On occassion, I feel that my blog posts here may make it seem that I'm an insufferable know-it-all in the realm of SEO, which certainly isn't the case. To illustrate the point, I thought it would be revealing and worthy of discussion to bring up several questions to which I don't have good answers. Here goes:
- The Diminishing Value of Anchor Text
The theory goes that if a page is linked to multiple times on a single page, the subsequent anchor texts (assuming they are unique) will carry less weight, or perhaps no weight at all in the rankings. For example, if I linked to this groovy thing on utensil art, which is coolerific, the search engines would give more weight to the anchor text "groovy thing" than "utensil art" and "coolerific" - true or false? - How Far Does Synonymy Go?
In a search like this one for Bryan Gumbel (purposely mis-spelled), note how Google appears to treat the search as though it were the more likely phrase, "Bryant Gumbel." In this situation, assuming I really did want to optimize for "Bryan Gumbel," could I conceptually rank well by having a stronger page than the top few for the mis-spelled phrase, or is Google giving weight to listings that have the proper spelling? - Can Link Removals Hurt Rankings?
Let's say you have a site that an editor adds at Wikipedia. A few weeks later, another editor decides to remove that link - the search engines spider and discover the addition and, later, the removal. Will the temporal loss of a high quality link affect you more adversely than if the link had never been placed at all? Is removal from Wikipedia (or other high authority sites) a factor in hurting rankings more than simply taking that link's juice out of your site/page's strength? (note - Wikipedia might not be a great example, since links are often added and later removed) - Does Sharing Registrants with Spammers Hurt You?
Matt Cutts recently alluded to the idea that Google knows about all of your domains. Since this is the case, would they be inclined to penalize a high-quality, white hat site if they noticed that dozens or hundreds of other domains from the same registrant were manipulative, low quality spam (assuming you had never attempted to use the spam domains to build link pop for the legit site)? - How Much of the Original PageRank Formula Still Matters?
Obviously, the toolbar PageRank is barely worth watching, but what about that original formula? This very well researched page on the subject recently made the top of Digg and shows through example how PR would be calculated in several linking examples. But, what I'm curious about is what role that portion of the "over 100 factors" PageRank plays. I had been a skeptic for a long time that it was anything more than 5-10%, but recently, I've been wondering if there might be a bit more weight to it than that (possibly a full 20-30%). - Yahoo!, MSN & PageRank
Let's say that Yahoo! and/or MSN decided to adopt an exact replica of PageRank in their algorithms. Yes, I know it's patented, but how would Google ever know or find out so they could issue a cease and desist or lawsuit? Do you think they could puzzle it out to a degree that it could serve as hard evidence? Even if it's not happening now (and I doubt that it is), is it possible that years ago, a major search engine did decide to copy Google's patented methodology? - Text Placement Weighting
Remember Michael Murray of Fathom's quote from last week? While I'm not a big believer that text placement in code is given any significant measure of weight in the algos, I do wonder about how the content structure of a page might impact rankings. For example, let's say you had three unique article pages with three paragraphs each and each had one paragraph on lemmings. If the first article had the first paragraph on lemmings, the second made the middle paragraph on lemmings and the third used the last paragraph for lemming discussion, which one would rank best, or would it matter at all? - Higher Links = More Weight
Take a page with 6 outbound links, all to different, never-before crawled web pages, and use images as your links (thus giving no anchor text). If all of those pages were targeting exactly the same nonsensical KW phrase and each had precisely the same degree of rank-worthy content (though not duplicate), would the higher-placed link (link 1 of 6) from your linking page carry more weight than lower-placed links (link 2 or 3 of 6)?
Obviously, I have my own opinions on many of the above, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on each (before I try to weigh in). And, if anyone has done research (or cares to do research on these), please point to it (though be aware that "removing all other factors," a critical part of any rankings research test, is exceptionally difficult). If you've got stumpers of you own, feel free to post those, too and we'll "have at 'em!"
Wow... Russ Jones of Virante has got answers to many of these (and shows his research) on his blog - thegooglecache. That blog is going straight onto my daily reading list; very impressive stuff.
www.seo4fun.com contains a number of experiments that might be related to some of the questions posed.
The guy who runs it (he posts on the Google Webmaster Group as Halfdeck) has written a nice little script that calculates a websites internal flow of pagerank that seemed to assist a few people remove pages from the supps.
Clever guy and obviously into the more technical areas of SEO.
He occassionally posts here too and I generally really like his comments. Made the link live in your post :)
Ok, in my limited knowledge due to late entry into this space, here are my views on a couple of the questions:
5 - PR
In that Toolbar PR is an indicator of "worth while" incoming links, I think it plays a MAJOR role. The only real reason I say this is because I got linked to by a PR7 domain, and subsequently received a PR of 6 (of course only visible with the next update). But, within a couple of weeks of the link, I started to rank really well for quite a few terms...
