Google was built around PageRank. For a long time, SEOs would focus on getting high PR scores to rank well but that ended a few years ago when Google’s algorithm advanced. Now PR does have an effect on several things but it hasn’t been the place to focus legitimate SEO efforts for a while.

The question was recently raised, “should we care about PR?” My answer is “very little.” Here’s why:

If a website has PR it is most likely ok with Google and included in the index and results pages. That means it has influence within Google’s system and can be useful for getting relevant links.

Pages with PR stay out of the supplemental results… but we can’t see which pages are in the supplemental results anymore so I don’t think that is worth worrying about.

There’s some disagreement about this but pages with high PR scores get crawled more often than pages with low PR scores. This makes sense as PR is a metric of popularity and Google’s algo depends on popularity so they may as well focus their resources on these “valued” pages.

Mostly PR is considered valuable because people think it is! Most of the people buying links based on PR don’t really understand what it is or what the influence of PR is on the search results. SEOs call this “chasing the green tail”.

Over the last week Google has been dropping the PR scores of suspected link sellers. I suppose the idea is that if these sites are selling links based on PR Google can cut into their profits. Fair enough, but this trick hurts the credibility of PR more than anything because now we know the scores can be manually altered. These sites still show some PR. We know they aren’t banned. And so far all reports say Google referral traffic is steady so there is no real penalty. Continue The further devaluation of Google PR »

Posted in Link Resources, SEOs, Industry News, SEO

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Yuri of Improve the Web recently posted that a friend of his had to come up with 20 PR6 links in 30 days to impress a new boss.

Moving the argument aside about how futile high-PR links may or may not be, the question remains: is it possible?

I’m sure it is if you have the contacts and talent for it. But I’ve never tried it. I’m usually quite happy picking up links that are easy to get or earn and the PR scores for those tend to be small… but they add up.

I’m thinking about running a contest. But it would have to be a bit more practical. What about 20 PR5 links in 30 days with a one week lead-in for planning and strategy? We could collaborate and share our wins and losses and at the end of the 30 days we should all have some great links to show for our efforts.

Anyone interested?

Posted in Link Building Articles, Link Resources

7 Comments »

I have to say the Free Link Giveaway was a lot of fun. I got to explore sites I normally wouldn’t have which was an education in itself. I also got to see how SEO and link-building is touching sites in very different industries. Thanks again to everyone who participated.

I did get some publicity from the promotion which was nice. :-)

And I learned a lot about approaching people when it comes to link-building.

Most people are suspicious of free offers. And they should be, especially online where there is normally a hook.

A lot of people are so suspicious they won’t participate.

A few people are so suspicious they will become detractors. I was amazed that a few people made derisive comments or explained why these links would be worthless and a waste of time.

Having clear guidelines up front saved a lot of time. I got comments letting me know that people in the PPC and adult categories knew about the offer but saw it wasn’t going to work for them. This saved me from going to their sites and ultimately denying them.

Having clear guidelines kept things friendly. When I did have to decline a site there were clear reasons and every person I contacted understood and was ok with it. Going into this idea, the thought of denying people free links seemed a bit daunting to me… I really didn’t know how people would react and I was pleasantly surprised at how professional and understanding people were. I don’t think it would have been that way if the guidelines weren’t in place first.

People will help you do nice things. There’s probably some self-interest here as the more successful the campaign was the more it would help the participants but I got a lot of great advice on promotion, how the blog is structured and more. Some of those ideas were implemented here and some on other sites. So thanks for your generous ideas and contributions.

What I handled best was probably letting people know why I couldn’t grant them a link. This was probably because I was leery of that possibility before things started so I was well prepared. As mentioned this went much smoother than expected.

What I handled worst was vocal detractors. I was really shocked by some of the comments and claims like “link farm” and while I encouraged dialogue to get better understanding I think there was a tone in my writing that came through as “screw you, pal”. I’ll have to work on that.

So the Free Link Giveaway is complete and now you know what I got from it: a small amount of buzz, a few links thrown my way and some great lessons on managing a “too good to be true” promotion online. No matter what you do it still comes down to the people behind the websites.

I have no plans to give away free links. After all, I am not a link communist. But there are ways links can be had here… probably the same way you’d pick up links at any other site:

• Contribute
• Offer something noteworthy
• Let me know about it!

Posted in Free link giveaway!, Link Resources

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This is true though dramatized a bit…

A friend of mine - we’ll call her Jane - was having trouble understanding why a link exchange partner was shooting up the SERPs while she was left standing still. A little investigation revealed that the partner was exchanging links all over the place and adding nofollow to the links on his site.

What would you do?

You could:

• Demand he remove the nofollow on all the links
• Demand he remove the nofollow on just your link
• Let his other link partners know what’s going on
• Remove the link on your site

In a fit of blind rage Jane removed the link on her her site and then fired emails to his other link exchange partners explaining how they were being used.

Jane later reported that the people she contacted were glad to hear from her and that they were now interested in working with her.

Things worked out for Jane and I think this story brings up some important issues and carries some great morals.

First, link exchanging in low doses is considered natural and ok but link exchanges in large doses is considered spam… even though it works.

If you are going to exchange links (or do anything in business) be forthright about what the other party is getting. The man in this tale now has a bad reputation in his industry and the odds of his site staying at the top are not good.

When you engage your passion you can accomplish great things. In this case Jane’s passion reached out and engaged the other victims enrolling them in her campaign. This could also be “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” - take your pick.

I’d like to thank “Jane” for her story and for teaching me a few things along the way.

Posted in Link Building Articles, Link Resources

4 Comments »

Change is coming and that means an end to the Free Link Giveaway.

This has been a lot of fun and I’ve been able to look at many sites I wouldn’t have normally been exposed to. Most of these link requests have come from SEOs who understand the value of link juice though many of these SEOs are small or individual operations which is great. I interviewed several SEOs over a year ago and many of them were in this category: individuals looking for a better way for their sites to compete.

To all of you who made it, enjoy the free links.

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Once again, thanks to everyone who participated. This has been a fun experience and I can see the care that most of you put into your sites. Thanks for letting me be a small part of your success and dreams.

Posted in Free link giveaway!, Link Resources

3 Comments »