about links

“One site does recips with the links, and the other receives all one-way links.”

Not a fair test, since the PR of the one-way site will be significantly higher since it will not be linking out. Also, it won’t have the benefit of linking to other sites on the same theme. In other words, there is more going on than just the actual type of linking.

Their is nothing unnatural at all about reciprocal linking. As always, when people who don’t get seo latch onto an idea (oo,oo, getting links is good) they tend to go way overboard and make these monster link compost piles… three pages of content, hundreds of link pages. This is not natural because the linking isn’t the same as what is basically the non-seo dictionary definition of “linking”: you link to something because it has a point of value to a person on that site or that page. Recipricals between related sites is not just normal, it is inevitable and vital. Trash reciprocals are just trash. The point is, do what is normal and sensible and useful, and don’t do the trash.

Reciprocals are just like pages on your website. It’s normal and good to have pages. It’s trash to add hundreds of thousands of doorway/keyword/”click-here” pages. It’s not the idea of a thing that is a problem, it’s what you do with the thing.

“but even so, internal links can’t account for very much where pagerank is concerned.”

They are absolutely vital. They are by far more important than any external links, except the single most important external link you have.

“It goes against the concept of a link being an authority vouching for another.”

On the contrary, it is absolutely central to the authority concept. Linking is page to page, not to a site, so if your main page gets a link from CNN or whereever, that is usually (but not always) an affirmation of the content of your domain, not just the linked to page. You then link to your internal pages, passing along part of the CNN vote to the internal pages you consider important.

“Google engineers are smart enough to realize that an authority vouching for itself is to be expected and not worth much…”

Not true. They are smart enough to understand that the authority of alberteinstein.com doesn’t end at its main page. External links/PR just tell the search engine that you deserve to cast votes for yourself (and others).

Lots of webmasters squander pagerank because they don’t understand that PR makes no distinction at all between “external” and “internal”. A link is a link (in terms of PR).

Last reply – Do what ever works for you. I have got great rankings doing my thing regardless of what anyone says. I’m gonna stay with what is working for me.

Spearmaster, it almost sounded like you just said “content is king.” Not a common mantra anymore, but still one worth remembering.

The idea is that the more outside sites you link to, the less PR that is passed onto your internal pages. That indirectly reduces your PR because since your internal pages have less PR they don’t pass as much PR onto your home page.

Some do actually believe that you drain your own PR reserves by linking out as well. The theory that a given page can pass on a certain value that is divided among its links is a bit more plausible, but even so, internal links can’t account for very much where pagerank is concerned. It goes against the concept of a link being an authority vouching for another. Google engineers are smart enough to realize that an authority vouching for itself is to be expected and not worth much…

I think mixed opinions are the only constant. That’s why “SEO goofballism” strikes me as so humorous. These debates, the same ones, have been going on for years. We all do what works for us.

I, for one, think decent content, relevant links and well crafted pages is a good start, but it’s an ongoing experiment and likely always will be.

On a related but parenthetical note, the head of search quality at Google has a background in artificial intelligence. As Google’s algorithms improve, I think they will be able to detect artificial patterns of linking intended to manipulate rankings with an amazing degree of accuracy. (I don’t think they’re quite there yet though.)

Any SEO campaign for Google that’s going to work on a long term basis is probably going to begin with their webmaster guidelines, which are clearly listed here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html.

You can learn a lot from Google’s quality guidelines. Their execution isn’t perfect, but it’s never a bad idea to know what their stated goals and guidelines are.

Cheers everyone! :cheers:

What Classics and Arkyt said in the last two posts is the essence of the matter. Though I’m not so sure about the value of PR in the future – having a good PR does not necessarily translate into sales, I can vouch for that.

Focus on creating the things that your customers will enjoy and want to read – make them feel safe – and your income will increase.

Your PR will naturally increase as well over time. But don’t focus on building PR – that’s not what regular visitors focus on when they visit the site.

Lets keep this simple – ok?

STOP thinking of links as a way to improve your position in the SERPs !!!

Links should be beneficial to your site(s) visitors – plain and simple!

Too many people have forgotten this and thats where they get into trouble.

“but this has been abused too and then it becomes unatural.”

Which is my point. Don’t focus on the reciprocal part. Focus on the unnatural. Reciprocal links are like bricks. Bricks are not a bad thing. Throwing a brick through a window is a bad thing.

Too often people tend to just mush ideas together, and this is a bad thing to do. Using tools for bad purposes is not the tools fault, and it is a serious mistake to think “that bad brick”.

“Make it look natural.”

I don’t agree. Make it natural. Don’t try and put a dress on a pig. Fix the problems instead of trying to hide them.

“BTW – do you think that PR in itself has any real value?”

Sure, very definitely, and will more so in the future when all three engines get on their feet.

Classics – I think its safe to say that the results are all dependent on how things are done etc.

I guess with SEO, blanket all encompassing statements are meaningless because there are hundreds of different scenarios.

I agree that recips are “natural” to a degree, but this has been abused too and then it becomes unatural. Agreed that linking to something is a “vote” for a site because it has value, but again, this is often not the case.

If I was to recommend a link technique to a client (if I took clients) it would be simple: Make it look natural. Combine recip links with one ways. Keep the partners themed and maybe throw in the odd non themed link as well. Randomness is less likely to be contrived as a scheme.

BTW – do you think that PR in itself has any real value? I do not know for sure, but dont think this is the case anymore. I think PR by itself is dead.

We have probably debated this topic enough. Thanks for you input!

This is a good question and if you ask 100 seo’s for an answer you will likely get a varied response.

Here’s my thoughts:

I like to put my links to my other sites at the bottom of my pages. is that hurting me?

– No, this should not hurt you so long as the se spiders can access the links.

I’ve heard its better to have one way links to a site than recips; so I’ve been thinking I should link some sites to some, others to others; and as i understand it; make sure there isn’t a loop made in the process.

– Links are funny… good themed recip links will likely carry more weight than non-themed crap links (ala blog spam). All things being equal, one ways are better… but, I figure the se’s are looking for a natural looking link pattern. If you only have recips with the exact same anchor text, then it appears un-natural. The same goes with one ways etc. Try and vary your anchor text, and your ratio of one ways and recips too. You can achieve good results ignoring this idea, but it takes a lot more links to get the same results as a varied link plan.

Good luck trying to create a scenrio where the se’s cannot detect a “loop”. I think they can find patterns pretty easy, whether they want to “punish” for link schemes is another story. I’m thinking that planned link schemes are worse than just random link tactics.

Last thoughts – Google seems more aggressive than the others for punishing or not counting crossed linked sites etc. Yahoo seems to be more forgiving of these things.

BTW – This stuff is highly speculative and no one knows for sure. I am telling you this based on my experience, and it may be different from what others have seen.

Good luck!