How is google really valuing backlinks?

I actually came across this by accident, if you examine the inbound links to avatarfinancial(dot)com to only this URL and except from this domain you'll be very surprised. The website is a that offers services for Nationwide, Direct Hard Money Loans.

In examining the first 100 inbound links, I found various unrelated websites supplying links such as:

- Florida criminal law links
- Memory foam furniture blog
- Potty training concepts
- Indian horoscopes
- Phone card services
- Curtain accessories
- Web design services

and trust me I can go on and I even found invisible links and paid sponsored links that had no 'nofollow' tags

In all of these websites they rotated the following anchor texts and surround text if possible:
"hard money" #6 on G
"hard money lenders" #4 on G
"commercial bridge loans" #4 on G
"hard money loans" #2 on G
"Commercial lenders" #6 on G

Keep in mind, SEOMOZ (a respected name in SEO) does their SEO and have done it since 2002. How has Google not caught them?

While they did have Dmoz and yahoo directory listings and some actual related content links (mostly spammy), the majority were these spammy link directories and unrelated content. I think the website itself is optimized nice, but that cannot be the reason they are ranking so high in google.

Any thoughts? I understand one way links can't hurt you, but they have 7,000 links and in sampling the first 100, they are all crap.

It just goes to show you that the predatory lending market is alive and well in the US. And of course, a company in this particular industry, will try ever SEO tactic under the sun, ethical or otherwise.

A link is a link and in most instances better than not having a link.

Since Google doesn't show links in any order of value crappy links are listed right along side that of quality links thus you have absolutely no reference to indicate which links aid to ranks and which ones are pretty much a non-issue to ranks.

Just so you know... I also provide links to Avatar and can say they are all Hard Money specific links from Hard Money specific pages located in a Hard Money sub-section for commercial business on whatever domain.

Links will only be looked on favourably by Google if it is relevant. So a link going from a Finance company to a soft foam website or a curtain site is completely off topic and is classed as spam by their Robot. I'm afraid the comment about links of some description being better than none is not correct.

hmmm... bad explanation -- what if the finance company had a vast resource that was associated with the reason businesses got its loan thus the link is in context and related e.g. soft foam inventory, soft foam patent, shelving for soft foam, and the same for curtains etc., etc.



hmmm... I got a tire store website should I link to a credit card site?

What if the credit card site was Canadian Tire with every page of 3-400 saying "tire"?

Now I find a site offering links and they are about Christmas - it this ok? What if I get a link in their Winter Snow & Ice story section that links to my winter tires, snow tires, or ice chains and ice pick sections.

Seriously if you haven't given either of these "valuable linking tips" a second thought beyond the limited "off topic dribble" - you shouldn't be offering anyone any advice -- as you don't really have a clue about what is and isn't related.

1. if a page that links isn't penalized then the link has more value than no link at all and it matters not how related it is.

2. A related link at a low quality is worth more than a less related link at a higher quality

3. Anyone that says no link is better than a link isn't knowledgable about links.

If the website you're linking into mentions your company in the URL that you're linking into then it makes it relevant. Otherwise Google's robot simply sees it as 2 mates linking to each others site.

I think most people look at it from what would appear to be a common sense perspective whereas realistically it should be looked at from a Google Algorithm perspective.

I'm sorry you don't like my explanation or agree with what i'm saying but I do this for a living - every single company we work on are in the top 10 for their relevant keyterms. These range from targeted terms for conversion or terms that receive 100 million plus results.

We have plenty of international blue chip companies on board who have been with us for years due to the results we yield.

If you wanna be argumentative pal go knock yourself out - try arguing with a mirror it sounds as though you could have hours of fun.

I'm not touting for business merely trying to help some poor souls by not going 'techie and putting it into 'laymans' terms for them, i'm Google trained and qualified if you don't like what i'm saying complain to them cos they taught me.

P.S I never said that no links are better than links I said no links are better than irrelevant unethical links as Google WILL see this as spam if IT considers it to be irrelevent.

Ergo I agree with you that anyone who says no links is better than having links is unknowledgeable - but the links have to be right.

P.P.S I spoke to a company today who has been sent a letter from Google with a detailed list of black hat issues that were implemented by their previous SEO company. They have been deducted one PR due to spam and gateway entry so before you try and say penalties do not exist they do.

google doens't see links as spam as long as they are from somebody's elses website.

like stated above, if you were to have links from your site xxx.mysite.xxx that has links going well back to xxx.mysite.xxx then that would be considered spam.

and to my understandings then google wouldn't count those links. correct?

again like stated above, relevant links are more powerful then un-related links, but a link is a link. They all do the same thing and that is give you better pr in the end. It just depends on the quality and relevance of that particular link as to how much of a boost you will recieve.

@Milsey: You seem to be very sure of yourself in claiming things that - as far as the general consensus in this forum goes - are not entirely correct. You have less than 10 posts and no reputation here.
It's natural that respected members like fathom argue against someone who describes himself as a professional (I'd rather let others do that) and who states something as a fact that is - apparently - not quite true.

It does not cause a penalty to your site if Google regards some of your one way backlinks as spam, they're just not counted. That's all we say. Your opinion is not far off, but not quite the same.

What? You're joking right! ...since all external links mention the domain name they link to, there are no "mates just linking to each others sites" -- correct?



HeeHee That explains everything then... what "precisely did Google train you in"?

It obvious they didn't explain the limitations of your training.

I'm glad i ignited a good conversation about this. Matt Cutts even referenced the avatar website is one of his blog comment posts. This is how I started looking into their backlinks. See below:

-----------
Boney, a legit press release can get you written up by reporters, or editors/sites may subsequently choose to link to your site. But the actual content of the press release itself doesn’t directly affect a site. For example, on http://www.prweb(dot)com/releases/2005/10/prweb296086.php those hyperlinks don’t help avatarfinancial.com (in Google).

In examining some hyperlinks, they have links on an ADHD org website that was created in january of 2007.

I don't understand because these are same guys saying not to do exactly what they are doing.

It really does make me think, if you want to rank higher, just keep using selected keywords in your anchor text, and use it everywhere. Maybe Google will eventually devalue some of your links, but not right now, and it is going to take a while if you have over 7,000.

No one said penalties do not exist (at least no one paying attention). However, just about all of your other statements are simply not true. You'd have to be asleep at the wheel to believe as an absolute statement, or even as a rule of thumb that no links is better than non-relevant links. With few exceptions, a link is better than no link, relevant or not. This has been demonstrated over and over again.

Link from sites that Google has deemed spam (scraper sites, sites known to be selling links) likely have no value, but they do not provide negative value - in most cases. You actually have to try pretty hard to have in bound links hurt you. It can be done, but it is not a regular occurance by any stretch of the imagination.