Can the King (Content) Be Overthrown by Quality Links?

[mlevenhagen]

We all know that PageRank is heavily based on Inbound Links (Back Links). So that is our focus always. We submit to directories, participate in link exchanges, and wait for those natural links to our website.

But have we paid enough attention to the links leaving our website? Is Google paying more attention to this now?

Of course we know that linking to a bad neighborhood, link farm or FFA is a bad thing. It can get you banned, but what other factors might Google consider?

Could it be if you link to Authority Sites, Certain Industries, or Sites with high popularity (PageRank) that could boost your rankings?

Side Note
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I've often wondered. We think that everything that Google does pertains to all of us. But could their Algorithms very by industry, geography, or other factors that make us different?

Would they apply one set of rules for internet marketing sites and another for insurance carriers... they are two different animals.
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I'm sure linking to a PR0 is not going to harm you or penalize you, but higher PR might help.

What started me thinking about this is my insurance website. I have a page with no text (except the title). I have almost 50 outbound links going to Insurance Carrier Websites.

The Link: Insurance Carriers

And it has a PR4 after this last update. I know it isn't weighing inbounds. It's a fairly new website and I don't have a whole lot of inbound links coming in.

And it's not getting PR from the Home Page; the Home Page is a PR2.

In this case the King (content) has been over thrown by valuable Outbound Links.

Just my thoughts,

[tcampione]

Your example is certainly a conundrum, but I can’t believe that OBLs to key sites would be the reason for a rank boost, and according to the formula could not result in a PR boost.

Others (far more qualified than me) have suggested the possibility of a ‘randomization’ factor. A PR4 with 3 IBLs from a parent page with lower PR defies logic. But then again, this may be exactly what GG is after. Is it possible that a randomization factor is applied for the sole purpose of confusing the SEO world?

I suppose it is possible, but we’ll have to see if perhaps some other pattern emerges.

[JAugusto]

You are 100% right. Because of the blogsphere explosion - in my opining - Google trashed what was more precious on the web: fresh and worthy content.

For instance, I never made any intentional PR improvement on my web project and never paid much attention to back links and yet I was PR5. With this update, my site dropped to 4.

I was betting on Google Bot becoming truly fair and intelligent enough to promote sites who create really good and valuable free content.

Guess I was wrong.

Site is http://www.zapfuture.com in case you're wondering.

[voasi]

But have we paid enough attention to the links leaving our website? Is Google paying more attention to this now?

This was actually discussed at the recent SES conference in Chicago. If you were to think like a reverse engineer and apply your knowledge to Google, where linking to a 'Bad Neighborhood' results in decrease in rankings...why not link to authority figures within your industry for a boost (non-reciprocal)?

Like I said, this was talked about and I know of a few to have tested this little theory in a positive way. Link to your category/industry in DMOZ and Yahoo!. See what happens.

The amount this will effect your site is relative to everything else that pertains to good SEO, but a little boost is just what your site might need to gain a top 10 listing.

[LinkAdage]

Originally Posted by mlevenhagen

And it has a PR4 after this last update. I know it isn't weighing inbounds. It's a fairly new website and I don't have a whole lot of inbound links coming in.

And it's not getting PR from the Home Page; the Home Page is a PR2.

If you have at least one PR5 linking to that page that would boost it up to a PR 4.

As a test, I have a directory site with that has nothing but 200 outbound links and absolutely zero inbound links and that page is a PR0. At one time it had one PR 5 linked to it and had a PR4 on the upper level pages, however, once the PR5 link was removed the site changed to a PR0. This is an ongoing experiment on the effect of outbound links I have been running for almost 2 years.

It also was mentioned at the Vegas conference that it might be a good thing to link to an authority site. Maybe this is just Google's way of having us identify the "Hilltop" sites?

[greeneagle]

tcampione:

..."and according to the formula"...

How old is that formula everyone loves to fall back on?

Why would they make the newer versions public?

I keep hearing several people quote the old formulas, written well before "Florida" and I keep seeing others quote the "Universe =1" nonsense.

I really believe that GOOGLE has transended these concepts in newer algs and this is just another example.

IMO - They are making a pretty blatant statement this time around that IBL's and upkeep of IBL's don't have to be done to maintain or improve "Public PR"...examples are pouring in everywhere!

