Link Power – How to get the best links

During the past feew weeks Ajith has been detailing different aspects of SEO and how to effectivly do it. The latest post which talks about preventing pagerank leakage.

So looking around I found an old draft I wrote a while back and thought it would be a nice fit! so without further ado…

Link Properties

Anchor Text

This is arguably one of the most vital aspects you have to look at in regards to your links. While it does not effect ‘PR’ obstensivly as even ‘bad neighbourhoods’ can pass the valuable boost in ranking of the text in the link.

So for example in ‘ Free SEO Tools ‘ the anchor texts are the actual words for linking. Above the words would be ‘Ajith’ and ‘preventing pagerank leakage’.

This would help the sites rank for those keywords/ phrases. An negative example of this method can be seen in ‘google bombing’. A famous example being ‘Miserable failure’ leading to George Bush when googled.

(5/5 in importance)

Age of the link

Now this is a debated factor, do older links hold more weight then links that have been around for only a few days?

Arguably in terms of PR they do, as we all know PR is updated on a regular basis but we only see the change once every three months.

So links that are transitional i.e. that last only a short period of time will be passing ‘PR juice’ only for that period and after the link goes this PR boost is not present.

Also if the age of the page the link is on is old, arguably it will hold a lot more ‘PR juice’ to pass on.

Due to the above reasoning I think it is a vital factor to be considered.

(3/5 in importance)

Type of link (image, text etc.)

In regards to this point I will point out that in a text link the ‘anchor text’ is what is the weight passing mechanism and in an image it is the ‘alt text’.

So this would suggest that they carry an equal amount of weight. In practice however I have found that having an image ranking no. 1 in an image search for the ‘keyword’ will hold more ‘weight’  then just a standard link.

Due to the ease of ranking images high up and therefore increasing thier value. I would say while they hold equal weight the extra possible boost via an image should not be ignored in a hard niche.

(2/5 in importance)

Surrounding text (near-link relevance)

Does the context of the link have relevance? It has been argued by many SEO ‘gurus’ that it does have an effect, though the range of the effect has been disagreed upon.

I would here say that a links Anchor text is more important then the surrounding text. However if the surrounding text is not ‘unique text’ i.e. a PLR article etc. It will have an effect on the pages ‘weight’ and therefore not be as effective as a link on a unique content page.

So it does have an influence but as article directories show, links in dupe contents still have enough power to help you rank.

(2/5 in importance)

Number of links

Using the old example of one link = one vote you would think that one hundred votes from a site would be better?

Arguably no. The benefit of having sitewide links would be that you would be crawled a lot more often. However it has been argued that once a certain threshold has passed the amount of link juice being passed on will be tapered (so only a certain % will pass).

It is also argued that site wide links could give indication of link buying and other spammy tactics.

Concluding that single targeted links on a good page are more beneficial then site wide links, though there is some argument about blogroll links.

(3/5 in importance)

Location of link

It is amost 100% accepted that footer links carry a lot less weight then a ‘in post’ links as it is almost always seen as a advertisment.

Sidebar links (blogroll) and other navigational area links have also been considered to be ‘diluted’ by search engines.

So the best location would be inside a post or article.

(3/5 in importance)

Reciprocity

While linking to a site that links back to you is not immeditely a no no, link exchnages and the such have always been considered to pass on less weight then normal linking practices. For the reason that they seem co-ordinated and planned as apposed to just a link because the site/content is good.

So yes reciprocity can carry weight and will pass decent PR, but only if it is done right and does not look liek a blantant exchnage of links.

So? do the linking in the post to have maximum benefits, though a blogroll exchnage will only have slightly less effect then it.

(2/5 in importance)

Target page (where the link points to)

One of the ‘mantras’ I picked up was ‘deeplinks and lots of them’.

An example can be given straight away; look at your own site. Look at your home page and then a post with PR. what is the PR/No. of links difference between the two.

You will find that your post (deep page) will have less links yet similar PR to your hompage that overshadows the whole site in number of links.

Also a link about Automated Video Sites pointing at my homepage instead of the article will have no benefit in helping me rank the post for that phrase.

So deep links are key. as they help you rank and ofc in the end the pages/posts pass PR to your homepage anyway so deep links are a dual benefit, win win solution.

(2/5 in importance)

So in conlusion links with your desired anchor text, in a unique post, pointing to a post of your own is the most benefical link to have.

On Page Factors

Page authority (incoming links)

I think this is pretty straight forward, the more links a page has the more juice it has to dish out. So 1000 links in and 10 out. Those 10 links will be very ‘powerful’.

(5/5 in importance)

Amount of Outbound links

Again as per the above example the 10 outgoing links will get a greater share namely 1/10. However if you add another 10 outgoing links, it would mean each link will only get 1/20 of the ‘PR juice’ and therefore ‘Less is better’

(5/5 in importance)

Internal links to page

So NewPostA is linked to by OldPostA and OldPostB from the same domain…does it make a difference?

Yes.

The ‘Authority’ of the two older posts is ‘passed on’ to the new post therefore giving the newer more authority (PR juice) to pass on.

(4/5 in importance)

Age of Page

This is a factor that has nothign solid written about it, however it is agreed that a link on an old Popular page will hold more weight then a link on a new page or a old non-popular page.

(3/5 in importance)

Page relevance

While the big search engines say that relvance is important and Latent Semantic Indexing is a vital factor, only Ask.com seems to have implemented it into its algo. properly. For the other big names link quality/quantity is the main factor in thier algo.

So no not right now, but it will come soon so stay ready!

(3/5 in importance)

So concluding a dated page with high incoming links (internal and external), with low outgoing and which links to you on a relevant topic is the best link to have.

Domain Factors

Domain Authority (backlinks)

If the domain has a high number of GOOD backlinks to it would mean it has more trust and authority to pass on and therefore would be very useful.

(5/5 in importance)

Age of domain

Older domains are preferred simiply for the logic that older domains = older relevant backlinks = more authority to pass on.

So if the content on the domain has been on one subject, and was good content then it will hold more ‘authority’ on the subject.

(4/5 in importance)

Domain PageRank

If the link is a ‘juice passing link’ then yes it has SOME vlaue but pagerank is not the begin all / end all of the system. Othe factors as described earlier are also relevant.

(3/5 in importance)

TLD’s (.com .gov .edu)

I would actually say here sometimes local tlds will help you rank better in the local markets. So site.co.uk  and Site.co.jp the pirior would rank better in the uk.

In regards to .gov and .edu, im going to say in matters of TLD only no. They do not matter. A link for them is good yes, but only because those tlds are seen as ‘authority’ and garner loads of backlinks. So the authority passing from them is greater then a normal tld.

So do TLD’s alone matter? possibly for local markets otherwise no.

(2/5 in importance)

So concluding it all the best link is one with your desired anchor text, in a unique post, pointing to a post of your own on a dated page with high incoming links (internal and external), with low outgoing and which links to you on a relevant topic and which is housed on a aged domain with loads of relevant backlinks!

Though this is not an  exact science this is just information I have learnt via experimenting and gleaned from others (by seeing). Tell me what you think!

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