is outgoing links weakening me ?

[TryUsOut]

Interesting discussion. I would only like to state my opinion on the issue on employing a nofollow attribute to an outgoing link - this I think should be done when you don't want to vouch for a site (therefore passing PR). In the eyes of the search engine, a link is considered as a vote. For me, its only a fair practice to allow the leak of PR if such site is deserving enough - this should also be based on individual Webamasters.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by chiron

I tend to use the "test for yourself" strategy frequently. Things change, SEs shuffle, and truth is often simplified or intentionally manipulated.

Here's a fairly decent test case.

I have a PR 5 linking to two sites that were created and juiced at the same time (some years ago).

The recipient home page PR is thus: 4 and 3.

The recipients each have one IBL of note.

One site has a single OBL (no rel=nofollow) and one site has no OBLs.

The one with the OBL is the 3, no OBL is the 4.

It's not quite a perfect test, but it is indicative if not the last word on the matter.

That's a little strange. As the links should affect the sites being linked to and not the sites sending the links.

I wonder if the position of the links on the PR5 site could be affecting the amount of PR being sent?

[Raybman]

To Google, a link to a site is vote for that site.

PageRank "leak" is a misnomer because you will not lose any PR due to the link, unless the link leads to a site in a "bad neighborhood" or is bouncing back to the same site (internal link). If the outbound links are simply reciprocal links, then neither site will gain any advantage.

If the sites you link to are related in some way (related business or subject) to your site, then these links could simply be considered part of your site's content, so no problems. Now, if there is a list of 50 links on the page, Google could very easily consider it a link farm and penalize the page, if not the site.

If you are not sure, just ask yourself if the link is adding quality content to your site, or simply to manipulate your PR or SERPs.

In the end, content wins.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by TryUsOut

Interesting discussion. I would only like to state my opinion on the issue on employing a nofollow attribute to an outgoing link - this I think should be done when you don't want to vouch for a site (therefore passing PR). In the eyes of the search engine, a link is considered as a vote. For me, its only a fair practice to allow the leak of PR if such site is deserving enough - this should also be based on individual Webamasters.

I agree 100%, my problem was being accused of giving bad information when I told someone to use a nofollow attribute after being asked what was the best way to link without loosing PR.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by Raybman

To Google, a link to a site is vote for that site.

PageRank "leak" is a misnomer because you will not lose any PR due to the link, unless the link leads to a site in a "bad neighborhood" or is bouncing back to the same site (internal link). If the outbound links are simply reciprocal links, then neither site will gain any advantage.

That is not correct at all. When you link out you pass PR and it is divided by the pages you are linking to.

And if the link is reciprocal both sites can gain from it. One site more than the other.

Originally Posted by Raybman

If the sites you link to are related in some way (related business or subject) to your site, then these links could simply be considered part of your site's content, so no problems.

Where are you getting this from?

Originally Posted by Raybman

Now, if there is a list of 50 links on the page, Google could very easily consider it a link farm and penalize the page, if not the site.

Are you just making this up as you go along?

Originally Posted by Raybman

If you are not sure, just ask yourself if the link is adding quality content to your site, or simply to manipulate your PR or SERPs.

In the end, content wins.

Content wins for the long tail but you want rank for a competitive keyword without links.

[DanLew]

Many things have to be considered when linking to other sites, whether the other sites has many broken links, or whether the site you are pointing to is new and of low page rank.

But in general there is nothing wrong with pointing to let say news.com.au which is a reputable site, in fact it is seen by Google as good that if you link to popular sites your site must be of value, and can help your own sites value to a degree in linking to some reputable high page rank sites.

[TryUsOut]

Originally Posted by janeth

I agree 100%, my problem was being accused of giving bad information when I told someone to use a nofollow attribute after being asked what was the best way to link without loosing PR.

