The New GOOGLE Linking Myth - Dispelled

[greeneagle]

The New GOOGLE Linking Myth - Dispelled

There is a strong myth going around, that I have recently seen several references to in the Webmaster Forums everywhere:

“If you gain links (IBL’s) too quickly, they are discounted or can even throw your Site back into the Sandbox.”

There are several types of IBL’s, some are garbage and some are very valuable at any rate of acquisition. Let’s examine a few and discuss how the SEs view them:

1) Linkfarms, Linksmills,

Although “generic” they are non-relevant to your site. Anyone can submit your Site to them and cause you a penalty if it were fact that these could hurt you. They are pretty much just ignored by all SE’s and have no beneficial or detrimental affect on targeted traffic, SERPs or PageRank.

2) Link Exchanges, Reciprocal Links with non Relevant Sites

GOOGLE has pretty well shut down any residual value from these type of links. They are just not worth the effort for any little remaining value that may or may not exist. Some are claiming that a rapid increase of these kind of links will result in an alleged “Sandbox” visit.

Unfortunately, some webmasters, Site Owners and the likes (newbies, no-doubt) continue to contribute funds and resources to this DEAD HORSE, and when they don’t see results they think or are told by the unscrupulous or the unknowing that it is because they have a new Site and are still in the Sandbox. Here comes that garbage truck again!

Why would GOOGLE need to inflict any kind of wounds when they have already deprecated any value there through their link relevancy filters?

3) Link Exchanges, Reciprocal Links with Relevant Sites

There remains some value here but not as much as in Generic Relevant IBLs. There is no reason to punish relevancy, GOOGLE just doesn’t do that.

4) Non-Relevant “Generic” (one-way) IBL’s from High Ranking pages

The relevancy filters have greatly depreciated value from these links that are usually purchased. They are easy to spot with the relevancy algs in place. We believe that OBLs (outbound links) relevancy has been given more weight and can diminish the overall relevancy ranking of the issuing Site, resulting in a decrease in PageRank at some threshold.

There may be some exceptions here, such as Religious, Political or other “esoteric” links. I am sure there is some Non-Relevant tolerance level or threshold that is simply disregarded. There has to be, to accomodate their own alg shortcommings.

5) Relevant “Generic” (one-way) links

These are good as gold. They are acquired in many ways:

Normal Pick up by other Sites as good content reference.
Articles republished by journalists.
Press Releases picked up and published by News Agencies.
Blogs and Blog links.

The higher the PageRank, of the issuing Site the more value the IBL carries. Generic IBLs with appropriate anchor text from high ranking sites carry the most value of all, good as platinum!

IBL and OBL Relevancy filtering is in high gear. The associated link relevancy algs have become very mature over the last couple of updates this year, solving a number of problems GOOGLE and the Internet community was facing.

When a great onslaught of sudden new IBLs start coming in for a Site they are simply passed through the Relevancy Algs and handled appropriately by the GOOGLE IBL machine. If they are relevant then they are placed on the top shelf (promoted) if they don’t pass they are disregarded. It’s really that simple. When disregarded, misappropriated promotional efforts fail, many inexperienced webmasters, site owners, developers and designers call it a “sandbox”. After all we do live in a world that wants to place the blame elsewhere.

Now that I have angered several readers, let’s propose another view:

I think we all agree that the primary driving factor that determines any SE’s foothold on public popularity is Relevancy. If anyone disagrees with that, they don’t need to be involved with the Internet at all and simply don’t understand the basic economics of our multi-billion dollar industry.

Relevancy is not a “dirty word”, but it does have to encompass “content freshness” as a top priority. That is where this new myth about accelerated pace of IBL causing problems falls flat on it’s ass. Public Interest, Current Events and Breaking News are all at a Relevancy Premium to the SE’s. How could they possibly filter out a greatly accelerated pace of Relevant Generic IBL’s?

The Relevancy Filtering already in place also measures how often links are selected and how long a viewer visits among other parameters. The algs then automatically calculate value and ascribe SERP promotion or demotion.

It’s that simple.

You can take this new GOOGLE linking myth that believes an accelerated gain of IBLs is not desirable right out to your garbage can. It just doesn’t hold up on any front.

Here comes that garbage truck again!

