A Test - Can a authority link improve your search engine ranking?

This may be true, but other sites and there links may not update as often as yours. Therefor could take several months to see true results.

 

Ranks as of Tuesday morning:

Homepage 103 <= 99 <= 99 <= 113 <= 109 <= 104 <= 116
Page1 349 <= 379 <= 381 <= 407 <= 367 <= 370 <= 360
Page2 751+ unchanged

Here is some information on the longer tail for this keyword. Listed below is the search engine traffic that included my keyword in the seach request.

1/09 - 18
1/10 - 14
1/11 - 15
1/12 - 20
1/13 - 27
1/14 - 20
1/15 - 28
1/16 - 33
1/17 - 20
1/18 - 19 Links to authority site added
1/19 - 17
1/20 - 13
1/21 - 21
1/22 - 20

So far I am not noticing any improvement in my ranking for the keyword or traffic from the longer tail.

 

You are who you link to

 

Ranks as of Wednesday morning:

Homepage 105 <= 103 <= 99 <= 99 <= 113 <= 109 <= 104 <= 116
Page1 354 <= 349 <= 379 <= 381 <= 407 <= 367 <= 370 <= 360
Page2 751+ unchanged

Search engine traffic that included my keyword in the seach request.

1/09 - 18
1/10 - 14
1/11 - 15
1/12 - 20
1/13 - 27
1/14 - 20
1/15 - 28
1/16 - 33
1/17 - 20
1/18 - 19 Links to authority site added
1/19 - 17
1/20 - 13
1/21 - 21
1/22 - 20
1/23 - 22

So far I am not noticing any improvement in my ranking for the keyword or traffic from the longer tail.

 

I'm starting to think that this test would have no effect ...or maybe some slight change in few months ...

I just got myself a .GOV authority link pointing to my site and my traffic increased with about 50% ... I'm not sure about the keyword positions because I'm too lazy to check that

Try doing the oposit .. getting some authority website to give you link .. that will be more search engine friendly experiment

Cheers,

Venetsian.

 

I am thinking along the same lines. So far, I haven't seen any evidence of any improvement. I guess it is possible that it improves trust over time. From my standpoint, the slightest improvement should impact a keyword ranking of 350.

 

As I said before, these things don't happen in just a few days or even weeks. Google of course is the worst taking up to 6 weeks to process links and such. And then it only ranks the strong links.

If you can get your link placed on the footer of a big website with many articles related to your content, your link count and rank will climb fairly fast. If you check out the link count for linkagora.com most of the links are from another one of my websites at http://www.wheelielinks.com/ this site creates nearly 300 links and fairly good ones for every site I place in the bottom. I will be selling this space soon!

Just a example.

 

It is only 4 days! Your site might not get crawl yet...how could you get a conclusion in such a short time

 

I wish that was the problem. I made the changes a week ago (Jan 18 2:30am) and the pages were spidered within hours.

 

Ranks as of Thursday morning:

Homepage 109 <= 105 <= 103 <= 99 <= 99 <= 113 <= 109 <= 104 <= 116
Page1 350 <= 354 <= 349 <= 379 <= 381 <= 407 <= 367 <= 370 <= 360
Page2 751+ unchanged

Search engine traffic that included my keyword in the seach request.

1/09 - 18
1/10 - 14
1/11 - 15
1/12 - 20
1/13 - 27
1/14 - 20
1/15 - 28
1/16 - 33
1/17 - 20
1/18 - 19 Links to authority site added
1/19 - 17
1/20 - 13
1/21 - 21
1/22 - 20
1/23 - 22
1/24 - 21

No improvement so far...

 

Why dont you just wait to see what happens in a few weeks?

 

Ranks as of Thursday morning:

Homepage 110 <= 109 <= 105 <= 103 <= 99 <= 99 <= 113 <= 109 <= 104 <= 116
Page1 353 <= 350 <= 354 <= 349 <= 379 <= 381 <= 407 <= 367 <= 370 <= 360
Page2 526 <= 751+

Search engine traffic that included my keyword in the seach request.

1/09 - 18
1/10 - 14
1/11 - 15
1/12 - 20
1/13 - 27
1/14 - 20
1/15 - 28
1/16 - 33
1/17 - 20
1/18 - 19 Links to authority site added
1/19 - 17
1/20 - 13
1/21 - 21
1/22 - 20
1/23 - 22
1/24 - 21
1/25 - 21

Well, finally, some evidence of improvement. Page2 has suddenly appeared in the search results. Since Page2 is the only page to show improvement, I am suspicious that it was the result of the latest change. I'd like to see improvement on Page1 also before I would be ready to say the change had some impact. Time will tell...

