I May be Missing a Link in my Chain
Linking is an SEO aspect that is pondered, recommended, discussed, and frequently seen among the company of profanity. Coming into the industry, the principles behind linking may seem somewhat ill-defined. For those of us still learning, we can take a breather from the frantic pursuit of the elusive link, and learn what they are and how they think – or at least what the search engines have decided for us.
A link is based on three main factors: topic; reputation; and page importance. I know, I thought that this was easy to understand at first, too. Topic is simply a factor taken into consideration regarding whether or not the link pointing to your site is relevant.
Reputation is based on the text links within the site pointing to you. So the spiders will take a look at what text links that page has to use as proof, or rather, measurement, of relevancy. This is a very important factor in determining the value of a page’s links. To find the link reputation of a page, use the free, helpful resources of OptiLink. This tool gives you the ability to view a page’s links through the eyes of spider.
The third major aspect of linking that confused me at first was page importance, or the Page Rank of Google’s algorithm. Apparently, a page’s rank is determined by the ranks of the pages linking to it. This brought one specific question to my mind: when a highly ranked page links to a lower ranked page, is that “page rank” transferred from site to site? The answer is no… kind of.
Pages do not have, as I so naively thought, a rank of 1-10. There are billions of points within this range, and each page falls somewhere along the scale. Google’s Page Rank just doesn’t tell us where a site stands within a rank of say, four – or five – or ten. And while moving from the 2 bracket to the 3 may require 50 quality links, moving from an 8 to a 9 may require thousands. The value of a page’s rank is not transferred to the site it is linking to; that site is simply casting a vote. And the more votes a site casts, the weaker the value of that link becomes.
Let’s suppose I own a site called, “Real Life Reasons Why I’ll be Working from Home Today.” My Website is doing fairly well, with a Google Page Rank of 4. On Monday, I decide to link to 3 sites. I can give them about 1.3 of my page rank each, because my rank is divided among them. On Friday, I get a call from my friend’s site, “My Car Broke Down Last Night and I Still Can’t Start It, So I had it Towed Home.” I now give this site a link to their homepage, an affiliate site, and a blog they just started. Now, my votes have decreased in value to .67, which is shared by all 6 sites I’m linking to.
So while looking for links from high-ranked locations is crucial in your linking strategies, making sure your “vote” isn’t diluted is another aspect we must think about when conducting our linking campaigns.
A link is based on three main factors: topic; reputation; and page importance. I know, I thought that this was easy to understand at first, too. Topic is simply a factor taken into consideration regarding whether or not the link pointing to your site is relevant.
Reputation is based on the text links within the site pointing to you. So the spiders will take a look at what text links that page has to use as proof, or rather, measurement, of relevancy. This is a very important factor in determining the value of a page’s links. To find the link reputation of a page, use the free, helpful resources of OptiLink. This tool gives you the ability to view a page’s links through the eyes of spider.
The third major aspect of linking that confused me at first was page importance, or the Page Rank of Google’s algorithm. Apparently, a page’s rank is determined by the ranks of the pages linking to it. This brought one specific question to my mind: when a highly ranked page links to a lower ranked page, is that “page rank” transferred from site to site? The answer is no… kind of.
Pages do not have, as I so naively thought, a rank of 1-10. There are billions of points within this range, and each page falls somewhere along the scale. Google’s Page Rank just doesn’t tell us where a site stands within a rank of say, four – or five – or ten. And while moving from the 2 bracket to the 3 may require 50 quality links, moving from an 8 to a 9 may require thousands. The value of a page’s rank is not transferred to the site it is linking to; that site is simply casting a vote. And the more votes a site casts, the weaker the value of that link becomes.
Let’s suppose I own a site called, “Real Life Reasons Why I’ll be Working from Home Today.” My Website is doing fairly well, with a Google Page Rank of 4. On Monday, I decide to link to 3 sites. I can give them about 1.3 of my page rank each, because my rank is divided among them. On Friday, I get a call from my friend’s site, “My Car Broke Down Last Night and I Still Can’t Start It, So I had it Towed Home.” I now give this site a link to their homepage, an affiliate site, and a blog they just started. Now, my votes have decreased in value to .67, which is shared by all 6 sites I’m linking to.
So while looking for links from high-ranked locations is crucial in your linking strategies, making sure your “vote” isn’t diluted is another aspect we must think about when conducting our linking campaigns.
