ADVANCED SEO GUIDE
Intelligent | Effective | Ethical
Building Superior Backlinks
Backlinks are like
unequal votes from other
websites. As shown below, an
anchor-text, in-context, backlink from a high page rank website with
few other backlinks will have hundreds
of thousands
of times
the ranking weight
than backlinks without these powerful characteristics.
Definition of Anchor-Text, In-Context, and Page Rank (PR)
Anchor-text
means that
the backlink is created on text matching the search term you want to
rank for. Napa
red wine is an anchor text
backlink pointing to one of my high ranking sites. (#1 in Google,
Yahoo, and Bing for
the highly profitable search term ~ napa red wine.)
Google weights backlinks in anchor text much higher
for
purposes of ranking.
In-context means that the website linking back to yours is related to the subject matter of your website. The website does not have to mention the exact search phrase you are ranking for, but it must be related or Google will significantly minimize the backlink's ranking power (or "ranking juice" throuout this seo guide).
Page rank ("PR") is a number Google will assign every webpage in its search index, between 0-10. PR 0 is common (99% of webpages on the internet) and its backlink juice is microscopic. PR 10s are extremely rare, (e.g., Google.com). High PR is very powerful for ranking, when properly optimized. PR is largely a result of the PR flow to a webpage from backlinks, although a website with no incoming backlinks may have a decent PR due to its superior content, visitors, and age, etc. PR is webpage specific. A high PR website home page may have multiple PR 0 webpages within it.
In-context means that the website linking back to yours is related to the subject matter of your website. The website does not have to mention the exact search phrase you are ranking for, but it must be related or Google will significantly minimize the backlink's ranking power (or "ranking juice" throuout this seo guide).
Page rank ("PR") is a number Google will assign every webpage in its search index, between 0-10. PR 0 is common (99% of webpages on the internet) and its backlink juice is microscopic. PR 10s are extremely rare, (e.g., Google.com). High PR is very powerful for ranking, when properly optimized. PR is largely a result of the PR flow to a webpage from backlinks, although a website with no incoming backlinks may have a decent PR due to its superior content, visitors, and age, etc. PR is webpage specific. A high PR website home page may have multiple PR 0 webpages within it.
Ranking Juice
For
every 1 point increase in PR, the backlink ranking power (backlink
juice) is increased
by a
factor of approximately 10. Therefore, all other ranking factors being
equal (e.g., anchor-text, in-context, and the number of backlinks on a
webpage,) one backlink from a PR 4 will have 10,000 times more backlink
juice than from a PR 0.
Ranking juice is divided by the number of backlinks on a webpage. Therefore, one backlink from a PR 5 with 24 other backlinks on it, will be equivalent to 400,000 PR 0 backlinks with 96 other backlinks on the same webpage.
If you own high PR websites, use the PR flow conservatively, making sure no more than 25% of the backlinks go to any one of your websites, and host them on seperate class-c ip addresses (seperate host providers). Google will penalize a website recieving 100% of the backlinks from another website - an unnatural and risky linking pattern. My experments have proven that up to 33% of a website's backlinks can link to another website without penalty, however, 25% is conservative and safe.
A high PR website may only transfer its high PR ranking juice from its high PR webpages. A backlink from a PR 0 webpage can only transfer minuscule backlink juice, even when that PR 0 is in a website with other high PR webpages.
However, having a diversity of PR 0 backlinks from high-trust websites with high PR home pages is helpful for ranking, even with moderately competitive search terms. So you really need both a sufficient diversity of backlinks from high trust websites (even if the specific webpages are PR 0) along with enough optimized PR flow from high PR backlinks to sustainably outrank your competition.
Ranking juice is divided by the number of backlinks on a webpage. Therefore, one backlink from a PR 5 with 24 other backlinks on it, will be equivalent to 400,000 PR 0 backlinks with 96 other backlinks on the same webpage.