 

To make the test really reliable, all other factors should be filtered out. You should make sure nobody accidentally links to your site in the mean time

 

Ranks as of Thursday morning:

Homepage 108 <= 110 <= 109 <= 105 <= 103 <= 99 <= 99 <= 113 <= 109 <= 104 <= 116
Page1 751+ <= 353 <= 350 <= 354 <= 349 <= 379 <= 381 <= 407 <= 367 <= 370 <= 360
Page2 354 <= 526 <= 751+

Search engine traffic that included my keyword in the seach request.

1/09 - 18
1/10 - 14
1/11 - 15
1/12 - 20
1/13 - 27
1/14 - 20
1/15 - 28
1/16 - 33
1/17 - 20
1/18 - 19 Links to authority site added
1/19 - 17
1/20 - 13
1/21 - 21
1/22 - 20
1/23 - 22
1/24 - 21
1/25 - 21
1/26 - 16

Today's development is that Page1 and Page2 swapped spots. In total, no significant changes so far. In fact, I am surprised how stable my website ranking is for this term.

At this point, I feel updating this thread daily is a waste of time. I will update this thread when there is a significant change or when I am ready to end the test.

 

it takes google about 6 months to give you full credit for an incoming link......

 

yea you don't need to give us update everyday lol.

But I would like to know what would happen in like 2 months or 3. You may find a big difference.

 

Page1 is back around 350. Page2 has dropped off the radar again. I also noticed a copy of article I submitted to an article directory now ranks #201 for the keyword.

Unfortunately, I have some updates to these pages planned that I think will make a much bigger improvement than this link to an authority site has shown. Any significant improvement after that point I would attribute to the lastest changes.

 

Ranks as of Sunday Feb 4th:

Homepage 115 <= 108 <= 110 <= 109 <= 105 <= 103 <= 99 <= 99 <= 113 <= 109 <= 104 <= 116
Page1 310 <= 350 <= 751+ <= 353 <= 350 <= 354 <= 349 <= 379 <= 381 <= 407 <= 367 <= 370 <= 360
Page2 751+ <= 354 <= 526 <= 751+

Search engine traffic that included my keyword in the seach request.

1/09 - 18
1/10 - 14
1/11 - 15
1/12 - 20
1/13 - 27
1/14 - 20
1/15 - 28
1/16 - 33
1/17 - 20
1/18 - 19 Links to authority site added
1/19 - 17
1/20 - 13
1/21 - 21
1/22 - 20
1/23 - 22
1/24 - 21
1/25 - 21
1/26 - 16
1/27 - 15
1/28 - 24
1/29 - 14
1/30 - 14 Received links and posting on blog highly relevant to my keyword
1/31 - 24
2/01 - 16
2/02 - 17 Link from PR4 directory page fixed
2/03 - 13

Well, it happened. I have received a blogroll homepage link and a blog posting directly linking to Page1 & Page2. This blog is highly, highly relevant to my keyword. I have also fixed a bad link to Page1 from a PR4 directory page.

There has been basically no ranking change for my homepage or Page2 for this keyword. Page1 has improved from 360 to 310. I attribute that to the link from the blog posting. Hopefully there will be further improvement from the directory link.

I must say, I am disappointed with the results. I usually see a significant improvement in ranking after site updates or improvements. As far as I am concerned, there was no detectable improvement from adding links to the authority site. I would have thought the link would have more tightened the relationship between the two sites. At least in the time period of this test, that didn't appear to happen. If the improvement accrued over time, if it was going to be a significant improvement, I would have expected to see some early results. It is possible any improvement is sandboxed for months before there is any improvement in ranking. Other changes to my website over time would not allow me to determine the extent of any improvements.

Am I going to remove the links? I haven't decided. That means they will probably be around until I remove them along with other updates some time in the future...

My Conclusion
There is no benefit, in the short term, to linking to a highly relevant authority site.

 

It was an interesting experiment, whilst i doubt it would boost your pagerank, and frankly page rank really does'nt interest me anyway.

In theory outgoing links should help you. I don't think you've given the experiment long enough to have effect.

I've just realised that i've inadvertently created a similar experiment whilst using a 'free blog' to host some information for my colleague to read. I've noted various information about a particular subject with links off to relevent authority sites.

It will be interesting to see if the blog gets ranked! The only link it has is a single link from the homepage of the blog portal.

 

I would not remove if I were you. It may take more time. It wouldn't hurt your ranking at SERPs, would it?

Btw, how many authority sites did you link to?

You probably need more than just few links to them.