That seemed to be a very sound advice on the issue of not leaking out PR when linking to another site. I don't necessarily see the reason for such a long debate over that.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by DanLew

But in general there is nothing wrong with pointing to let say news.com.au which is a reputable site, in fact it is seen by Google as good that if you link to popular sites your site must be of value, and can help your own sites value to a degree in linking to some reputable high page rank sites.

And do you have any proof of this?

This is bad information and is untrue.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by TryUsOut

That seemed to be a very sound advice on the issue of not leaking out PR when linking to another site. I don't necessarily see the reason for such a long debate over that.

One would think so but there seems to be a lot of misinformed people out there.

[Raybman]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Raybman
To Google, a link to a site is vote for that site.

PageRank "leak" is a misnomer because you will not lose any PR due to the link, unless the link leads to a site in a "bad neighborhood" or is bouncing back to the same site (internal link). If the outbound links are simply reciprocal links, then neither site will gain any advantage.

That is not correct at all. When you link out you pass PR and it is divided by the pages you are linking to.

And if the link is reciprocal both sites can gain from it. One site more than the other.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Raybman
If the sites you link to are related in some way (related business or subject) to your site, then these links could simply be considered part of your site's content, so no problems.

Where are you getting this from?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Raybman
Now, if there is a list of 50 links on the page, Google could very easily consider it a link farm and penalize the page, if not the site.

Are you just making this up as you go along?


Quote:
Originally Posted by Raybman
If you are not sure, just ask yourself if the link is adding quality content to your site, or simply to manipulate your PR or SERPs.

In the end, content wins.

Janeth,

Read Google Webmaster Central Blog and Guidelines, Matt Cutts interviews and blog, and HighRankings.com is also a good source.

The 50 links was just a number for an example, maybe I should have said, a whole lot, or numerous, or a huge amount of links....

[janeth]

Originally Posted by Raybman

Janeth,

Read Google Webmaster Central Blog and Guidelines, Matt Cutts interviews and blog, and HighRankings.com is also a good source.

The 50 links was just a number for an example, maybe I should have said, a whole lot, or numerous, or a huge amount of links....

I do not need to read any of those. I know what Matt says.

Matt said that PR Sculpting can work. PR Sculpting is using the nofollow tag to control the internal flow of PR juice.

And I do believe that Matt was the one that started calling it PR Sculpting.

Here is an article on it No Follow Tag | Internal Use of No Follow Tag and this article is linked to from sites like searchenginewatch.

The use of “nofollow” tags can serve many different purposes. They can be used to limit the amount of link juice that flows out of a page to external pages of different domains, or they can be used to control where the link juice will flow to within a site and its internal pages.

And since you brought up Jill Whalen here is what she and others said about PR Sculpting.

Organic Listings Forum : Google PageRank, Blogs and Paid Links

From SES New York, Greg Boser, Dave Naylor and Jill Whalen all said that Using NoFollow tools to scupt PageRank was a good thing to do.

Now according to you links do not pass PR and Matt and Jill are both on your side. Yet both of them say that PR Sculpting is a good thing. PR Sculpting is controlling the PR juice that you say does not exist.

Sounds to me that you might need some other people on your side.

[DanLew]

Originally Posted by janeth

And do you have any proof of this?

This is bad information and is untrue.

Yes i Have proof that if you put 3 new links on the home page of your website pointing:
1. google.com
2. yahoo.com
3. msn.com

This will not affect you or weaken you at all, this is proof in itself.

[chiron]

I wonder if the position of the links on the PR5 site could be affecting the amount of PR being sent?

It's one after the other in terms of on-page appearance, but there are potentially other variables in the mix, as always.

But variables are what keeps these discussions lively.

