When is a link not a link? And where is it a good link?

[kevin116]

Hi

Some basic questions which I need to clarify before embarking on a link strategy.

1. If a link back to a site is in the following format
http://www.thelinkingsite.com/goto.php?site=http://www.mysite.com
is it still classified as a worthwhile link i.e. it is not really direct as it is going via the linking site's referral script?

2. If a directory home page has a good PR, but the category page where I wish to add my URL has a lower or zero PR, which PR would count for my IBL?

Any comments would be greatly appreciated

[kevin116]

**** bump ****

[Josh Huxley]

The best is to go for a site which will link you back with a static link i.e. http://www.google.com/

Unless its a free link, then go ahead, otherwise, its not worth the trouble.

If the link is on a greyed out or PR0 page, then you won't get anything.

[dejaone]

I posted this in another forum:

Besides PR and age of links, the text to link ratio may indicate the quality of links

1) links in articles may be treated as high quality links
2) links in directories (with rich descriptions) is next
3) links without text description (many forum links) may have the lowest quality.

[kevin116]

Hi guys

Thanks for the feedback - I will now need to sort through my potential link partners!

[srlabs]

2. If a directory home page has a good PR, but the category page where I wish to add my URL has a lower or zero PR, which PR would count for my IBL?

I'm still a little confused about this too.. but according to this great pr article the pr of the page the link appears on is what counts, and it gets more complicated from there ;)

http://www.webworkshop.net/pagerank.html

[DMC_34]

If the link is on a greyed out or PR0 page, then you won't get anything.


Again here we go, NOT TRUE. Public PR is updated about every quarter internal PR is updated every couple of weeks. What shows grey, I agree with but a PR0 is inaccurate. My new site has been fully index and is indexed daily by Google. I have a PR 0, why because Google hasnt updated the toolbar to the internal PR since first week of January. Bottomline new sites do not fall under rule, it a dieing rule.

[DMC_34]

Page rank blah blah

http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=43729

[kevin116]

Hi

Again thanks for all the responses. I understand the "blah blah" about page rank but presumably direct links from relevant sites are still important? And again presumably, one way IBLs are better than link exchanges?

I read somewhere that getting too many IBLs at once can be harmful but if it is a new site, is there a "recommended" maximum per day/week/month?

And what about once the site is established, is there again a recommended maximum?

[ADAM Web Design]

In itself, the logic of too many IBLs doesn't make sense. If it were true, amazon.com would have been banned from Google a long, long time ago...I can still remember when the music...used to make me smile...whoops. Got distracted. Damn Garth Brooks in the background. :)

Anyway, back to my point. IBLS in themselves can't be punished since webmasters don't have control over where their backlinks go. It would also be too easy for a Company 2 to get an IBL for Company 1, a competitor, from a bad area.

What a search engine can (and usually will) punish is a webmaster who links to bad area (e.g. an FFA links page that requires a linkback).

I use the following rules of thumb to qualify an IBL:

Is it a one-way link?
If not, is it a link that will generate me real, relevant traffic?

If the link meets one of these two rules (99.9% of the time, it's the first), then I'll try to get an IBL from it.

[DMC_34]

In itself, the logic of too many IBLs doesn't make sense. If it were true, amazon.com would have been banned from Google a long, long time ago...I can still remember when the music...used to make me smile...whoops. Got distracted. Damn Garth Brooks in the background. :)

Anyway, back to my point. IBLS in themselves can't be punished since webmasters don't have control over where their backlinks go. It would also be too easy for a Company 2 to get an IBL for Company 1, a competitor, from a bad area.

What a search engine can (and usually will) punish is a webmaster who links to bad area (e.g. an FFA links page that requires a linkback).

I use the following rules of thumb to qualify an IBL:

Is it a one-way link?
If not, is it a link that will generate me real, relevant traffic?

If the link meets one of these two rules (99.9% of the time, it's the first), then I'll try to get an IBL from it.

I would have to disagree with the amazon example. Amazon is giant and hardly an equal comparison to a new mom and pop shop. Obviously Google can make this distinction between a powerhouse like apple and www.piggysue.com. A new site goes to www.textlinkbrokers.com and buys 4,000 link package, I would tend to believe Google is capable of picking this type of SPAM up. It works great on MSN but I would bet it will land your site in an extended "sandbox". Nobody really knows and it is everchanging. Just my opinion. If it doesnt look natural dont do it.

[DMC_34]

I understand the "blah blah" about page rank but presumably direct links from relevant sites are still important?

