What PR # is worth getting a link from?

[tyler_durden]

I have been searching for sites to trade links with, but I don't want to waste a lot of time on sites that won't help me much. I'm looking at only going for a PR (google) of 4 or higher. Would 3 be ok also? Just curious...

[polarmate]

I have been trying to get links from sites with PR4 (as it shows on the toolbar) and above. In my quest if I come across a site that is very relevant to my users but has a lower PR, I go right ahead and request a link. I try to stay away from sites that have been banned or are mirrors as well as sites that IMO spam.

The end result I seek is a gain in PR along with a gain in relevancy for my users. I do not link to all and sundry - however high their PR.

[Kal]

You're looking at this the wrong way. You should be concentrating on the value of the link to your visitors and the relevancy of the link to your content. After all, are you really going to avoid linking to an excellent reference site if they are brand new to the net and haven't yet developed any PR? That's just silly. Forget PR - it really doesn't count for much in the grand scheme of things and will only serve to confuse your main focus, which should be your content and your visitors. :)

[Sharon & Roy]

Originally posted by tyler_durden

I have been searching for sites to trade links with, but I don't want to waste a lot of time on sites that won't help me much. I'm looking at only going for a PR (Google) of 4 or higher. Would 3 be OK also? Just curious.


Hello Tyler,

The answer is ... YES

Any page is "worth" getting a link from.

We completely agree with Kal, that you are looking at this the wrong way.

Getting a link from a page with a PageRank of 1 is a GREAT investment if you ask us.

Why? Because next week or next month it could be a PageRank of 6.

If you are limited on time and only want to focus on acquiring links from high PageRank pages then that is fine too and that is what we recommend because you will reach your goal quicker, if your goal is to increase your PageRank, but keep in mind that to ... "Participate in link exchanges for the sole purpose of increasing your ranking in search engines" ... is against Google's TOS (Terms Of Service).

Source: http://www.google.com/webmasters/dos.html

We recommend that you FOCUS on acquiring links TO your page(s) WITHOUT trading links.

We believe that you will get more ranking consideration when you acquire inbound links without them being reciprocal links. One-way links are the best types of links to acquire.

So how do you acquire one-way links?

Develop quality pages with unique content that others will be glad to link to without you having to provide a link back. And since you also want them to provide YOUR keywords in the Anchor Tag Text we recommend that you create a "Link To Us" page to provide your partners with an easy way to copy and paste EXACTLY what you want them to place on their page.

Here is what Craig Silverstein, Google's Chief Technology Officer, has to say on the subject ...


I'll tell you what we tell people to do and these are all free. The first thing is to design a website that accurately reflects your content, put text on your website that accurately represents what service you are providing.

The other is to make sure that the people that should be linked to you are linked to you. This involves not just the direct things you think of like Yahoo. For instance if you're running a store that sells Charles Schultz memorabilia, you want to make sure that all the Peanuts fan sites on the Web know about you.

You don't need to pay them to have a link to you, you just write them and say, "I'm offering a service that would be of interest to your readers, perhaps you would want to put a link on your website to mine."

If it's a useful service, they'll gladly put it up. And that's what we want to have happen, to kind of have peers judging how useful your web page is.

What it really comes down to is if you have a site that other people are interested in, then that's really the key?

Yes, once you have that it's not difficult to get good search engine placement. But for a lot of people they may not have such a site.

Source: http://www.ibizinterviews.com/craigs1.htm


SEO TIP: You can increase the PageRank of individual pages within your site by increasing the number of pages that link to it within your own site. Therefore, the more pages you create for your site the better your PageRank will be.

This is the advice given by Craig Silverstein, Google's Chief Technology Officer ...


Furthermore, remember that PageRank is conducted on a page-by-page basis, thus different pages within one domain are likely to have unique PageRanks. It should be pointed out that PageRank does consider links that are within the same domain. Hence, pages within a domain linking to another page within that same domain impact PageRank - if there is a page in your Web site that all the other pages of your Web site link to, it will enjoy a higher PageRank score and may rank better than other pages in your Web site. When you consider that most Web pages have a link to "home" its no wonder that a site's home page can enjoy a higher ranking than internal pages.

Source: http://www.searchnewz.com/2001/0905.html


Here are some insightful tips by Craig Silverstein, Google's Chief Technology Officer, to keep in mind ...


As mentioned in the PageRank discussion, the number of pages linking to your web page affects your PageRank score. However, there are also other factors regarding inbound links that are distinct from the PageRank score that affect the term vectoring score. Google also considers the anchor text of a link in determining the page's term vector score. Silverstein expanded on this topic. When we consider the text of the page we not only consider what the author wrote and actually put on the web page, we also consider what other people wrote when they linked to that web page.

Well, what about people who link to your site using inappropriate keywords? Could this hurt your rankings? Craig explained that Google takes this into account when investigating anchor text and off-topic anchor text in links to your web site will not adversely impact your rankings under Google's algorithm. A link from an unrelated web site does not harm the site's term vector rank. That being said, it does not matter if the site linking to you is not related, however, as stated, the text that describes the link to your site is of importance.

