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Article rating : 0.00, 0 votes. Author : Adam Yax
As site managers, our objective is to use links to "vote" so the search engines will show our site for the term being targeted. The question is; which is more important, quality links, or a lot of links?
The recent Google index update (dubbed the Jagger update Oct 2005) has many webmasters very upset that their site appears to have dropped from the SERPS (search engine result pages). They fell off for several reasons, either they were using deceitful practices (which seem to have become more strict during this update -hidden text, hidden links, etc) or they were counting on their huge link campaigns to float them to the finish line. In other words, having many links from sites that are not relevant and are not authority pages.
Our definition of an authority page is:
It shows up for a search term
It has some page rank (hopefully a 5 or greater)
It is re-indexed often (it's cache date is recent).
It has back-links from sites other than it's own domain.
For a long time now people have been using link-exchange as their primary course of action to increase link popularity. This generates many links with your preferred anchor text in each, distributed across many domains. This is "quantity", having many links.
When running a campaign the competitions overall links are considered. Knowing some things about the sites that show up in the top 3 positions is critical. How many links do they have is where many people stop. A successful campaign will consider many other factors, such as:
How many unique domain links?
How many of those links have the target phrase in anchor?
If the pages that link to your site are relevant:
Do they have the phrase in the title?
Is the content on that page focused around the target phrase?
Does it show up for the target phrase in the SERP?
Do others link to that page with that anchor?
How many links are on the page?
What is page rank of the page?
How recent is the cache date?
Some have said these efforts are too extensive, and bear no fruit. However the Jagger update dropped those sites that did not make any of these considerations. Including sites that have 800 unique domain links with solid anchor density. Why is that? Probably because the concept behind google's ranking revolves around the idea of "reference", just as a college paper is considered important if many future college papers refer to it. How natural those references are is somewhat difficult for Google to determine, all except link exchanges, those are quite easy for Google to see and dismiss (or lower their overall weight).
As one puts forth the effort to obtain 10 link-exchanges, they could have put forth the same effort and obtained 2 or more alternative links. Links that meet the criteria. A link for the sake of having a link is no longer as valuable. We feel a link-exchange link is now 10 times less powerful.
Scenario A) 4 links (we'll call them "natural links") on relevant pages, pages that are cached often, have no more than 5 outbound links, and have page rank of 5, with two of those links containing the {target-phrase} in the anchor text, the other two having the phrase {phrase-target} in the anchor text will deliver more results.
Scenario B) 40 links from irrelevant pages, that have an old cache date, PR no greater than 2, and 30+ outbound links. Having the phrases be just as scattered across each 40 as the above in anchor.
We have found that until now Scenario B was credible. We have observed that many of the campaigns that use this method as their primary method of ranking have dropped off the SERPS. They are sites that have been on the first page for years, using nothing but link exchanges and directory participation as their primary means of link building; with very few sponsored links to hold their weight.
Those campaigns that set aside a substantial amount of their marketing budget for sponsored links each month have remained. Actually, they've increased, mostly because the competitors that used Scenario B dropped off, leaving room in top positions for their site.
One way, relevant links from pages that have Page Rank are cached often from authority pages (not necessarily sites that are authority, but pages that show up for a search term), have won Google over and are now a requirement for any competitive phrase.
Getting to the top for a phrase is well worth the time, it's worth money to the client. It has a direct impact on their bottom line the first month they begin showing up for the term. The growth potential of a company can now be directly related to how high they are in the SERP for a competitive term that is searched often. As you begin to rank higher and higher your competitors must spend to get above you, if you are higher and can stay higher you may just force them to spend more than they have and price them out of the market.
These are just some of the small factors to consider when running a campaign.
Adam Yax
CIO
PhoenixSynergy LLC
http://www.phoenixsynergy.com
info@phoenixsynergy.com
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