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hotnetprofits.com
Online Home Based Business Opportunity Articles
How Important Are Links?
I've noticed lately that there seems to be some confusion about the actual importance of links to the search engines and Google in particular. So, I thought I'd try to explain just how important they really are.
The first thing that needs to be understood is that the search engines generally won't list a site if there are no links pointing to it from other sites. This is definitely the case on AllTheWeb, Inktomi, etc., because they want people to pay to be listed. Therefore, they only list sites for free if they appear important based on the number of links that point to them. Google is different because they don't want payment but due to the sheer size of the web, they can't find all pages so they will tend to only list ones with links.
Once a site is in Google, links can form a small part of the algorithm or they can be the only part of the algorithm that really matters. This is because the links part of the algorithm (PageRank) is one of the only parts of the algorithm that is infinite. Every time you get a link to one of your pages, it's PR increases. There is no limit to the amount of PR you can have. With on page factors, there are limits to how much each factor is worth.
This means that for highly competitive keywords, PR is basically the main contributing factor along with Anchor Text (another off page factor). The PR of the sites in the top 10 for a word like "travel" is so high that it makes almost all other factors irrelevant (except Anchor Text).
At the other end of the spectrum are keywords and phrases that are much less competitive. On some occasions, PR is almost irrelevant because most of the sites don't have much. To understand why this is, you need to understand how PR works. When Page A links to Page B it sends PR. The amount of PR sent depends on the PR of Page A divided by the number of links on the page.
Now, the PR that you see in the Google Toolbar is not "real" - it's just a relative figure. Chances are it's based on a logarithmic scale. This means that there is not much difference between PRs of 2 and 3 but there is a huge difference between PRs of 6 and 7. So, if a page is competing with others that have a PR of 3, it can beat them based on on page factors even if it has a PR of only 1.
Google probably makes two or three separate calculations when someone does a search. It works out relevance based on the on page factors. It then adds the PR value to each page's score. It then probably adds in the Anchor Text score. So, a PR of 3 will probably only add a few points to a page. If a competing page with a PR of 1 does a lot better in regards to on page factors like title, heading tags and so on, it has enough points to cover the PR and anchor text factors. As soon as competing pages get to around 4 or 5, PR starts playing a huge role in the algorithm because the differences in it's "real" value are much higher.
This is starting to get a bit technical so I'll get back to how it really affects sites. If the top 10 pages in Google for a keyword or phrase are all PR 5 or above, chances are you won't get in if your page has a PR 4. This is because you can't beat your competitors by enough on the on page factors to stay ahead once PR is added. There are some exceptions to this but it will only be when your competitor isn't targeting a word at all. If they get almost no points for the on page factors (maybe they just mention the phrase once in the middle of their page) then you could win. If they want to beat you, they can without any trouble.
Now, if your page has a PR of 5 and everyone in the top 10 has a PR of 7, you can pretty much forget about ranking well until you get your PR up. You've reached a point where PR and Anchor Text make up 90% or more of the algorithm because the pages have so much of it. Once keywords are so popular that PR 7 and above sites are targeting them, the on page factors are worth almost nothing.
Take the "webmasters" example from the start of this newsletter. Many of the sites don't mention the word anywhere and some only have it in their title. Whilst some of the pages are PR 6, chances are they are a high 6 (there can be a big difference between two sites with the same "relative" PR due to the logarithmic scale). These sites have so many links pointing to them with "webmasters" in the anchor text that on page factors are all but irrelevant.
This brings us back to the idea that I've been writing about over the last few weeks and that is that you should compete on keywords that give you a chance of success (often these keywords are more valuable than the more competitive ones). At the same time, you need to keep getting links to your site if you can because as your PR increases, you can target more popular keywords. It also helps to make sure that you maintain your existing rankings. If a site with a high PR decides to target the same phrase as you then you can forget the number 1 spot. Therefore, a linking campaign should be an ongoing part of your search engine marketing strategy.
If you could one day target the really popular keywords, your site will definitely benefit. You don't have to stop targeting the less popular keywords that provide motivated traffic - you can just add keywords and phrases to those that you target now.
I've written about getting links before so I'll just sum it up quickly here.
1. Find other sites that have "complimentary" products or services and offer to exchange links.
2. Submit to all the general and niche directories.
3. Write articles and submit them to all the article directories.
4. Offer something for free and submit it to all of the "free stuff" sites.In the short term, links aren't terribly important to Google. You can still target lots of valuable keywords without too much PR. In the long term, as you want your business to grow, links will become more important to increase your traffic. In this way, getting links to your site are very important.
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About the Author
Sean Burns - WebmastersReference.com
Search Engine Rankings Revealed - LET the Search Engines Make You Money
hotnetprofits.com - All rights reserved - © 2003