Why should everyone know these things? Because google itself has said them! I've said some of this in another thread already, but there are some things about google tech/PR everyone should know, and reading threads here I get the feeling a lot of people don't know them. All the things I'm about to say are based on this two pages: Google Corporate Info and Google Technology. So I really haven't made any of this up myself. Okay, on to the real stuff I'd like to say. First, here's a quote from the google technology page: So, while some doubt this, PR is still part of the search algo. We continue reading: This describes PR as most of us know it. "Votes" or BL's from high PR pages are valued more than BL's from low PR pages. This shows that in order to list high, not only is it nice to have a high PR, it's more important that your content is relevant and that the content of the pages linking to you is relevant. So, maybe gaining BL's on irrelevant sites could harm your serp listing. Now let's see what the corporate info has to tell us: This part is almost the same as the last part of the google tech thingie, but it confirms that both PR and query-specific relevance make up the search results. I think this part is mostly interesting because it has emphasis on the "objective" part, showing google won't manipulate PR (accept for banned sites) and even more important, that PR is purely based on the linking structure of the web, not on content of a specific website. Last thing I found interesting: See "neighboring". Above we saw that the relevance of pages linking to a page is important, but here's the word "neighboring". This could mean that relevance of pages a page is linking to is important as well, which means you might not want to link to irrelevant pages. So, I've been reading the google tech thingies myself and I thought I'd share it with you This may not be big revelations, but still I thought it could be interesting for a lot of DP members.
Very good observations TMan. Your analysis of their words seem to confirm what some of us have been learning over the years (and it was right there in black and white). One word of caution: Google is now a very large company. Pages on their website can go years without being updated. It happens to the small companies too. They could be describing their process from 6 months ago.
This one cant ever be true, otherwise it will mean google will get itself banned. - Millions of sites of all topics have a link to google in some form.
Thanks for the positive comments everyone I don't think you're correct on that one. First, this is just one of the factors, so even if it does hurt it's just part of the algo. Second, most links to google would be like "search here", or have google/search related stuff on the page, making the page highly relevant, or at least the words in the vicinity of the link.
I agree. Read any big Corp's site and it's full of BS. They obviously list all the nicities and leave out the dodgy stuff. They also won't list their latest, highly valued intellectual property. What they say != What they do. Fact. For beginners it does help very well indeed but for advanced understanding of business/tech - reading a corporate site is almost a waste of time.
And beginners are exactly whom I wrote this for. I got some comment that "people already knew this", and I understand this is true for a lot of more experienced guys, but after reading some (PR-update)threads here on DP I thought the average member could use some extra knowledge on PR
Not sure what you are trying to say here really, I have completely off topic links on sites of mine and it is fine. I have many sites with just one link from an irrelevant site and it works fine. There is noway an irrelevant link hurts your site in anyway, otherwise I'll link to anyone I need to abolish. Read Googlebowling - which I am personally yet to see a real case of (though Ive never looked either) and im sure that Shawn said anyone could try and bowl dp if they liked. Yeah, I link from the top 10 sites for your keyword are probably the best links you can get, but a non relevant link will help more than it harms + it may even bring a little traffic. Want to see me test it for you ? Give me a URL of yours and Ill put a link from a non relevant site
Design Agent, I think you're right in the fact that irrelevant BL's will do more good than harm. However, that doesn't mean they don't do any harm at all. You probably won't even notice though I welcome you to put up an irrelevant link to my blog, see signature or latest blog thingie
How can it do any harm ? Imagine the problems (i track my sites in detail and have never been concerned - you cant stop who links to you and how) Only if you give me a good common sense reason why it could/should/would harm you
Okay, common sense. English is not my motherlanguage, so if this gets a bit complicated let me know. Say, you have 10 sites linking to a website about google, and all these websites are about google as well. That would make your page highly google-relevant, wouldn't it? You could say 100% of the links to you are relevant. Now, someone who owns 10 other website about something totally different links to you. Now 50% of the links to you are relevant, so it *could* be that google thinks you less relevant for searches about google. I repeat, it *could* be. Maybe the added PR of these links is more important than the decrease in relevance, or google checks relevance in an absolute way instead of a procentual way. I repeat, *could* be. Based on google's words this seems a possiblity to me, but it's not an absolute truth. And even if it causes harm, the advantages maybe more important than the disadvanteges. So much to consider
Ah, yes in simple form a non relevant link probably has less weight than a relevant link - that I agree with. But usually the most relevant links are your competitors, so less relevant links often have to be used. Site relevance and backlinks are not measured as a % the total links being "on topic" otherwise you encounter the same problem. My competitor launches a site and gets 50 backlinks with the word "widget". I then go and get 300 links to them with the term "fish" - Now they are relevant for Fish, not Widget - thats wrong. They will be relevant for "fish" and "widget" and probably "fish widget" too.
Great discussion, keep it up. Let me add something. What may seem a topically/semantically irrelevant link can be highly relevant demographically. A link can be targeted to the user instead of the content. That's why I think SE's have no right to penalize 'off topic' links. And also why I believe they don't. And hopefully won't.
Exactly! If I like Ipods then its quite likely I like - music, media, tv, fashion, gadgets, technology, macs, apples, bananas, blah blah. Demographics are the reason my sites contain totally off topic links and probably always will. Anyone with Ferrari traffic is quite likely to have a rich demographic or lots of young male visitors worth targetting - so sell them trainers. If I could only find SEO on dp I wouldnt be here etc etc.
Design Agent, I have to agree with you on that. We must pay attention however that we don't see things too black/white, there's obviously a lot of gray in the middle. An example on this topic (though it doesn't really prove anything), is a google search for "here". This shows google things websites like macromedia's and adobe's to be relevant for the term "here", which obviously is based on anchor text. Another example was a website of mine which showed up around #6 for a kw, when adding my own name it showed up #1. My name is nowhere mentioned on that website, but it is mentioned in the vicinity of links to it, for instance by directory submissions. So, while this website of mine isn't relevant for my own name adding my name to the searchphrase makes it rank higher.
huh? http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=here&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 this search is basically a Google bomb. Most powerful site with the most "click here" and "here" links to them. Like Failure, Miserable failure, french military victories etc. Proximity of text to an anchor to your site has always been useful for google. Though not even remotely essential and brute force or organic natural link building can be used to affect rankings. The anchor has alot more weight than the surrounding text - though its always nice to get some if you can - its better for visitors too.