Link Trading Q

[JoeBlack]

I was wondering if the index is the defining page for passing pr and/or relevance? Say I have a trade with someone other than on there index page...am I losing out if that page has a high pr in itself?

Example: If I have an asian site that is of all asian niche. If I link trade from my index to a general link list asian category which has its own high PR and traffic of its own am I losing out by allowing them to link back to me from that category page or would I do better getting index trades with that site instead as far as relevance and ranking goes?

[SaucyPanties]

Not sure I follow what your talking about, but Google accepts that you have no control what links to you but when you link outwards you have total control so select wisely and avoid the grey google blocked cheaters, link to one of them and you will suffer...

Sue

[Kinky]

I don't think you will be losing out on anything... depends on who's opinion you are asking for as people have different theories on link trading... I would think it would be good to have a link from the category page because you get a relevent one way link to your site which SEs like to see... the PR transfered depends on a few things but I believe one of the big ones is how many outgoing links the page that is linking to you has... and some pretty big sites have no index trades they use their main pages for trades

[Bill]

In _theory_, theme to theme (that is, for example, an asian page linked to an asian page) is the stronger...

In practice, it's hard to tell.

In theory, google, as an example SE, in "downgrading" index-to-index trades.

In practice, it's very hard to point to any evidence that is actually true.

Your best bet is to mix it up and try to set up some of both.

[JoeBlack]

Originally Posted by SaucyPanties

Not sure I follow what your talking about, but Google accepts that you have no control what links to you but when you link outwards you have total control so select wisely and avoid the grey google blocked cheaters, link to one of them and you will suffer...

Sue

Sorry SaucyPanties if I wasn't clear enough, but I think you may have misunderstood me.

Although I knew the general imformation you stated its good to those who didn't so thanks anyway.

[JoeBlack]

Originally Posted by kinky

I believe one of the big ones is how many outgoing links the page that is linking to you has...

That is a very good point that I over looked. Thanks for your imput.

[JoeBlack]

Originally Posted by Bill

In _theory_, theme to theme (that is, for example, an asian page linked to an asian page) is the stronger...

In practice, it's hard to tell.

In theory, google, as an example SE, in "downgrading" index-to-index trades.

In practice, it's very hard to point to any evidence that is actually true.

Your best bet is to mix it up and try to set up some of both.

Thanks Bill for your help. I think I will just have to try and mix it up as you suggested. I might also do a small test on 2 of my other niche sites to see how it goes.

"Google needs to pick a theory and stick with it"

[Kinky]

Originally Posted by JoeBlack

"Google needs to pick a theory and stick with it"

if they did that the only people getting any traffic would be cheaters and scammers

[Rocco]

think relevancy is very important for the linktrades - feel free to contact me if you would like me to help you out with some linktrades

[Monsieur]

Hey there!

A link from a page other than the index page doesn't make any difference to Google (can't say too much about other search engines as Google is the only one I did much research for).

It might even be better for your ranking because it would seem more relevant (from the theme) for the search engine.

The only thing that would go for the index page instead of the category page would be that the index page probably has higher PR (which, seen as only factor, doesn't count anything these days, but implies other (valuable) things as well) so a link from the index could have a higher value.

Personally I would go for relevant theme links so I'ld be perfectly fine with the category backlink ;-)

[Linkster]

Ill stick my neck out a little here - first off - remember that you really have no way of measuring what the PR is of the page linking to you as Google has officially removed any way of really seeing that - the toolbar PR is definitely not correct and the only other way of measuring it is very time-consuming (although some of us still do it)
Now lets talk about a seperate subject - Page Rank - not to be confused with PR - if you see that a page (category in this case) is ranking well in the SE positions (SERPs) in Google, then it is probably a safe bet that you would want a link from the category with a good mix of text in the link if you can get it for your "theme"

On the other hand if you can find a "niche" index page that has a good ranking and seems to be legit, then that would be a better link, if you can see that that page is affecting other peoples site in a beneficial way.

[neveremail]

Originally Posted by Linkster

Ill stick my neck out a little here - first off - remember that you really have no way of measuring what the PR is of the page linking to you as Google has officially removed any way of really seeing that - the toolbar PR is definitely not correct and the only other way of measuring it is very time-consuming (although some of us still do it)
Now lets talk about a seperate subject - Page Rank - not to be confused with PR - if you see that a page (category in this case) is ranking well in the SE positions (SERPs) in Google, then it is probably a safe bet that you would want a link from the category with a good mix of text in the link if you can get it for your "theme"

On the other hand if you can find a "niche" index page that has a good ranking and seems to be legit, then that would be a better link, if you can see that that page is affecting other peoples site in a beneficial way.

Whats the difference between PR and Page Rank

I thought they were the same??

[Linkster]

Sorry - should have defined the terms a little better PR is usually the number that one sees when they look at the Google toolbar or one of its clones - which Google has made pretty much useless in an attempt to thwart link buyers wheras Page Rank is the actual part of the Google algorithm (actually the main basis of their voting system) used to rank pages against each other.
These are the "standard" definitions however you are correct in that a lot of people use them interchangeably - hope that helps

[Monsieur]

Originally Posted by Linkster

(...) - which Google has made pretty much useless in an attempt to thwart link buyers (...)

