In my last post, I discussed the different types of link building methods that can be utilized. In this post, I want to look further at what factors determine the value of a link. Every link has a different value and you need to understand this if you want to make educated decisions on how you should invest your time and money. Since nobody has complete insight into the inner workings of Google and their algorithm, except people at Google of course, many of the factors that effect the value of a link are not completely agreed upon by experts in the industry. Although there are certain factors that everyone seems to agree on.
The most commonly agreed upon factors are Alexa ranking, Robots.txt excluded page, domain authority (in quality of backlinks), page relevance and the number of links. The most controversial factors are TLD, type of links, domain authority (in PageRank), domain authority (in rankings on irrelevant keywords) and target page location. The most important factors are Robots.txt excluded page, Anchor Text, link is on penalized page, page authority (inbound links), domain authority (in quality of backlinks), amount of outbound links on a page, total amount of links on a page, age of domain, relevant authority (in rankings on relevant keywords) and Javascript link.
Anchor Text:
This is the text that is placed in the hyperlink to your website. Commonly people link to you with your company name or domain name and not necessarily relevant keywords that will help you rank better. It is important to have links to your website with relevant Anchor Text. You do need to be careful though when purchasing links because if you only acquire links with the same Anchor Text it can be detected by the algorithm as being unnatural and it can actually hurt your ability to rank. You want to make sure you are targeting your keyword phrases but using variations of Anchor Text to create a more natural allocation of Anchor Text links pointing to your website. It is also thought that the words that surround the link to your website also create value for that same link.
Age of the Link:
The age of both the link on a website and the age of the website the link is placed on are important. There seems to be a sandbox like effect that prevents a new link from having value after an introductory period and then at some point it starts to gain value again and slowly gains value over time. There is nothing like an old link on a powerful site and there is a reason why it is harder to displace old popular websites. A website doesn’t have to work as hard for their rankings if they have links that are very old. Although, that shouldn’t deter you from competing with them because those types of companies are usually complacent about their linking strategies and it can be easier to sneak up on them and outrank them before they realize that they need to be link building all the time.
Type of Link (Image, Text):
There seems to be differing opinions on the difference in value of a text link from an alt text link in an image. It is agreed that both links have value but more experts believe a text link has more value. I wouldn’t be surprised if they both carried the same value though.
Number of Links:
A common question of the difference between the value of sitewide links and one or a few links from the same domain. Sitewide links don’t carry much value anymore. They can help get your website indexed better in the search engines but they shouldn’t be used to help you rank better specifically.
Location of Link on a Page:
The search engines are able to detect where a link is on a page and have assigned different values based upon this ability. A link located within body content and surrounded by relevant text will always be more powerful than a link in the footer or side bar of the same page.
Reciprocity:
Trading links used to be the most common way to build links to increase your rankings. These days you should only trade links on a limited basis and only with relevant websites. It is natural for websites to link to each other in a specific industry but you don’t want to go overboard though because the more you link out the less powerful your website becomes.
Target Page (where the link points to) Location:
Many websites will only try to get links to their homepage because the homepage is usually where they are trying to rank for the best keyword phrases and the link juice trickles down from there to the rest of the website. You do want links to your homepage but the key is to always create a natural link allocation throughout your website. It is very important to get links to your category, sub-category and product/service level pages. A website without deep links will never reach it’s full potential of search engine rankings.
Page Authority (in inbound links):
This is one of the primary factors that tends to be overlooked. Most people look at the website itself and not the particular page a link is placed on. A page that has many links pointing to it can be very valuable because it is telling the search engines that this page is an authority on the topic. If you get a link from an authority and the content is relevant to yours it will have a tremendous impact on your rankings. There is a little trick to determining what page is most powerful on a website. Just do an indexing search in Yahoo for that domain, so “site:www.thedomainname.com”, and the page that ranks directly below the homepage will be the most powerful. There is also a different level of value for links placed on a homepage or another page of the website. I believe it is much more valuable to get a link from a powerful sub-page than the homepage, even if the homepage has more backlinks.
