)

Again, add some outgoing (mainly unrelated links) to the poorly ranked site and there is a big leap up again to the point where the ranking start to look good for even a pretty naff site.

I only use about ten to fifteen links per page and all now have descriptions of the URL as described above but it seems to work and I think it is an underated technique for boosting the rankings somewhat.

We were all sold recently on outgoing links = bad recently, but I think this mainly applies to the farms that are probably identified as such by Google.

A few sensible links to other sites that have some refering text seems to benefit all as it helps the information process along and most people will want to point people elsewhere for additional information at some stage (including the robots at the same time of course - how else would the get around ? )

Hope this helps fill in some gaps maybe.

[Mike Lauher]

Originally Posted by Dave Hawley

I cannot see that as proof, there are too many other variables in the mix.

IMO, the only way to prove if outbounds links help would be to do this.

Purchase a new domain (any one).

Make it a 1 page site, that is a hompage only.

Have one other related site link to it.

Leave it until it is indexed, ranking and settled down in Google. At least 1 month.

Then, and only then, place a link to another high PR site.

Wait until the next PR update and see.

Personally, I think it's a waste of time. If not, all a software site needs to do is link to MS and many other high PR pages.

I cannot see any logical reason why linking to a high PR page would make a site more relavant to Google. On top of this, it's just too easy to be manipulated.

If it is Hilltop in the algorithm, then this approach probably wouldn't work.

Here is a brief summary of my interpretation of Hilltop.

Expert pages are qualified by:

1. Meeting a certain "out-degree" threshold. The paper mentions 5. I don't know if this is 5 links or 5%, my guess is that it is a percentile number. (a page with one link in and one link out would have an out-degree rating of 0)

2. Expert pages must be non-affiliated to each other and to the target page.

Affiliated is defined as:

a. The first three octets of the IP address being the same, and,

b. The right most non-generic word of the url being the same. (ex. ibm.com is affilated to ibm.co.uk)


Expert pages are culled from the general population of the web into a seperate inverted index in order to determine authority pages.

Authority pages are determined and ranked by:

1. Having 2 or more non-affiliated expert pages pointing to it.

2. Having the search term query (labeled as "key word") in either the Title, Heading, or Anchor text (labeled as "key phrase) on the page that points to it. (If the search term query is in the title, then all the outbound links are determined to be relevant, if the term is in the heading, then all the links underneath that heading are relevant until the next heading occurs, if the term is in the anchor text, then only the url that link points to is determined as relevant.)

3. Inbound links from expert pages are scored two different ways.

a. Level Score: If the search term query is in the title a level score of 16 is assigned (according to the paper). If the term is in the heading, then a level score of 6 is assigned, and if it is in the anchor text a level score of 1 is assigned.

b. Fullness Score: The fulness score is subtracted from the level score depending on how diluted the key word is within the key phrase.

I assume that this "authority scoring" is then added to the other variables in the general algorithm.


Initially when I read the paper, I thought that an "expert" page would be determined as more relevant than a non-expert page for a given search term query. But, the paper does not support this theory. If it is, then I just happened to stumble on it by accident.

[chris_g]

If link text is involved aren't the experiments really just testing the value of link text and not the value of the link itself?

There are literally thousands of link directories (veritcle as well as general) out there that can be used to determine the value of outbound links. Many of them cover a full spectrum of topics so the issue of keyword related link text is negated. Some don't use descriptions and some use image links. Most of these directories don't have too many inbound links compared to outbound links. They seem to enjoy fairly high PR over since they range from PR4-8. Evaluating the value of out bound links where it occurs natually is a better way to determine its value.

[chiff]

Originally Posted by Dave Hawley

... If not, all a software site needs to do is link to MS and many other high PR pages.

I cannot see any logical reason why linking to a high PR page would make a site more relavant to Google. On top of this, it's just too easy to be manipulated.

I think the concept in play is that a site that links to related high PR sites is providing a good resource to its visitors. Just linking to a random collection of high PR sites won't do.

The flaw is that there are a limited number of high PR sites on any given topic so you are somewhat limited in your choices.

Then there's the problem of having some of those high PR sites in your niche being competitors... but a good solid resources section with links to relevant information is a plus for your visitors which makes your site a better place to visit...and that has always been something Google and the other SEs have rewarded.

Margaret

[Sharon & Roy]

Originally Posted by Mike Lauher

Theories abound about what works with Google and what doesn't.

One of the theories that have been bouncing around in different forums is the possibility that outbound links helps a website (page) improve its ranking position.

Control A had the same posts and links as the original but I specifically excluded the term Nigritude Ultramarine from the outbound anchor text. Control B had the same posts as the original but no outbound links. This control blog was to determine if the original ranked just due to keyword density.

Hi Mike,

Not sure we understand what exactly you believe that your experiment shows, so rather than to attempt to figure it out, may be it would be best if you explain why the following query ranks your pages as it does.

In other words, why does the following page (#2) ...

nigritude-ultramarine-009.blogspot.com

... Outrank the other two subdomain pages < nigritude-ultramarine-007.blogspot.com > (#21) - < nigritude-ultramarine-008.blogspot.com > (#23) and also why does it outrank them by such a large margin?

Thanks!

QUERY: Building And Domain Name Issues SEO Contest Tests Ability

http://www.google.com/search?q=Build...bility&num=100

Results 1 - 64 of about 107 for Building And Domain Name Issues SEO Contest Tests Ability. (0.40 seconds)


RANKINGS:

#2
Nigritude Ultramarine Control B
... Cache Bashing: Google API Used In SEO War SES London: Link Building And Domain Name
Issues SEO Contest Tests Ability to Game Google Nigritude Ultramarine: What ...
nigritude-ultramarine-009.blogspot.com/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages

#21
Nigritude Ultramarine News & Views
... Google search engine game Cache Bashing: Google API Used In SEO War SES London:
Link Building And Domain Name Issues SEO Contest Tests Ability to Game Google ...
nigritude-ultramarine-007.blogspot.com/ - 24k - Cached - Similar pages

#22
Nigritude Ultramarine News & Views: More Nigritude Ultramarine ...
... Google search engine game Cache Bashing: Google API Used In SEO War SES London:
Link Building And Domain Name Issues SEO Contest Tests Ability to Game Google ...
nigritude-ultramarine-007.blogspot.com/ 2004/06/more-nigritude-ultramarine-news.html - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

#23
Nigritude Ultramarine Control A
... SES London: Link Building And Domain Name Issues SEO Contest Tests Ability to
Game Google A Contest to Outwit Google After all, 21st century Internet ...
nigritude-ultramarine-008.blogspot.com/ - 24k - Cached - Similar pages

Your Friends,

Sharon and Roy Montero

[jackson992]

What about my linking to a site A. In return they would link to one of my other sites. This way it's not a straight reciprocal link

[ssbond]

Just for your information

I checked rankings with Web CEO (through Google API)
Keyword: Nigritude Ultramarine
Competition: 130,000
Nigritude Ultramarine News & Views: 251
Nigritude Ultramarine Control A: 216
Nigritude Ultramarine Control B: 252

Now results from GoogleRankings.com
Keyword: Nigritude Ultramarine
Nigritude Ultramarine News & Views: 247
Nigritude Ultramarine Control A: 206
Nigritude Ultramarine Control B: 248

Interesting, the page without kwd in outbound links beats the page that has kwd in outbound links!
Why?!!