Ken

[DMC_34]

Whether the irrelevant IBL's are ignored, discounted, whatever, point is buying irrelevant text link packages is not going to artificially inflate your rankings. They will do wonders on Y! and MSN but will not on Google. Relevant IBL's obviously dont fall into this.

[0077] The dates that links appear can also be used to detect "spam," where owners of documents or their colleagues create links to their own document for the purpose of boosting the score assigned by a search engine. A typical, "legitimate" document attracts back links slowly. A large spike in the quantity of back links may signal a topical phenomenon (e.g., the CDC web site may develop many links quickly after an outbreak, such as SARS), or signal attempts to spam a search engine (to obtain a higher ranking and, thus, better placement in search results) by exchanging links, purchasing links, or gaining links from documents without editorial discretion on making links. Examples of documents that give links without editorial discretion include guest books, referrer logs, and "free for all" pages that let anyone add a link to a document.

DMC

[greeneagle]

DMC_34,

We can quote many passages from the patent that reinforce what I attempted to state in clearer English for the layman.

""free for all" pages that let anyone add a link to a document", does include many Directory structures doesn't it?

Thanks,
Ken

[DMC_34]

Originally Posted by greeneagle

DMC_34,

We can quote many passages from the patent that reinforce what I attempted to state in clearer English for the layman.

""free for all" pages that let anyone add a link to a document", does include many Directory structures doesn't it?

Thanks,
Ken

I am not sure how much clearer the statement from the patent can be? But the simple truth here is nobody knows how google weighs links. We all have our thoughts on relevancy, one-way vs reciprocal, link text variations, deep links, link age, link growth rate, etc. For example I do not believe Google even checks as to whether or not a link is reciprocated. I believe relevancy is checked and factored with age. It is possible the links are just ignored, it is also just as possible a site could be penalized for them too. Only google really knows, nobody here does.

IMO, Yes Directory links are relevant and count.

I have seen older sites do quite well with only reciprocal linking.

Advertising on relevant sites also has worked very on our site, without a single press release, articles, etc.


DMC

[jaldridge]

I have to disagree a little with you greeneagle. We did some tests recently and managed to get a site to rank at #2 on Google for a chosen keyword based on links from totally unrelated sites. We've even taken the links down and the site is still there!

I agree that relevancy is hugely important but a link is a link at the end of the day and most of them count (although not from link farms!).

[greeneagle]

jaldridge:

"I agree that relevancy is hugely important but a link is a link at the end of the day and most of them count"

That is a contradictory statement within itself, within the GOOGLE patent and within best known SEM practices.

Ken

[DMC_34]

Originally Posted by jaldridge

We did some tests recently and managed to get a site to rank at #2 on Google for a chosen keyword based on links from totally unrelated sites. We've even taken the links down and the site is still there!

Honestly, I find that hard to believe on Google.

DMC

[jaldridge]

Sorry guys, it's totally true. The website in question was 3 years old with PR0. We put some (~20) optimised links from totally unrelated (but good PR) websites and it's still there after 4 weeks! It shot straight to #2 within 6 days bypassing many other very established sites. We weren't expecting it either, we didn't think it would work so well. Back to the drawing board I think...

By the way, it's #1 on MSN but nowhere on Yahoo.

[greeneagle]

I hope you aren't paying much for those links. Of course you haven't validated your "hypothetical" example so that we can judge relevancy for ourselves.

Is it still a PR0? - No one else has ever reported a Site in the "sandbox" for 3 years, that I know of.

Did anyone in this thread claim that relevant non-reciprocated links had no value?

I am definitely not advocating that anyone stop submitting to relevent directories in relevant folders! I do believe however, that they should be well structured, well managed and glean non-relevant entries. Otherwise, don't waste your time with them.

Ken

[jaldridge]

We didn't pay for the links, they were just links from various sites that we have.

As the site in question belongs to a (new) client I don't really want to post the details as all our work is totally confidential. Believe me I'd love to share it with all of you.

By the way, we tested the same method on some brand new sites but did not enjoy the same success. In fact the sites were nowhere in the serps for ages. Maybe the relevancy issue applies more for new sites. We are doing some tests on this at the moment...

[greeneagle]

Quote:

"We didn't pay for the links, they were just links from various sites that we have."

That is the first thing I do to launch a new client. The relevancy plays in because I do a nice speal on them and their business on my portfolio page at; http://www.mountaineagleweb.com/Portfolio/Portfolio.htm .