Amount of Outbound Links on a Page:
Every extra link on a page decreases the value of all the other outgoing links on the page. I would avoid acquiring a link on a page if there are a large amount of outgoing links already present.
Page Authority (in internal links):
There is definitely more value from a link on a page that is linked to from many pages on it’s own website. The more internal and external backlinks the better.
Relevance of Other Outbound Links:
The other outbound links on a page or website will effect the value of your link. It is always better if their outbound links are also relevant to your website. What can be potentially dangerous is who the website is linking to and if they are considered to be part of a good neighborhood of websites. You never want to be associated with a website that spams the web and/or is considered a link farm. The algorithms consider association based upon links between websites and they group websites into neighborhoods and you want to try and stay in a good neighborhood as much as you can. If you can place your website in a neighborhood of authority websites that can have a tremendous impact on your rankings. Although that would require getting links from other authority websites in your industry which can be very difficult.
Page Relevance (contextual relevance):
It is always a good idea to get links from contextually relevant pages but their value is not what it may become in the future. We know Google is considering Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) as a way to determine how contextual content relates to one another but it doesn’t seem to be an important factor of their algorithm at this time. Although in the future everyone expects the search engines to get smarter in this area and it may be a very important factor and as such should certainly be a consideration when building links.
Quality of Other Outbound Links:
Co-citation can be very powerful. It only makes sense that if your link is surrounded by links to authority websites that the algorithm will have to consider your website an authority on the same subject matter. If links to authority websites don’t currently exist on a page that you’re purchasing a link on, it would be a great idea if you included one with your link to be placed next to it.
Page Authority (in PageRank):
There is value in links from a page or website that has high PageRank but it isn’t the most important factor anymore. Determining the actual PageRank can be difficult because the tool to detect PageRank isn’t updated very often and there is always a value associated with a website and page even if the tool doesn’t display one. Also there are many high PR websites that have a history of selling links and they won’t provide value to your linking efforts.
Domain Authority (in quality of backlinks):
The trust of a website related to the quality of it’s backlinks is very important. You always want to look at a websites backlinks to see who is linking to them.
Age of Domain:
If a website has existed for a long time and the content hasn’t drastically changed then links from that website will generally be considered more valuable.
Relevant Authority (in rankings on relevant keywords):
It is not believed that this factor alone influences the power of a link from that website. Although, the ranking of that website for the same keyword you want to target can certainly be an indication that a link from their website will help you rank for that same keyword. The factors are for other reasons rather than their ranking alone though.
Domain Relevance:
It certainly can’t hurt if the website is related to your own website. Although there is no indication that it effects ranking power at this time. This is another area where it may have greater influence on the link juice as the algorithms become more advanced. If anything, the strongest value of domain relevance is in conversion from the link because the users are likely to be your customers as well.
TLD (.com, .edu, etc.):
There seems to be more value in a link from a .edu and a .gov because it is much more difficult to receive those links unless they are very relevant. The algorithm may be smart enough though to eliminate the value of a link from a URL that contains a “~” on a .edu domain. That is a common variable used for personal pages on .edu websites and is much easier to acquire a link from.
Alexa Ranking:
This is one of those things that makes us cringe when a client brings it up. The Alexa ranking can be indicative of the popularity of the website but shouldn’t be something that is closely monitored. The ranking can be very skewed, especially if a website ranks higher than 1,000. Their rankings are only determined by people that use their toolbar and that is something that you should strongly consider when looking at Alexa rank at all.
Robots.txt Excluded Page:
If the algorithm can’t see the link then it obviously won’t help you. Always make sure that the page is indexed within Google and the other engines.
Javascript Link:
If the link can be read than it will carry the same value as any other link on the page.
Paid Link Triggers:
If a TLA code, a PPP code or a phrase such as “sponsored link section” is present then that link will carry less value than it used to. Google has been focusing heavily on this for some time now and it is believed they are now detecting these things and preventing them from helping the websites they are linking to.
These are the major factors that influence the value of a link. They should all be considered during a linking campaign. Many of these factors will always effect the link in the same way and others will change over time. You need to stay on top of the industry to know when changes happen because they will happen and sometimes they will have a major impact on your rankings.