If you own high PR websites, use the PR flow conservatively, making sure no more than 25% of the backlinks go to any one of your websites, and host them on seperate class-c ip addresses (seperate host providers). Google will penalize a website recieving 100% of the backlinks from another website - an unnatural and risky linking pattern. My experments have proven that up to 33% of a website's backlinks can link to another website without penalty, however, 25% is conservative and safe.
A high PR website may only transfer its high PR ranking juice from its high PR webpages. A backlink from a PR 0 webpage can only transfer minuscule backlink juice, even when that PR 0 is in a website with other high PR webpages.
However, having a diversity of PR 0 backlinks from high-trust websites with high PR home pages is helpful for ranking, even with moderately competitive search terms. So you really need both a sufficient diversity of backlinks from high trust websites (even if the specific webpages are PR 0) along with enough optimized PR flow from high PR backlinks to sustainably outrank your competition.
No-Follow
Backlinks
may be coded "no follow", where the webpage instructs the
search engines not to transfer backlink juice. This is
usually followed by the search engines, except for certain websites
like Wikpedia, and Yahoo Answers, where research shows that the
no-follow code is disregarded.
PR Updates
Google
updates its reported PR about once a quarter
(4 times a year). However, Page Rank flows in real time for ranking
purposes (or at least as often as Google detects new backlinks through
its continuous, automated internet "crawls" of all webpages in its
index). Therefore, a
webpage with
very low reported PR may have much higher PR in real time, and
vis-a-versa, due to more recent backlink changes on a webpage.
Degraded Backlinks
To keep its ranking
algorithm rewarding high
quality websites,Google is constantly on the hunt
to identify
and diminish the backlink juice from what it considers spammed sources.
Some of the cat and mouse history includes:
|
SPAM Techniques
That Used To Rank
|
Google's
Response
|
Much of the activities in the list above
occurs naturally without spamming, and adds to the positive content of
the internet, like blog comments, very high quality link directories
(e.g., Yahoo, and DEMOZ) and bookmarking. So as not to throw
the baby out with the bath water and give some ranking authority to
these legitimate activities, Google now restricts the ranking efficacy
that is derived from any single one of these spam techniques.
The aim of Google is to avoid promoting sites that build backlinks through one-dimensional "magic bullet" spam practices, and reward websites with ranking that show true value through backlinks produced naturally through legitimate quality-added web references.
The running theme with Google ranking upgrades is to disregard or penalize backlinking practices that cannot add relevant, positive content to the internet (like stuffing keywords, link farms, bi-lateral link exchanges, and multi-lateral backlink programs) and limit the backlink juice of practices that, although may contain spam, do add legitimate content to the internet (e.g., high quality link directories, blog comments, and anchor-text backlinks on high PR, authoritative, non-spammy websites.)
Next in this seo guide we discuss how to build-out backlinks with Google's ranking goals in mind to create a superior backlink architecture with sustainable top ranking that does not violate the letter or spirit of Google's Webmaster Guidelines, and therefore protects your site from future changes in Google's ranking algorithm from destroying your hard earned ranking position.
The aim of Google is to avoid promoting sites that build backlinks through one-dimensional "magic bullet" spam practices, and reward websites with ranking that show true value through backlinks produced naturally through legitimate quality-added web references.
The running theme with Google ranking upgrades is to disregard or penalize backlinking practices that cannot add relevant, positive content to the internet (like stuffing keywords, link farms, bi-lateral link exchanges, and multi-lateral backlink programs) and limit the backlink juice of practices that, although may contain spam, do add legitimate content to the internet (e.g., high quality link directories, blog comments, and anchor-text backlinks on high PR, authoritative, non-spammy websites.)
Next in this seo guide we discuss how to build-out backlinks with Google's ranking goals in mind to create a superior backlink architecture with sustainable top ranking that does not violate the letter or spirit of Google's Webmaster Guidelines, and therefore protects your site from future changes in Google's ranking algorithm from destroying your hard earned ranking position.
