© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Google in the Real World: How Links Boost Your Ranking

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Link Popularity  Inbound links play a key role in determining rankings  It’s not just about quantity (“link popularity”); it’s about quality (importance of the page, topically relevant/authoritative)  This has been the cornerstone of Google’s ranking algorithm since Day 1  Comes from the Google founders’ fascination with citation analysis

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Checking Link Popularity  To a page –Google’s and MSN Search’s link: query operator  To your site –Yahoo’s linkdomain: query operator  Subtract your site from the results (MSN & Yahoo only) –E.g. link: -site:yoursite.com  Google displays only a sampling of backlinks (to foil SEOs)

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Checking Link Popularity  Free tools –Yahoo’s Site Explorer (siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com) –Netconcepts’ Link Checker ( –WeBuildPages’ Neat-o Tool ( o/) –SEO-Links Firefox extension ( tools/firefox-extensions/seo-links/) –Thumbshots Ranking tool (ranking.thumbshots.com) –TouchGraph GoogleBrowser (

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Yahoo’s Site Explorer

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Netconcepts’ Link Checker

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts WeBuildPages’ Neat-o Tool

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts SEO-Links Firefox Extension

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Thumbshots Ranking tool

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts TouchGraph GoogleBrowser

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts PageRank  PageRank™ – Google’s algorithm for measuring a page’s importance; Yahoo & MSN have similar measures  Each web page (not site) has its own PageRank score  PageRank scores from 0 to 10; logarithmic scale  Who’s at the top of the PageRank food chain? –10: Google, Apple, NSF, FirstGov; 9: Yahoo, MSN, Stanford  Sites with higher PageRank get crawled earlier, faster, and deeper by Googlebot

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Checking PageRank  Google Toolbar for IE or Firefox –Download it from toolbar.google.com  Google Directory (directory.google.com) –Only works for pages that are listed in DMOZ (e.g. your home page) –Listings are ranked in order of PageRank –Makes it possible to see your site make small PageRank shifts relative to other sites in your category –Get historical PageRank scores w/ Wayback Machine (

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Google Toolbar

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Problems with the PageRank Meter  Take the PageRank scores with a grain of salt  PageRank scores are merely indicative  Scores displayed in the PageRank meter are: –Months old –Imprecise –Not the same as the PageRank as what is used in Google’s ranking algorithm –Not representative of the home page PageRank when a redirect is present

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Google Directory – listings are organized by PageRank

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Checking PageRank  More free tools –SEOChat PageRank Lookup ( tools/pagerank-lookup/) –SEOChat PageRank Search ( tools/pagerank-search/) –SnooPR (

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts SEOChat’s PageRank Lookup The way to check the home page PageRank when a redirect is present

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts SEOChat’s PageRank Search

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts SnooPR

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Find Link Targets  Review links of competitive sites, sites in your keyword market –Use the tools just mentioned –Check sites with high rankings for relevant keywords –The fewer the number of links on their page, the better  Review links to your site; look for opportunities to get the link text revised

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Competitive Intelligence  These tools aren’t just good for finding link targets  They’re invaluable for uncovering competitors’ dodgy practices –E.g. Unraveling the mystery of Findgiftcards.com commanding the #1 spot for “gift certificates”  It’s also just good to know where they’re getting the bulk of their PageRank from

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Watch Out For…  Types of links that are likely to get discounted: –Reciprocal links –Affiliated sites (on the same IP range or hostname) –Footer links (at the bottom of the page) –Site-wide links –Links contained on a page called links.htm / links.asp –Remember: the more links on the linking page, the less PageRank you’ll get

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts “Google Bombing”  Inbound contextual links alone can drive a site to the top of Google (e.g. “miserable failure”)  Also works on Yahoo, MSN Search, etc.  THE LESSON: Link text is your secret weapon!

