The Link Graph: Why Some Sites Rank Well and Other's Don't

[vangogh]

Search engines place a lot of weight on linking patterns when deciding which web page to rank for a given query. In it's simplest form you can think of a link from Page A to Page B as a vote for Page B by Page A.

However it really is more complicated than a single link equals a single vote.

I've seen many people desperately asking where they can get links from with the thinking that all it takes is more links to rank. More is part of the equation, but it's hardly the only part.

SEOmoz's Whiteboard Friday video (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-how-the-link-graph-works) today (The do a whiteboard Friday video every Friday) is about the Link Graph. The Link Graph is a visual way to think about how search engines view links between web pages and websites.

If you find talk about links confusing at times this would be a good video to watch. It's about 11:00 long (just under), but it gives you a good overview of how search engines look at links to determine which web pages they should rank.

I agree with the general view Rand describes in the video. What do you think? Does he have the graph right? Is this how search engines see links?

[billbenson]

I thought the video was well done. What really was important, I thought, was the interrelation of different aspects of linking from who you link to; who links to you; and internal linking.

There was a lot of good information there. One of the things that was mentioned that is worth repeating is the importance of who you link to or from. Just looking at the links from category, he said if you have a couple of links from sites that google doesn't like (spammy sites), it won't hurt you. I don't recall him saying this but it was at least implied, but if you have a bunch of links from spam sites or sites G doesn't like, it may or will hurt you.

This goes directly to randomly posting links on directory's, article sites, etc. You will see a lot of people recommending you post a link on every one of them that you can find. IMO it is very important where you place that link. Put 100 directory links up and you might find that your SERPS placement goes way down. You need to look at whether G likes the site you are putting the link on. That's not just PR. Look at the number of pages cached, if they are in the supplemental results, how pages on the linking site with your keywords place in SERPS, and look for google spam on the site and who is linking to them. JMO

[vangogh]

I thought it was well done too. The info wasn't necessarily new to me, but I thought Rand explained the concepts well and hoped some people here would get something out of it.

Good point about who you link to and where you get links from. Google used to say on their site that who linked to you couldn't hurt you, but they've since changed it to may not hurt you or something like that. The implication is where you get links from can hurt, but most likely won't.

As the video explains trust is a big factor. A brand new site without good links pointing in doesn't have much trust yet in the eyes of search engines so in that case if someone points a lot of spammy links at you it might hurt your site. The prevention and solution is simply to get more of the good kind of links, which build up your trust.

It's definitely important not to link out to spammy sites. It's one reason why link exchanges can get you in trouble.

I agree about the directories. I think most simply won't help. I don't think they fall into the categories that will hurt you, but it's possible some could. But you're right that you should look into the quality of the directory before submitting. At best you'll just be wasting your time submitting to a junk directory, but at worst who knows.

[cbscreative]

I've been noticing a trend in directories that I personally think is good. I'm probably not the only one who would get annoyed when you are searching for something and the first page of results is mostly directories. Yeah, that was great for the directories that wanted to show their ranking to sell ads, but I always thought it was mostly useless for the search itself. These directories aren't doing so well any more, many are even blacklisted. That's fine by me, and also a good reason not to waste time on directories.

[vangogh]

Google especially has taken an active role against directories. Of course they are in a sense competition. Search has really replaced directories as a way to find things online, though I think there are still some good directories left.

I didn't always mind seeing a directory at the top of the search results. Depended on the directory. If that directory helped me get where I wanted to go then it seemed appropriate to show in results. The problem is most directories never help you get where you want to go. Too many just accept anyone and so the sites listed are mostly garbage. If anything you could argue that many of the sites listed were the bottom of the bottom. They submitted to the directory because they couldn't find anyone else to link to them.