the ipagerank.com non reciprocal idea is interesting, but I found out a while ago that it is also important to get links from sites related to your own. I used Addweb Pro which generated a couple of hundred links for me very quickly, but noticed in Google's SERPs when one checks sites "related to the current one" It seemed as if it diluted my keyword strength.
It led me to post the below article on my site. Feel free to point out any errors as I'm sure there are some, but it also has a couple of intriguing theories...
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I have set this page up to help webmasters understand good linking practice and some of the traps that less experienced webmasters fall into. The most important thing to realize is that search engines are looking for relevant content; so any scheme that tries to fool engines as to your true rank will fail in the long run. Here are some rules you should follow to make sure your site is not impeded by mistaken ideas... - Don't link indiscriminately. This is really the same idea as above, but realize that link relevance is extremely important. Small sites need to be more careful in this regard. A large site, or a search engine can get away with linking to anything, because it has matching content on it's own site (usually a link directory like Yahoo or Google's). Small sites don't have matching content, so the engine thinks you are linking just to boost your popularity. The way engines counteract this is by weighing the keywords on your site proportionately to the overall linking relevance of your site. For instance, if you run an automotive repair shop online, but 90% of your links point to non-automotive sites, like real-estate.com, the weight of the keywords in your title tags for your whole site will be diluted in proportion to your outward linking irrelevance. A good rule of thumb is if you wouldn't put that site's main theme/keywords in a title tag on one of the pages of your site, then you shouldn't link to it. Doing so makes the engine think your site is (for instance) "automotive" and "real-estate", then the engine thinks your title tag should look like "Automotive and Real-Estate" even though it only says "Automotive", and the result is that your site behaves as if it was lacking the keyword density in your title tag that would give you a high rank for "Automotive"!
- Links are like relatives. The fact of the matter is that every link on your site is like an endorsement (despite disclaimers I see stated on many sites to the contrary saying they don't take responsibility for the other site's content). The fact is that all sites take responsibility whether they like it or not, because search engines enforce this!!! Every time you link to a site, you bring that site's content in closer relationship to your own content which is similar to a gravitational pull. Heavyweight sites like astrology.com are like the Sun and are moved little by your gravitational pull (link), but if your site is like some comet and you link to a "Sun", then your site will increase in rank considerably (by being moved closer to the Sun). This is why search engines also have a type of search like: "Find sites related to www.mysite.com". For this reason, the linking page and the linked page should have the same or similar keywords in the title, header and body of the html page. If not, then engines might classify it as linkspam and lower the rank of the page that links out. The other possibility is that if two sites of very dissimilar nature link to eachother, it is like a gravitational pull between two stars that are so far apart that the gravitational pull / magnetic field generated is negligible. However, engines do realize that there are alot of personal "hobby" sites that link to anything, and as long as you aren't linking back irrelevantly, engines will count this as a job well done by you.
- A common misconception is that you should only trade links with those who rank higher than you, and that link trades that leak traffic are bad. This logic is based upon the idea that only one can win in a link trade situation and it is false. Remember what I said above, links are like gravitational bonds between sites that draw the content of the site you link to in closer relationship to your own. Therefore if you link to less popular sites than your own in the same field, that gravitational pull will not be as great as if you link to the same number of more popular sites. Also keep in mind each of these links is like a vector and they all go in different directions, so one link in the same field can offset the gravitational pull of another link in a slightly different direction. This means that if you are linking out to alot of sites, the magnetic field that your site generates gets stronger, more uniform and more independent of perturbations, but keep in mind that if the linking is not relevant, the magnetic field of your site will be skewed and full of disruptions. The stronger the magnetic field, the more your site will appear to be like the Sun. Being astrologers, we understand that the Sun leaks alot of light (traffic), because it's nature is profusion. But because of it's incredibly strong gravity and mass (large site) and density (relevant content), it generates alot of recognition and attraction. Related to the above idea of link gravitation, is the idea that the larger your site is (more massive), the more gravitational pull your links will generate per link. This means that if your site is very large, when you link to another site, that site's title tag keywords will be incorporated into your engine's ranking algorithm of your site more noticably than it would be with smaller sites. Also, if your site has alot of matching content, but does not link out enough, the engine will think it is because the content is not that relevant to anything else out on the web which will cause your less frequently used keywords (and often less popular) to be more heavily weighed, so that your site will be found under peculiar searches, but not common ones (because the engine thinks your site is more unique). This is of course hardly a desirable situation unless your site is truly unique.
Also, keep in mind that if your site is leaking traffic, the fault is your own because you did not effectively grab the users interest. This is usually because of bad web design, pages that take too long to load, framed content, or poor navigation schemes. If you focus on content, then you will never need to worry about this problem. However, there are more reasons why this is not a real issue. For instance, by this logic, search engines leak the most traffic of all, yet they get the most traffic! If your site has alot of traffic to leak, this is a sign of success! After all, do you really expect your users to stay at your site once they get there for eternity? Sooner or later users must leave, so trying to box users into your site (with popups or back button redirectors) is a mistake. That will piss them off and they might never return! It is best to give them as efficient a way to leave as possible.
- Another common misconception is that it is always better if users spend alot of time on your site. This is false. If you have an advanced statistics program like Webtrends or FastStats, you will understand that sometimes users who spend alot of time on your site going from page to page without apparent aim or purpose are having difficulty navigating and are sometimes frustrated. You should try to understand your demographic and understand the length of time your users should need to stay in order to efficiently complete what they are doing. Long stays can indicate both interest and frustration with your navigation.
- Every page on your site should point to your link category page. Alot of sites only have the index.html page point to this, but you are missing out on building popularity for the link page itself. Alot of webmasters forget that every page on your site has a rank, not just the index page. If you build up the links page to higher rank, you will increase the chance that webmasters will see it and want to trade. Also, don't forget the real purpose of having a links page: to foreward your visitors to finely tuned content related to your own! In effect, you are trying to improve upon the search engine results for the engine that lists you, and this will boost your rank!
- Keyword in domain name relevance is all important these days. Starting in January of 2002, search engines started relying more on keyword in domain name relevance to further fine-tune searches. Look at the top 10 sites for "astrology" on Google. Most of them have the word "astrology" somewhere in the URL! This is another reason why categories for links are important, because each html file can be named in a relevant fashion related to your's and the other site's content.
- http://www.zodiac-x-files.com/links.html
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zoidsoft
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January 12th, 2004, 05:51 PM
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