Ken

[mrrobertstv]

We8there.com has been around since 1999. When Google created the legendary PR ratings my home page has had a consistent 6 PR rating. I personally choose our outgoing links, some are relevant while some are simply my personal choice; I know I have no control of our incoming links; however, there has been no change to our PR rating as a result of our removing or placing of link. Our suggested links page even has a PR of 5 (go figure) Oh and one more thing, we don't have Meta tags on our site. We removed them two years ago; however, we are still on the first page of almost every Search Engine! (try restaurant reviews as a search) I am a firm believer that "CONTENT IS KING" Not to mentioned we recorded more than 1,055,000 page views for 2004…..I enjoy laughing at the SEO when they call me to tell me they can get me on the first page of any search engine! Choose your links wisely.

[tcampione]

Originally Posted by greeneagle

How old is that formula everyone loves to fall back on?
I really believe that GOOGLE has transended these concepts in newer algs and this is just another example.

The formula is very old... and no one is suggesting that it has never been changed. But, the thread relates to PR specifically. Is it possible that the current PR formula is now calculated on OBLs *instead* of IBLs? I doubt it. If that were true, every ODP screen scrape would enjoy the same PR9 as DMOZ itself.

The question is why www.iiiinsurance.com internal pages would be PR4 when their only inbounds are from one another and home. Home is PR2. How do 10 (or so) internal pages get PR4 without links from an external site? (This still goes unanswered.)

As for the overall algo, I’m the first to agree that much has changed and probably in ways that none of us is even dreaming.

Matt’s question for us is (paraphrasing) ‘can OBLs be responsible for this PR anomaly’? My opinion is no, for reasons stated above. If instead Matt were saying that his site ranked #1 for competitive keywords, I would be right there with OBLs *may* help SERPs. In fact I believe they do.

[mlevenhagen]

This is really all speculation. I'm just throwing some things out there. There is only one group of people that will ever really know what's going on... Google. But we must put our heads together so we know what direction to head...

Speculation:

Quit possibly the two PRs are becoming distinctly different... the visual (toolbar) and Google's internal PR (or whatever it's called) that we have no clue about and effects the SERPs.

Imagine:

1) The Toolbar is designed for those visiting a website. It might weigh content a little more and overall usefulness of that website, THICK Content (PDF Docs, which this insurance website has... and, in turn, can add many pages of content if Google can read them)... and useful outbound links:)

2) The internal PR (or whatever you call it) that Google keeps under their roof out of our sight, combines more technical stuff, weighs inbounds more heavily, and other info that help them rank sites in the SERPs...

I've read many people say that the Google Toolbar is for entertainment... well, maybe it's not for the webmaster. Maybe its for the surfer. Maybe it's becoming more related to content and relevancy and quality outbound links...

OK, Now open your eyes...

I really think it has been obvious the IBLs were going to be muffled. Google isn't going to allow webmasters to artificially raise their postion in the SERPs by campaigning for IBLs. It's goes against Googles whole focus...

They wanted popularity to be natural. If it's natural it's a real indication how important your website is. But now it's been clouded and they have no choice but to dampen it's importance now or in the future...

BTW, no this PR is not really doing anything for me in the SERPs, but then I am in a very competitive market so I would suspect I have a little more work in front of me...

I am getting some visitors from the MSN Beta Engine though :)

2005 should be really interesting...

...

[voasi]

On a side note for whoever wants to konw, your actually pagerank is always displayed correctly in one area - Google Directory.

If you've been doing some link building and want to know your actual PR from your efforts before a global toolbar update, jump over to the Google Directory and see what your PR is. To get into the Google Directory requires inclusion into DMOZ.org.

[tcampione]

On your news page, the link to home returns 404. It links to index.htm. So, other than the obvious that it should be fixed, my question is “was there an index.htm?”

If you renamed the file, then that might explain why index.html is only a PR2. Perhaps all pages including index.htm (if it existed) would be PR4. But, since index.html is ‘new’ it hasn’t been around long enough to get the full PR from the other pages.

If this is all true, that leaves only ‘how would this site get a PR4 with only a few BLs?”

Well, a check of BLs at Yahoo! shows a total of 34 links to the domain (linkdomain:http://www.iiiinsurance.com). And, based on forum chatter, GG seems to be handing out PR 1- 4 quite generously. It is PR 5 + that appears to have become more difficult to attain/maintain.

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by Voasi

On a side note for whoever wants to know, your actual pagerank is always displayed correctly in one area - Google Directory.

