I don’t think linking out to authority sites will increase your ranking.
The SEO’s that are claiming linking out to these authority sites will help, have no way of knowing what an authority site is. We would need that information to even try and prove rather they helped or not. Makes me wonder how they tested this theory at all.
Then we have to add in the fact that no one knows the exact number of PR that is being leaked. We have a mathematical problem. One is adding in trust and the other is taking away PR. We would need to know how much trust helps with the ranking vs. how much PR helps with ranking.
We would then need to subtract the two and see if the one outweighed the other. And let’s keep in mind that this would be different for every site and every page, as the number of outgoing links and the amount of PR is different on every page and on every site.
Without that information there is no way to test it.
This is a great example of bad information being spread by search engine companies. As if they know some secret that the rest of the world does not know. If you feel a site will benefit your site visitors then link to it. But don’t link to a site because you think it is going to boost your ranking. That would be stupid. Although I did hear that linking to http://www.geeksonsteroids.com will help you rank better.
Linking out to other web sites may “help” semantic bucketing but that’s only a theory and a lame one at any rate, as if your IBLs and on-site content don’t outweigh this influence, if it exists, you’re screwed for other reasons.
As for PR bumping, seems to be the opposite, authority site or no. The numbers on links-vs-leakage are apparently not a linear scale, and there are many influences that make a “here is the formula” difficult or impossible to reverse, but that is does happen is clear.
Be glad to destroy one of our domains to better test this statement.
I’m not sure I agree with your assessment on this.
Perhaps mathmatically you have a point, but not relationally.
Example #1:
* Your visitor comes to your niche site about widgets.
* There are 10 links without concern of PR that lead to niche websites about gadgets not widgets.
* Since your visitor is interested in widgets they leave your site with the perception that they will not receive what they need from you or anyone you recommend.
* The visit is likely brief and Google makes note of that fact.
Example #2
* Your visitor comes to your niche site about widgets.
* There are 10 links all PR5 & above related to gadgets.
* In theory, while they are not interested in the topic the sites are done well enough that the reader bookmarks one or two of these sites for latter reference as well as yours.
* The amount of extra time spent doing this, especially if you use “blank” references for the external URL’s is calculated by Google and returns a stronger result for your website than in example #1.
Example #3
* Your visitor comes to your niche site about widgets.
* There are 10 links all PR5 & above related to widgets.
* The reader sees your website as a valuable resource and returns whenever he needs more widgets.
* Google sees both the duration of time and return of visits from the same client as positive and ranks your website accordingly.
Conclusion:
Clearly, your external links in example #3 have helped generate better ratings at Google than those of the external links in #1. Thus, it is important to provide people with exactly what they want both in terms of niche appeal and high quality when they visit your website.
SEOGuy
http://Search-Engine-Optimization-And-Beyond.com
Making the web make sense
Hi SEOGuy,
A couple problems.
1. There is nothing that would indicate that Google uses returning visitors or the amount of time spent on my site in any way shape or form in their algo.
2. I’m not making money, my competition is making the money and I’m nothing more than a stepping stone, at best. I want be in business long. And I’m just using my bandwidth to help my competition.
I’ve become a free directory.
Hi Janeth
Hmmmm
I see your point, about the free directory part. Though providing a high quality experience in the form of content and links is sure to increase user loyalty. Especially if you run a newsletter that they can sign up for so you can encourage them to revisit your site in the future.
As for length of time a person spends on your website, it seems that this would be relatively easy to track. Although I don’t spend great hours toiling over the algo that Google or anyone else develops; it seems that not factoring this in would be both illogical and counter productive to a search engines purpose and goal.
SEOGuy
http://Search-Engine-Optimization-And-Beyond.com
Making the web make sense
Hi SEOGuy,
The problem is that while you see it as being illogical there are reasons why Google does not use it.
A couple years ago there was a rumor that Google was using the time spent on your site and the number of visitors in their ranking algo.
Lots of people build bots that would change their ip and revisit a site and spend time on the site. It didn’t take long to prove that it was not part of their algo. It would have been very easy to manipulate if it had been part of their algo.
Providing a high quality experience will increase user loyalty however there are lots of ways of doing this that are better than nor require you to link to your competition.
I agree for the most part however I was using outbound links to “authority sites” to boost page ranking.
In my experience, there was no long-term benefit but it did help target my Adsense ad units and helped me to rank quicker.
Eventually, everything evened out and I was placed consistently with / without the outbound link.
In summary, if time is a concern and linking to someone else isn’t (as in the case with informational or Adsense sites), I’d link to an authority site. For a proper brand or if you can’t dedicate time to monitoring the link and updating it, I’d nix the strategy.
—Ivan
Hi Ivan,
The problem I’ve had so far is that no one can give the details of what an authority site is.
Could you please give me that information?