Even though I link them back to me at the bottom of every page on their Site (reciprocated links with relevancy depth) we both enjoy good SERPs and traffic from those relative reciprocal links.

Reciprocal links do have value when relevant, I never said they didn't. The facts remain though, that "Generic" high ranking relevant links carry more weight --- without question!

Ken

[dburdon]

Guys,

isn't it all a function of competition. In a keyword area with weak competition its easy to demonstrate that your site has reached the top of the rankings. e.g "widget sales nowhere'sville" takes just a title meta tag to reach the top of the rankings. Any linking strategy applied will be purely incidental.

The acid test has to be how a site ranks for really competitive terms.

[DMC_34]

Originally Posted by jaldridge

By the way, we tested the same method on some brand new sites but did not enjoy the same success. In fact the sites were nowhere in the serps for ages. Maybe the relevancy issue applies more for new sites. We are doing some tests on this at the moment...

I would bet the age of the site plays into it. I still find it hard to believe non-relevant links can rank a site for any competitive keyword. I am sure quantity still counts for something but I would think very little if they are not on topic or even broadly related. I am interested to know the results of your tests.

DMC

[jacobwissler]

All of the liberals who linked to President Bush with the anchor text "miserable failure" did not have websites that were relevant to politics, yet it worked.

[greeneagle]

Jacob,

I guess they still stand, too!

LOL

Ken

[greeneagle]

On a more serious note though:

If anyone was following the incident where we contributed to an emergency search for a missing Webmaster;

http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic...hlight=#227250

I registered www.ianturnermissing.com (taken down, since he was found) immediately and went about SEO and SEM...

The blogs blew me away the very next day in the SERPs!:
http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...turner+missing

Every day we see personal interests. breaking news, blogged articles etc.. etc.. etc.. running all over everything in the SERPs!

How do you suppose that happens?

Take this fast link acquisition myth and deposit it where it belongs.... Squarely, in the middle of your garbage can!

A little "common sense" is in order here!

Ken

[DMC_34]

Originally Posted by jacobwissler

All of the liberals who linked to President Bush with the anchor text "miserable failure" did not have websites that were relevant to politics, yet it worked.

By nature that is a VERY weak argument. A ".gov" is given precedence already and since this keyword "miserable failure" is hardly a COMPETITVE word, how does offer anything in the form of proof?

The simple fact that the document rankings has 153,000 IBL's along with some Google bombing and ranking for a term of 833,000 results? LOL...weak

Besides since when is www.whitehouse.gov a new site?

DMC

[DMC_34]

Ken,

Since you are sooooo sure fast link growth is junk and the Google patent is misinterpreted, why dont you offer a site which is less than 3-4 months old and a tremedous link campaign, which ranks so damn well for a competitive keyword? Please disregard the "wireless gauges" example as that hardly fits the bill.

DMC

[greeneagle]

Some time back Jacob pointed out that he believed that certain "esoteric" links including politics and religion fell within the margin of relevancy that would be included for just about any Site.

I haven't seen anything to the contrary yet!

Ken

[DMC_34]

Well as usual we are back to our debates. This is going nowhere as always. Unless you can show me some pretty good evidence a new site with a large link spike can reach tops on any competitive keyword then we will just have to agree to disagree.

IMO nothing has been dispelled here at all.

Established sites dont seem to play by the same rules as newer sites especially with link growth.

DMC

[greeneagle]

DMC_34

Give me a better clue.

Where did you fall out?

Ken

[DMC_34]

Originally Posted by greeneagle

DMC_34

Give me a better clue.

Where did you fall out?

Ken

Before Bourbon: I was #1 for domain name: "pro gift baskets"
After Bourbon: #20, it has just recently went back up to #3.

The only difference other than the unknown algo changes where the 800 links aquired through exchanges, generics, and advertisements. These spikes have never adversely afftected my 5 yr old site. But every new site we have which is agressively gaining links are canned.

Now a fair question would be why keep getting them? Because I cant rank without them anyways. But Google's "catch 22" is you cant rank if you get them too fast either. ONLY after a period of time has passed will they count. There are sites which only do link exchanges and a group I know of which practically run their own little link farm which are now showing up in Google. Interlinked sites and exchanges. Why? Domain and site age is the missing factor here. If your site is established link growth rate is obviously different than it is for a 3-6 month old site. Period.

DMC