I'm not sure that's true. The Google Directory PR isn't updated much more frequently than the toolbar PR. It does seem to be updated at a different time, though, so I suppose it's worth checking to look for discrepancies.

[mlevenhagen]

tcampione,

Thanks for pointing that out!

Your statement that "PR 1-4 seems to be handed out generously", could have some validity.

I would imagine Google uses a point system for calculating PR. For Example:

Relevant Content/metas/links = 1 pt
Good Outbound = 1 pt
Authority of the site = 1 pt
Validation = 1 pt
Clean Text (no stop words etc) = 1 pt
Inbound links = 1-4 based on importance/PR

So if you have a good, clean, relevant, useful website you get a PR4. If it's code is perfect, you get the PR5. If you have 20,000 PR5 or better sites linking to you, you get a PR10.......

Again I'm speculating...

P.S. I don't know where my brain is coming up with this stuff... I switched from Maxwell House coffee to Folgers... maybe that's having an effect...

[mlevenhagen]

Wow!

You know what I just discovered... totally unrelated to topic... sort of.

I was going to correct that link to the non-existant index page and I couldn't find the page to edit it... then I realized it's doesn't have a ".htm" in the URL............... Oops. I didn't even know it would upload without it. That would explain the PR3 on the page instead of a PR4....

Fact: If you leave .htm off your URL, you will be docked a PR point:)

Well, I'm changing it... it'll probably be a PR0 for a while now... At least on the toolbar:)

[RISTMO]

Try linking to Google and see if they boost you :-D.

[RISTMO]

Try linking to Google and see if they boost you :-D.

[greeneagle]

RISTMO,

Should we take one of their Sites they recently downgraded to a PR5 themselves ( http://66.102.11.99/ ) or take one of the Higher Ranked Google Sites?

Are you saying that OBL's are entrenching on Ibl's traditional position in the algs now?

LOL

Ken

[Sanjo]

Try linking to Google and see if they boost you :-D.

I wouldn't doubt that there be a little bone thrown in for sites that link to Google.

Why not?

[Sanjo]

mlevenhagen,

I am not sure what you mean. Could you re-explain?

[greeneagle]

Sanjo,

According to Google; link:www.google.com has 3,030,000 IBL's.

According to YAHOO; link:http:www.google.com has 30,200,000 IBl's.

Who's closer, and just how many Sites are over-rated then?

There's no "magic" in linking to Google. They would be "busted" for that "indescretion" in half a heartbeat.

Ken

[RISTMO]

Lol, so much for the site saying it couldn't send my last post and then sending it twice.

Anyway, I'd link straight to the big one. After all, what typical user's going to type in http://66.102.11.99/? Google doesn't need it to have a high pr.


The randomization idea someone through out there a bit ago sounds good, though. After all, without some element of "luck", Google's just a program looking for certain info. To create a site that ranks well, you just have to feed Google the info it wants. But with some randomization, not only would it help publicize some of the lower-ranking but equal-quality sites, but it would also keep people from knowing what to feed the engine. After all, if the results are supposed to be unbiased, based on the quality of the page itself, people shouldn't know all the details of how the page ranks and should just focus all their effort on writing the best content for their site.

IMO, there should be 4 main categories of search engines sections (which is seems Google is starting to realize). There should an information category: history, facts, formulas, anything considered scientifically or in whatever way proven to be consistantly true. Then there should be an opinions category: Blogs, personal websites portraying individual's thoughts, also religious or other similar categories. Then a shopping category: listing everything for sale on the web and searchable by location, price, shipping costs, feedback/reliability, etc. And finally a file sharing engine, where people can search for programs, music, videos, images, etc. to download. Of course legal restrictions come into play on that last one, but napster and other companies are already finding ways through that.

It would seem to be that the internet would be so much more useful if everything could actually be ORGANIZED. Think about it. There's countless thousands or millions of pages with identical content. What if Google or some other search engine could implement ways to seperate sales pitches from fact and provide a way for EVERYONE to have an equal chance to be seen. How many hundreds or thousands of web design companies never rank in the search engines for keywords besides their hometown? They would have an equal chance in a somewhat improved Froogle-type engine, limited only by what others searched for, not by ranking for those searches. The information search engine would be based on user-feedback (searches could click links to ban certain sites that were actually selling or presenting opinions instead of fact). Of course there'd be some hurdles to work through, but things could be so much better than they are now. And more than anything, the engines would finally be doing what they were originally meant for--not for people to make money optimizing pages, but fo