You are correct but pagerank and relevancy have nothing in common. I would bet a highly relevant link with a PR 0 is worth more than a PR 5 non relevant link. Besides dont forget about the other SE's which couldn't care less about Googles PageRank


And again presumably, one way IBLs are better than link exchanges?

There is alot of speculation about this. Simply I have not seen any evidence of this at all. Currently my site is ranked #4 on Google behind 2 competitors which do not advertise at all. All they do is link exchanges. We have $20,000/year in paid relevant textlinks all one-way. I doubt this to be true. A link is a link, relevancy is most important and link age. Just my opinion.


I read somewhere that getting too many IBLs at once can be harmful but if it is a new site, is there a "recommended" maximum per day/week/month?

I believe this to be true. How many who knows. Google has expressed in other patents they do look at this. Whether or not is implemented, who knows

[0039] Consider the example of a document with an inception date of yesterday that is referenced by 10 back links. This document may be scored higher by search engine 125 than a document with an inception date of 10 years ago that is referenced by 100 back links because the rate of link growth for the former is relatively higher than the latter. While a spiky rate of growth in the number of back links may be a factor used by search engine 125 to score documents, it may also signal an attempt to spam search engine 125. Accordingly, in this situation, search engine 125 may actually lower the score of a document(s) to reduce the effect of spamming.



And what about once the site is established, is there again a recommended maximum?

My established site continues to get a massive number of backlinks with no ill affects. Just mix up your link text and you should fine in the eyes of Google

[DMC_34]

duplicate submit

[ADAM Web Design]

I would have to disagree with the amazon example. Amazon is giant and hardly an equal comparison to a new mom and pop shop. Obviously Google can make this distinction between a powerhouse like apple and www.piggysue.com. A new site goes to www.textlinkbrokers.com and buys 4,000 link package, I would tend to believe Google is capable of picking this type of SPAM up. It works great on MSN but I would bet it will land your site in an extended "sandbox". Nobody really knows and it is everchanging. Just my opinion. If it doesnt look natural dont do it.

I would have to respectfully disagree based on what I pointed out earlier in terms of FFAs. What would stop Competitor 2 from buying the same text links from textlinkbrokers.com and sabotaging the efforts of Competitor 1? It's a predatory practice, and it would take a significant amount of coin, but to assume no one has thought of it would be naive at best. (Heck, I just posted the idea, so there's one person who's come up with a way right there! And no, I wouldn't do that because I don't have that kind of money to waste.)

The only way in which Google could punish a site with IBLs that are spam-like in nature is if it could combine the IBL behaviour with other spam-like behaviour (UCEs, random posts in forums, repeatedly submitting to Google, reciprocal links to bad areas, etc.) It would have to be a whole bunch of things for it to happen.

And right now IMHO, Google's got a rather lax attitude toward spammy results. If you don't think so, try to look up a cell phone model number and see how many garbage results you get. So I can't see them punishing for IBLs, if they'll allow that kind of crap.

I will agree totally with the "if it doesn't look natural, don't do it" thought. That makes a good deal of sense.

By the way, DMC, you're not supposed to mention the other SEs. Their existence is only a rumour. Google is it. Nothing else matters. :)

[xmx]

My personal opinion is that links exchanges can be useful as a direct traffic generating resource and not only as a SEO oriented practice.

Many do not consider this fact.

Of course both the factors have relevance, not only one.

[webinv]

What about links with a long "title tag" description.

Example:

Google (http://www.google.com)

[dburdon]

Indexed and Crawled
I know this sounds obvious but a link is not a link if the search engines are not aware of it. The link will only exist in the records of the search engine if the page on which it is situated has been crawled and indexed. A link on a PR4 page that is not indexed is of no value. A new link on a PR4 site will not be "activated" until it has been crawled.

Trawling back through the various contributions here gave me a thought.Has anybody thought about writing a definitive piece on inbound linking strategy?

The definitive would cover the following subjects. And anything else deemed relevant.

Site Relevance
Does a link from a site carrying similar content and meta tags carry more influence than from a site without the similar content. If so, how much?

Page Relevance
Does a link from a page carrying similar content and meta tags also carry more influence?

Link Density
Do links from pages with fewer outbound links have more influence than from pages where there are large numbers of links? We know that FFAs are bad but at what point does dilution start do be meaningful - 4 links, 10 links?

Page Rank
A link from a high page rank site is assumed to have greater influence. At what point does this come into play - PR4, PR5, PR6? Or does the algorithm somehow count up the values of all links from PR0 to PR10?

Anchor Text
Anchor text is deemed highly important - but how important. What if the anchor text is missing but the link is surrounded by relevant content?
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