[ctabuk]

Well all of this has been most interesting - except for one little point. Here's another one of my link out pages.

http://www.counciltenantsmortgages.c...-uk-links.html

It's topic related to the theme of the site - but it's a huge source of information - and guess what?? They have been there for years and years and years - have they affected my SERP? No - Oh and Janeth if you post a reply and do a 'I removed the link' think on this - my market is UK based - if I place a link it is there not to champion my cause but there to demonstrate that linking out to authority sites is a worthy and worthwhile excercise and one that regardless of what you or anyone else can say - I will continue to do so.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by the len

hi

hi

Originally Posted by the len

1. does having a page with a lot of outgoing links weaken my site?

It will not weaken your site if they are sites of your industry or in other words relevant to your site theme. If you call the page links.html, or you have that page in a directory which will look like /links/index.html, Google will devaluate it, if not totally, then to a certain degree. The higher number of links on the page, will reduce the PR juice to the pages you are linking to. I assume it is obvious to you that if you are linking to sites or pages dropped from Google, or they are identified as bad neighborhoods, there you can get harmed.

Originally Posted by the len

2. if i have reciprocal links with sites of my industry, is it worth something for ranking or does google ignore it?

Reciprocal linking is not dead. But still does not have the same value as one-way links. Both Google and Yahoo have begun to recognize such link exchanges, and have used this information to reduce the ranking of reciprocally linked sites in search engine results.

Originally Posted by the len

thanks

lenny

You are welcome

John

P.S. My apologies to all members in this thread if I am repeating something, but I have no time to read the entire thread.

[DanLew]

Reciprocal linking is not dead. But still does not have the same value as one-way links. Both Google and Yahoo have begun to recognize such link exchanges, and have used this information to reduce the ranking of reciprocally linked sites in search engine results.

I much prefer 3 way linking, but the thing is when exchanging links when do you put a stop to it. The idea is to exchange links in a smart way. I see many blogers get others to write about them and add links to their site for links back from one of their articles sites or any other site that they agree on.

[MuNKyonline]

I'm afraid guys that Janeth is completely correct. Using nofollow links to control the flow of pagerank from your site is called pagerank sculpting. Linking to more useful and higher pagerank pages has a better effect on serps. Controlling of pagerank can also be acheived with your own pages using the htaccess file to stop the pagerank from flowing to non-important thank-you pages etc.

Reciprocal linking is rubbish for SEO when both sites link to each other the power of the links is greatly reduced. IMO you want to get as many one-way links as possible. Ignore any directories that require a back link.

(I also havent got the time to read the entire thread/debate lol)

[ctabuk]

Darren you are missing the point - ignore for the time being the no follow - is linking out to authority sites good SEO?

[daniboy]

Originally Posted by MuNKyonline

Using nofollow links to control the flow of pagerank from your site is called pagerank sculpting. Linking to more useful and higher pagerank pages has a better effect on serps.

That statement feels a bit like a contradiction .

Use nofollow for pagerank sculpting, but link to useful sites... with nofollow or not?

There's loads of arguments for and against nofollowing for this reason.

One that springs to mind are the people who nofollow terms and privacy pages... hence telling the SE's they don't trust their own content.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by DanLew

I much prefer 3 way linking, but the thing is when exchanging links when do you put a stop to it. The idea is to exchange links in a smart way. I see many blogers get others to write about them and add links to their site for links back from one of their articles sites or any other site that they agree on.

Oh, so you also a spammer? Good to know!

For the ones who do not like spamming, I recommend "trapezoidal link building".

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

Darren you are missing the point - ignore for the time being the no follow - is linking out to authority sites good SEO?

Linking to authority sites which are relevant to your site theme is an excellent practice.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by daniboy

That statement feels a bit like a contradiction .

Use nofollow for pagerank sculpting, but link to useful sites... with nofollow or not?

There's loads of arguments for and against nofollowing for this reason.

One that springs to mind are the people who nofollow terms and privacy pages... hence telling the SE's they don't trust their own content.

I strictly do not use the "nofollow" attribute. But I still practice PR sculpting. There is a way to have pages like privacy policy, etc still indexed without sharing with them PR juice.