7 - Text placement
I definitely feel that the higher your "quality content" is placed on your site, the better Google views it. This is in terms of having your content appear above your side menus and navigation. If I had to hazard a guess I would say because the quality content (for example your blog post) changes frequently, and your navigation doesn't. I REALLY feel that frequently updated websites are better in the SE's eyes. I've experimented with this a couple of times over the last few months, and can definitely notice the highs and lows in my SE traffic when my site is updated or goes stagnant.
That's my 2c worth, at a penny a piece ;-)
So the Wikipedia link criteria could be taken off the Page Strength Tool along with DMOZ?
1. Is really interesting - I set up a test here a while back: Link experiment - when do duplicate links count?
Funnily enough, for the second test, rather than properly test the criteria aimed for, it seems to suggest instead that "low value" (low PR/low authority) links may be less likely to pass anchor benefits - regardless of page placement.
5. I don't see PageRank as a SEO concern any more - I just can't correlate PR with rankings.
Other factors, such as duplicate content filters, I see as especially powerful - and dangerous - and can negate substantial authority criteria (such as PR and extensive natural links from uni's and govt sites).
2c.
Great article Rand. Over 10 years of looking for the answers to questions like these have taught me you'll never know any of the answers definitively.
Links: Yes, links seem to have been steadily lightened in the weighting, however, it is not as readily determinable as to the seeming cause of the degradation of links in the weighting. IMO, it's more about "trust" then a degardation of link text, however, if you were looking to proove that it was link text I'm sure a test could seem to suggest it, but.... all you really know for sure is that IBL's seem less powerful, in general, the root reasons for the degradation IMO, are really never known for sure unless you're an employee of the engine.
IMO, keyword location in the document seems to be a legacy algo that all engines exhibit a fondness for higher KW densities in the first 250 words (although I do believe only a novice worries about KW density in the page). If you read any early SEO articles you'll note that at one time this was a very important factor in the algos. For that reason alone I think it matters though much less than it did when I broke in. Once again you could argue that H1 tags could seem weighted as a result of their often being at the top of the page.
Basically 10+ years in the biz has taught me to test this stuff... but... use it as a guide, even the most well thought out test is never definitive. Don't allow any test to close your mind to any number of other factors which often could also be responsible for the results of your tests.
medicine turtle here at Cherokee reservation what the best way to get google to crawl ones links faster
i see alot times my google ranking moveing a few times a day why is that and some very old links never move
[Link removed by editor.]
As a Mod over at WebProWorld I was involved in some of the most heated debates of Toolbar Pagerank that I could imagine. So thanks Mike Grehan for providing the links I required to carry forth the news, thanks to Rusty Brick, Michael Martinez and other friends from around the forum world. Oh and Thanks to Webnauts for linking this blog into WPW -Yes guys you are live and on air !!
Rand:
Nice questions stimulating a lot of comments. What makes you think Wikipedia passes PageRank?
A certain Googler who should be in the know responded to my suggestion that Google should stop passing PR from Wikipedia so we, the SEO community, would stop spamming it.
He asked me why I thought Wikipedia passed PageRank or and suggested that it would be easy to conduct an experiment that shows Wikipedia does not pass page rank.
Given Google engineers tendency to speak between the line, I think we can conclude from his phrasing that Wikipedia can drive some traffic, but it doesn't count an authority site and it doesn't deliver PageRank.
They should really say so publicly to help those poor Wikipedia editors who have to deal with all the link spam.
Thanks for sharing that bit of wisdom. :)
I think that we need to start thinking about the concept of "search query specific page rank". The concept here is that decision are made on a query by query basis.
So if the query is "blue widgets", the value and the relevance of the links to your page, and the relevance of the content on that page, define how strong a candidate you are for ranking for that term. You then need to compare that to competitive pages on the same basis.
Apply the concept to your questions, 1 and 5 above. The net is that Anchor text is just one component of determining relevance, and a whole lot of other information on the linking page (and the linking site) matters too.
For Page Rank, what we know as Page Rank in the toolbar is a really imprecise measurement in many ways (even if it were up to the minute updated data, this would be true). The published data is not query specific. However, if the theme of your site is consistent, and the content is all related and relevant, than that Page Rank value will have value for lower level pages.
As always, it's just my opinion ...
THE ULTIMATE QUESTION!!!!!!!!
Why do Good, whitehat sites SUDDENLY and almost always, permanantly lose almost all of their rankings for long held keywords - even though they still have the same pagerank, and have not changed their sites???????????
could be more or less related to number 4, hypothetically.