But they still have some updates (pretty much on a quarterly basis) which you can use as a hint for the PR so you'll just need to look at the PRs right after a new update to find out the current PRs of pages.

And yes, the Toolbar PR ist useless, but in another way, because it's very vague, especially when a page gets to a higher PR. Reason for that is that the internal PR of a site is not the one Google shows in the toolbar.
Little example (numbers not correct):

Internal PR: 1-10 --> Toolbar PR: 1
Internal PR: 11-100 --> Toolbar PR: 2
Internal PR: 101-1000 --> Toolbar PR: 3
and so on...

Would've been easier to understand if I was a native speaker, I know...;-)

[Rocco]

ok, today is a great day and i am in the mood to unveil some details.

these are the points to consider on which page you want your link on, not everyone will agree, though. this page should have (in competitive order, top = most important):
1. comply with google TOS
2. toolbar pr (it's not as important as it used to be, but it is still a very good indication)
3. a relevant theme
4. 10 or more outlinks to relevant pages
5. inbound links from relevant pages

while the points 1-3 and 5 are clear, point 4 looks odd: for pr distribution a page (the page which is linking to you) should only have a few outlinks as the pr is distributed among the outlinks (5 outlinks - your link gets 1/5 of the pr power, 100 links - your link gets 1/100 of the pr power). but pr is not the only factor which matters. there is a thing called Hub Score (which is not a factor in the original google algo) which is achieved by the linking page. if a page links to many relevant pages this increases its Hub Score and makes the linked pages more relevant. Think of this: an asian category page links to an asian free site, this very same asian free site at the same time is linked by many other asian category pages of other linklists. this makes the asian free site more relevant and also gives a good hub score to all linking asian category pages. the hub score says 'this page links to many valueable pages, so a page listed from that page must be good'. so the more outlinks an asian category page has to pages which also are linked from other asian category pages makes that asian category page a good resource (or hub) for asian free sites. from this point of view, it makes a link from such a page more valueable. sounds logical.

but what is the drawback from having a link on a category page with many outlinks? as mentioned above the pr is distributed among all outlinks equally, your page will not receive much pr value from that trade but much thematical power.

how should you trade? you should mix it as it comes. webmasters have different opinions, some only want reciprocal trades, some not at all, etc. so the mix happens automatically with your partners link behaviours. this way you will get some pr power trades and some thematical relevant links. now you only need good content and the surfers will love your page

[Denver]

IMHO,

1. comply with google TOS
2. inbound links from relevant pages
3. a relevant theme
4. toolbar pr
5. outlinks to relevant pages

[Linkster]

I still will disagree with basing anything on toolbar PR - its too easy for a WM that wants to get trading partners to boost his own PR of a page - thats why Google doesnt really give a shit what the toolbar displays anymore - they know that thousands of WMs are already gaming the displayed PR

I do agree with Rocco about the outgoing links on a page - the "authority boost" far outweighs the Page Rank reduction due to more outgoings.
I also think you might want to add one more that is probably more important than any of the things listed here - that the page is W3C compliant - in other words it will validate - if a page doesnt do that it is a poor page in Google's eyes and not really worth their time - although you can get a somewhat good ranking on pages that dont validate - a page that does will far outweigh one that doesnt

[Linkster]

Originally Posted by Monsieur

But they still have some updates (pretty much on a quarterly basis) which you can use as a hint for the PR so you'll just need to look at the PRs right after a new update to find out the current PRs of pages.

And yes, the Toolbar PR ist useless, but in another way, because it's very vague, especially when a page gets to a higher PR. Reason for that is that the internal PR of a site is not the one Google shows in the toolbar.

Monsieur - I really dont understand what you are trying to say here - but I can tell you that the PR shown after an update (which btw is not quarterly anymore) is complete BS - the closest you can come to a real number is to look at the site in the Google Directory and if you know how to read the little green bars next to the sites in the directory, they will give you a somewhat good indication of it's PR for the page they have in there.

[neveremail]

What does comply with google TOS mean??

And what does the page being W3C compliant mean??

[Monsieur]

Originally Posted by neveremail

What does comply with google TOS mean??

And what does the page being W3C compliant mean??

Google Guidelines for webmasters:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

Check for W3C Compliancy:
http://validator.w3.org/


@Linkster:
I have to admit that I didn't do too much research on SEO lately (and didn't visit the SEO forums at all in the last month), but I was still thinking that the PR updates are on a quarterly basis.
If that's wrong, what's the time frame between the updates then nowadays?