Does that make sense to you?

[inertia]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Linking to authority sites which are relevant to your site theme is an excellent practice.

But, would you nofollow those links?

[daniboy]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

I strictly do not use the "nofollow" attribute. But I still practice PR sculpting. There is a way to have pages like privacy policy, etc still indexed without sharing with them PR juice.

Does that make sense to you?

Sort of makes sense to me.

That will be my "think about it" for the weekend... Thanks

[MuNKyonline]

Oh ok I was only going from the first few posts. Well I think I see her point, just because its an authority site doesnt mean it will be the same theme or fully relevent, by using nofollow you still provide your visitors with helpful info but you dont pass/leak any of your sites pagerank to it. If its an authority site with good PR and relevent content then dont use nofollow.

I've got links to validators and such like on my site that I have nofollowed (well actually I should say stopped google from passing pagerank to the target page Wink ). They're w3c etc - some would say they're relevant because its the w3c but theres no point in passing PR to a validator results page.

[kevsta]

Originally Posted by inertia

But, would you nofollow those links?

not generally, no.

[ctabuk]

Advanced Linking Strategies

Within this well written piece you will find that the experts agree in linking out to related topic/ authority sites is recommended

[ctabuk]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Linking to authority sites which are relevant to your site theme is an excellent practice.

Thank you John

[kevsta]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

I strictly do not use the "nofollow" attribute. But I still practice PR sculpting. There is a way to have pages like privacy policy, etc still indexed without sharing with them PR juice.

Does that make sense to you?

John, being a high techie coder type i know you've developed your own way of doing the same thing, but ive always been curious what youve got against nofollow?

and also then, why you have it on your forum sigs?

[daniboy]

PageRank is green fairy dust.

Nice quote in there.

[MuNKyonline]

I'm really not getting what the argument is here lol.

Isnt everyone just saying the same thing??

YES link to authority sites (duh!)
Nofollow if it's not relevant to your site (if you dont want to pass page rank to the target page and/or you believe the nofollow actually does anything).

So whats the confusion about? Seems damn simple to me!

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Linking to authority sites which are relevant to your site theme is an excellent practice.

Hey John

Question... What is Google's definition of an "authority site"?

Not your definition or what we think it may be, but Google's definition and where can I find that information.

Dave

[inertia]

The "discussion" is about whether, on an algorithm level, relevant outbound links are beneficial to your sites performance?

[janeth]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Linking to authority sites which are relevant to your site theme is an excellent practice.

And why is that?

Are you saying that linking out to authority sites will boost your ranking in the search engines?

[inertia]

She's up! Morning janet.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

Advanced Linking Strategies

Within this well written piece you will find that the experts agree in linking out to related topic/ authority sites is recommended

I hate taking the time to read your stuff because 9 times out of 10 it has nothing to do with what is being talked about.

Danny Sullivan does not believe that linking out authority sites will build trust in your site.

And once again the article from what I can tell has nothing to do with the topic.

Why continue to do that?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by crankydave

Hey John

Question... What is Google's definition of an "authority site"?

Not your definition or what we think it may be, but Google's definition and where can I find that information.

Dave

I did not try to define what an authority site is. I answered with that term as it was used all the time.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by inertia

But, would you nofollow those links?

You should run for president you change like the wind.

Now it is only those links that no one knows whom are being linked to that is an issue.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by kevsta

i don't see a question mark? is this a statement?

IMO in a lot of cases, rightly or wrongly, it is a factor, yes.

edit, lol @ woopra lighting up, this is obviously contraversial stuff.

Google, please give me a webmaster tool that optimizes the use of rel="nofollow" links on my site.

But if GoogleBOT learns to use that tool, may be ... ??

Related link: The "nofollow" tag

[inertia]

Originally Posted by janeth

You should run for president you change like the wind.

Why do you keep wandering off topic into these condescending posts? I didnt change my opinion, I ASKED FOR ONE FROM JOHN! Give me strength!