Toolbar PageRank has absolutely no ranking value. Your biased, their your sites so you think they are good, the links to those sites and the quality of those links seem to tell a different story.
#1 I can say that having more than one link on a page to the same document does seem to add relevancy to that document. I notice this in the difference in results from sites I build with the navigation repeated in the footer versus ones that don't.
#2 - No idea.
#3 - Yes they could do this but I doubt they do. I do wonder what a mass exodus of removed liks would cause. Like an inverted topical phenomina.
#4 I doubt it. I would think it would be like hosting on a shared server. There may be dozens or hundreds of banned sites on a given IP but I have not seen any damage to the clean sites hosted there despite rumours to the contrary.
#5 Depends. Cutts has mentioned dialing it up or down in the past. I think last year was less than 10% but because of getting better at spotting and devaluing bad/purchased/bs links I think Google is applying more PR value to the algo. Probably 20%+. This is total speculation on my part.
#6 I thought Yahoo did try that. They called it Web Rank. Maybe it was based on something else? It was a bit before my time.
#7 Page structure counts and content at the top does seem to help. Maybe it reduces duplicate content concerns? Not sure but when 14thC had the content at the top I noticed faster results in Google than I do now.
I do have to add that the one with the best BLs would win.
#8 I have no idea if the links topmost in the code get extra weight than the ones at the end. I can see the logic of it though.
Good questions and difficult to test.
My thoughts are mainly from a 'it would be logical if...' or 'I would hope that...' perspective, but here goes anyway!
1 - I actually don't agree with that - I would expect that each anchor text is worth equal. The more there are the less te value of each, but still equal.
2 - Optimising for a misspell, I would hope, would always be better than optimising for correct spells in an attempt to rank for the misspell. After all, there may well be a lesser known person called Bryan Gumbel that you are looking for
3 - I would really hope not - this would completely go against Google's principle that things that other people do cannot harm your rankings
4 - Really dont know but would hope each domain / site is completely independant
5 - I think te definition of pagerank has changed in SEO's eyes - 18 months ago all it was seen as was the green bar, used as a valuation tool for link buyers and sellers. There is no doubt in my mind that PR is still a factor but what PR actually is, I am not too sure of anymore.
6 -
7 - I would say this is important. If your content is focussing on lemmings, you would expect lemmings to get a mention in the first paragraph. Seems logical to me.
8 - Great question, kind of links to #1. Although I would be interested to find out, are we, as SEOs ever likely to be in the situation where this matters?
Great questions in general Rand, you should make this a regular feature but not just your questions - your readers' questions too - a bit like Matt Cutts' Q&A blog sessions he has. Could be a great learning curve for those starting to get involved with the intricacies of SEO
Ill answer some of these on my blog - we have done research on quite a few of these.
As I mentioned to Rand when requesting that my company Virante be added to the Recommended Vendors page, we do a lot of brute-force research over here where we throw stuff into the search engines and see what happens. Luckily, we happen to have done this with many of the questions Rand proposes.
I have thrown them up on my blog: Response to SEO Questions by Rand Fishkin. Please take a look.
Russ - amazing work. I've added you into the blog post.
Wow, thanks for sharing that research.
I might visit your blog couple times a day now that you have become a bit more humble Rand, are you excited? ;)
Here are my "know-it-all" answers:
The Diminishing Value of Anchor Text - It is no longer about anchor text, it is about the overall theme of a website.
How Far Does Synonymy Go? - Did you mean? ;)
Can Link Removals Hurt Rankings? - That is a good question, it is kind of like asking "Is page rank constant"?
Does Sharing Registrants with Spammers Hurt You? - That would not be fair.
How Much of the Original PageRank Formula Still Matters? - PageRank is like a marine - fast, mobile and able to change to meet any new challenge.
Yahoo!, MSN & PageRank - As with any "patent" just add a few new features and it is technically not the same.
Text Placement Weighting - Always use your keyword in first and last paragraph, this is good for humans and helps search engines gain a better understanding of what you are trying to say.
Higher Links = More Weight - Higher "relevant links" more weight, higher "non relevant links" aka link building = pergatory.
1. My guess is that the overall link profile of the linked page as well as the text around the links at the linking page would also play an important role.
2. IMO, you need to outrank the pages with the misspelling.
3. I don't believe that it can hurt rankings, except if we are talking about a large amount of links been placed at the same time and removed at the same time.
4. No, I don't believe so.
5. It still matters a lot imo, however trying too much to get higher PR can easily trigure a spam filter. Spam filters don't affect PR but affect rankings.
6. -
7. Top placement
8. Top placement