And sorry, but I still don't go with your comment that the Toolbar PR is complete BS, because I still think it's at least somewhat relevant directly after an update.

btw: I like reading your posts, pretty informative ;-)

[Linkster]

Monsieur - theyve been doing the Page Rank updates randomly -
Here's a small list:
Google toolbar Page Rank update / time since previous update

April 22, 2005 / 111 days

January 1, 2005 / 87 days

October 6, 2004 /106 days

June 22, 2004 / 22 days

May 31, 2004 / 38 days

April 23, 2004 / 16 days

April 7, 2004 / 22 days

March 16, 2004 / 50 days

January 26, 2004 / 15 days

December 23, 2003 / 17 days

December 6, 2003 / 20 days

The other important factor in this is this is just when they update the toolbar PR numbers - not the actual Page Ranks
The Google Directory has a much better history of being almost monthly for its PR indicator updates - remember that the Directory indicator is 8 places compared to the toolbar which is based on 10.

As far as the toolbar PR being useless/BS - this was just my opinion based on the fact that Google has stated that the backlinks indicator in the toolbar has been scrambled on purpose (happened due to a SEO recommending it to Googles rep at a SEO show back in early 2004)- and the site: command has been changed recently to not include the site scrapers and hijackers 302 redirects (this was Googles response to many complaints about scrapers and 302s). This leads me to believe that Google has also scrambled the code for the toolbar PR to give people trying to SEO more confusion - as well as the fact that the PR indicated can be manipulated by anyone with a little savvy - if you wanted a page to show PR10 on the toolbar you could do it within 2 days with no problem (of course it would be stupid to show ya'll how)

The main part of the toolbar PR being BS is that the numbers they are showing, just like the backlinks, dont match pages in the directory which has always been a much better relative ranking and PR indicator and closely matches the SERP rankings where the real Page Rank is taken into account.

I believe in an old article I wrote for Adult Buzz or one of the other web pubs I had stated that over 100 factors on and off page really go into the "actual" Page Rank - based on the Google founders original page rank paper and testing that we did to try to rank the importance of the factors - these factors are still just as important and far outweigh the indicated PR on the toolbar which brought me to my conclusion that using the little green bar is useless - add to that Google's neverending attempts to mislead SEOs trying to game them (which they are very good at and have engineers that do nothing but these types of projects) I would say that looking at the actual high ranking pages and studying why they rank so high (the real Page Rank effects) is a much better use of time

Sorry - too much coffee this morning

[neveremail]

Originally Posted by Monsieur

Google Guidelines for webmasters:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

Check for W3C Compliancy:
http://validator.w3.org/

Thanks they are both very useful as is Linksters input.

Just a question about the google guidelines:

They say:

"Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content. "

But isn't this just what all free sites are like with highly duplicated mirror sites??

[Monsieur]

Hey Linkster, sorry but I need to answer again (You probably feel like talking to some shit talking n00b, but I'm not like that ;-), I just have some other point of views on some things, which you think are wrong ;-))

Originally Posted by Linkster

Monsieur - theyve been doing the Page Rank updates randomly

Hmm...looking at the days between the last few updates I'ld still say they're doing them on an almost quarterly basis (between 3-4 month between the updates). Do you mean randomly = manually? Because I'ld say that's just incorrect, because I couldn;t imagine a guy sitting in the Google headquarters just pushing a button called "PR update" whenever he wants to ;-)

Originally Posted by Linkster

The other important factor in this is this is just when they update the toolbar PR numbers - not the actual Page Ranks

I'm aware of that. They also update the backlinks separately and calculate the PRs internally all the time but just don't publish 'em.

Originally Posted by Linkster

if you wanted a page to show PR10 on the toolbar you could do it within 2 days with no problem (of course it would be stupid to show ya'll how)

Yeah, that's easy ;-)
But it doesn't do you any good, because you don't benefit from that stupid toolbar PR10 shown for your site ;-)
Some of these fake sites do very well on eBay, though...although it's just BSing the buyers...

Originally Posted by Linkster

I would say that looking at the actual high ranking pages and studying why they rank so high (the real Page Rank effects) is a much better use of time

Definitely true. Another good thing to use your time for is browsing through the different SEO forums there are on the web...;-)

[Linkster]

Originally Posted by neveremail

But isn't this just what all free sites are like with highly duplicated mirror sites??

Very true - thats why you will find some very specific requirements on some LLs rules lists about how they want the doorways done

There are a bunch of old threads here on the LL forum that delve into the best way to do your free sites to avoid that TOS statement from Google - Id do a quick search over there for "doorway pages" and Im sure you will find loads of discussions from the past

[Linkster]

Originally Posted by Monsieur

Hey Linkster, sorry but I need to answer again (You probably feel like talking to some shit talking n00b, but I'm not like that ;-),


Hmm...looking at the days between the last few updates I'ld still say they're doing them on an almost quarterly basis (between 3-4 month between the updates). Do you mean randomly = manually? Because I'ld say that's just incorrect, because I couldn;t imagine a guy sitting in the Google headquarters just pushing a button called "PR update" whenever he wants to ;-)

Not thinking noobs at all
And you are correct about the last 3 updates - they have been looking like quarterly changes - Im not sure that is really intentional other than Google trying to "mislead or roust the WMs" a little

As far as the manual update and the guy at Google pushing a button - you'd be amazed at how they really do it - and yes it is just a little red button - the only thing thats different every time is the buttons that get pushed and dials that get turned to revise the algorithm