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

I did not try to define what an authority site is. I answered with that term as it was used all the time.

I understand, but if you believe linking to "authority sites" is a good practice then I would think you would know how Google defines them. If you don't know how Google, or any SE for that matter, defines them how can one link to them?

Dave

[MuNKyonline]

Originally Posted by inertia

The "discussion" is about whether, on an algorithm level, relevant outbound links are beneficial to your sites performance?

Yes of course they are. Just dont over do the outbound links and use nofollow sensibly. It all helps to build trust rank as you will be making your site a more 'valuable resource' to your visitors.

Linking to harmful sites - such as nasty porn, sites known for spyware etc will have a negative effect on your websites performance.

[inertia]

Originally Posted by MuNKyonline

Yes of course they are. Just dont over do the outbound links and use nofollow sensibly. It all helps to build trust rank as you will be making your site a more 'valuable resource' to your visitors.

Linking to harmful sites - such as nasty porn, sites known for spyware etc will have a negative effect on your websites performance.

Agree 100%

[janeth]

Originally Posted by inertia

Why do you keep wandering off topic into these condescending posts? I didnt change my opinion, I ASKED FOR ONE FROM JOHN! Give me strength!

Then continue to argue it. Tell Webnats that anything he does to hinder the flow of PR juice is wrong.

Or go back to saying there is no PR juice.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by crankydave

I understand, but if you believe linking to "authority sites" is a good practice then I would think you would know how Google defines them. If you don't know how Google, or any SE for that matter, defines them how can one link to them?

Dave

You seem to being ignored but it even goes further than that.

First they are unable to identify an authority site and second they have no way of knowing the amount of PR leakage or the amount of the trust being added with the (so called) authority site.

Even if it was true there would be no way of knowing if the link helped or hurt with out knowing all the variables.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by MuNKyonline

I'm afraid guys that Janeth is completely correct. Using nofollow links to control the flow of pagerank from your site is called pagerank sculpting. Linking to more useful and higher pagerank pages has a better effect on serps. Controlling of pagerank can also be acheived with your own pages using the htaccess file to stop the pagerank from flowing to non-important thank-you pages etc.

Reciprocal linking is rubbish for SEO when both sites link to each other the power of the links is greatly reduced. IMO you want to get as many one-way links as possible. Ignore any directories that require a back link.

An deeper thread about PR Sculpting

May be it is possible to come closer to the conclusion of this thread if you define:

semantical linking

[MuNKyonline]

Wow this is turning into another 'rant' again, dont see why people get so hyped up lol.

Time for me to disappear and do that thing called... wait a sec.. whats it called?... oh yeah - work.

LOL, bye peeps!

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by crankydave

I understand, but if you believe linking to "authority sites" is a good practice then I would think you would know how Google defines them. If you don't know how Google, or any SE for that matter, defines them how can one link to them?

Dave

I do not have a link to Google defining the term "authority site".

For my understanding, if we would like to use that term, I would assume it is about sites that meet the SE design, technical and quality guidelines, and that they overcame the domain/site age factor and have PageRank assigned though IBLs.

I would not rely alone on the PR of a site to define if it is an authority site. Even if I knew the actual internal PR values.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Linking to authority sites which are relevant to your site theme is an excellent practice.

That is an example of semantical linking, a real vote / cite / reference and at the heart of Google's algorithm.

Put on your glass eyes and link to (vote for) related content.

Originally Posted by ctabuk

Advanced Linking Strategies

Within this well written piece you will find that the experts agree in linking out to related topic/ authority sites is recommended

I bolded what I regard as related to semantical linking.

[Webnauts]

Google says:

"A Google feature that helps determine the rank of a site in our search results. PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your searches."

Source: PageRank

So if OBLs harm, where do you see the democracy? If my site is linked from other sites, but I am not linking to anybody, is that what Google means with democracy?