Source: http://phh.virtualave.net/search_engines/011.shtml

[excell]

"We recommend that you FOCUS on acquiring links TO your page(s) WITHOUT trading links. "

why?

[dinom]

presume because of risks of bad links and PR leakage but I'm not agreeing just guessing the reasons!

[ihelpyou]

It simply means to build a great site with great content and others will link to you naturally with NO link back required. It only is common sense, and of course is the very best way to have things.

[excell]

I think I am reading it differently... seems as if outbound links are not good.. and I don't agree :)

[tyler_durden]

Hmmm,
Well i'm curious about this site. www.candlesbyvictoria.com/

when you search with the term "candle" in any search engine, she is always on top. When you do a link: search in google to see what sites link to her, she has about 600+. But there aren't a lot of candle ones, etc. In fact many seem to be link type farms of some sort. Not only that, but she has an entrance page that is page ranked by google, and that's it. Nothing in her site is PR'd, including her links pages (Which there are 6 full pages I believe). So if my goal is to get my site near the top for the term "candle", i'd obviously consider trying what she is doing.

But do you think if I had a lot less links to my site (in the 100's at least), and they were ALL relevant links, would that count a lot more than the links from the link sites she has? Not all of hers are bad links, but a lot seem to be low quality/ non-relevant to her site. But she has links plastered everywhere. Alta Vista listed a little under 1000 But she seems to be doing something right...

[ihelpyou]

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=candle

I don't see the site anywhere.

[excell]

doesn't even come up on victoria candles
are you sure you have the right URL.. or are you trying to tell us something else?

[ihelpyou]

Yes. The site is good-looking but Not optimized at all. No content on the front page. The rest of pages are in frames with Nothing in the noframes tags. This site could not rank on much at all even with a kazillion links coming into it.

[tyler_durden]

if you just type in the word candle for a searc term in google, yahoo, etc that site is the first one listed. No one else sees this?

[excell]

ah hah. thus proving the point about PR not being the be all and end all (or hardly the beginning IMO) of ranking :)

[tyler_durden]

sorry, try candles as in plural...

[excell]

tyler_durden not seeing that at all.. it might be that you are talking about sponsered site??? not normal everyday site list?

[tyler_durden]

i've seen her site the last few months be first on the search term of candles. The term candle doesn't seem to pull her up, but i'm seeing her as first in google with the search term "candles". (plural). I can't be seeing things...

[tyler_durden]

here is a screenshot of it to prove i'm not tripping...

[ihelpyou]

I think this is a matter where Google has not caught what they are doing yet.

http://www.candlesbyvictoria.com/shopping09.htm

linkstoyou ain't a good program to be associated with. They will not be there for long.

[ihelpyou]

http://www.linkstoyou.com/

They were banned by Google along time ago, so look for ALL those links to be meaningless soon.

[tyler_durden]

That's the same one i saw that put up a red flag. I just want to make sure I don't make any mistakes like this.

[theincrediblehelp]

I think that site also belongs to reciprolinks.com. Is this program safe to use?

[ihelpyou]

Off their page and word for word:
Trade links with us here, exchange links in our directory, then please return the favor by linking back to us (Links are here), but that doesn't get you the most links!

Here you can sign up for our Premium membership, that's where we add your links here, front page and then to all members and future members sites. All for 19.95 for an annual membership! After you sign up you will be e-mailed a special link to your remotely hosted link page.
Bad. VERY bad.




All these link pop sites popping up ALL over the net. Boy, the thought of out-of-the-know webmasters falling for these is pathetic. Yes, "you too can get penalized and/or banned".

These sites are pathetic.

[theincrediblehelp]

Thats what I thought. I guess the only way to go is contacting each site that you would like to link to, one by one.

:D

[maartenvr]

It is one of the best to contact each site individualy. But even that needs being carefull. Some webmasters think you are spamming when you ask for a link exchange. So make sure if you do this you keep your link request as personal as possible!

The other way is simply haveing very good content on your site. Give other webmasters a reason to link to you! Yes this will take longer, but it sure is worth it! And hey...Your visitors will like it too!

[kneelsit]

IMO Page rank from any source (Google or Alexa) is of little relevance. What IS important is the relevancy of your site to visitors from the OTHER site.

One of my most fruitful links is from a major University that has devoted a couple of paragraphs to my site in their Instructions for Students on the correct usage of computers. If you bother to put that page across the Google page ranker I think it may come up as a 2 or 3 - BUT my point is that this particular link brings regular interested visitors to my site.

Another pleasant surprise was to find my site given as a resource for a Second year course in Ergonomics at another Teaching College in the West.


HOW USEFUL IS THE INFO ON THE SITE YOU SEND YOUR VISITORS TO. should be your only criteria..