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

An unintentional “Google bomb”

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts PageRank Dilution  Careful about having multiple URLs serving up the same content –Multiple homes for your content –Multiple domains registered and resolving to your site –abccompany.com vs. – version of your site –Session IDs or User IDs in the URL –301 redirect them all to the definitive version of the page  Removed pages –301 redirect rather than 404

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts PageRank Dilution  Example of multiple homes for the same content: Laura Ries’ blog

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Best Practices  Try to get good keywords in the hyperlink text  Offer link-worthy content. Keep it fresh.  Provide RSS feeds  Simple keyword-rich links encourage deep linking  When you redesign your site, keep your old URLs or 301 redirect them to the new URLs  “Nofollow” any links you don’t vouch for –

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Worst Practices  Participating in “link farms” or FFA (“Free For All”) sites –Hallmarks of a link farm = more urls per page & less organization  Splogging, comment spamming, guestbook spamming  Linking to “bad neighborhoods”  Hiding links  Hoarding all your PageRank  Unnatural link structures

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Link Hiding Example 1  SubscriberMail.com embeds an invisible image linked to their home page into their customers’ enewsletter signup forms –E.g. on look for:

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Link Hiding Example 2  PRNewswire.co.uk embeds keyword-rich text links within a tag on their home page that not visible to ordinary users: – Search Engine Marketing Search Engine News Release Optimization

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Unnatural Link Structures  Google suspects unnatural-looking neighborhoods  Don’t link to every single node in your network of sites; it’ll get flagged.  Naturally occurring neighborhoods on the Web aren’t perfect  Google is looking for “cliques” (graph theory)

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Submit to Directories  Yahoo!  Open Directory (DMOZ)  GoGuides  JoeAnt  SearchHippo  Skaffe  RubberStamped  BlueFind  Gigablast  WebSavvy  Zeal  etc.

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Submit to Directories  Do your homework: – – – –forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=6505

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Submit to Verticals, Topical Guides  e.g. Yahooligans if it’s of interest to kids  e.g. BestHistorySites.net if you’ve got good historical content  e.g. FMLink.com if it’s relevant to facilities managers  etc.  Lots of work here to uncover the niche sites!  Create a linking plan

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Blogs  Search engines – and Google in particular – love blogs  Inherently link-rich –“Hat tips” – part of blog etiquette –Blogrolls –RSS feeds –Trackbacks –Comments  The dark side of the blogosphere: –Blog comment spam –Splogs (spam blogs)

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts RSS Feeds  Not only an unspammable content delivery channel to your consumers, but also…  A powerful way to syndicate your content to other web sites –Propagate deep links that drive traffic and PageRank –Careful! Some spammers lift your content from your RSS feeds, strip out the links, and use as keyword-rich content

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Slashdot headlines syndicated on Nanodot.org

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts The top result was thanks to syndication via RSS

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Blog software like WordPress creates an RSS feed automatically, even embedding audio/video as podcasts too!

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts RSS Feeds  Facilitate propagation of your feeds across the web: –Set up feed “autodiscovery” e.g. –Make your search listings in Yahoo! display the “Add to My Yahoo!” link Instructions here: –Send out “pings” (to Technorati, My Yahoo, Pingomatic, etc.) –Make sure “trackbacks” are enabled  Submit to RSS directories & search engines –List at  Pay attention to each item title; it’ll become link text

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Buying Text Links  What is a Yahoo directory listing but a paid text link! –Ok by Google because of the “editorial review”  Brokers like Text-Link-Ads.com and can help  Google’s perspective: –“Selling links muddies the quality of the web and makes it harder for many search engines (not just Google) to return relevant results. The rel=nofollow attribute is the correct answer: any site can sell links, but a search engine will be able to tell that the source site is not vouching for the destination page” -- Matt Cutts, Google engineer

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Buying Text Links  Google discounts the voting power of sites that it knows are selling text links: –“…parts of perl.com, xml.com, etc. have not been trusted in terms of linkage for months and months. Remember that just because a site shows up for a “link:” command on Google does not mean that it passes PageRank, reputation, or anchortext” -- Matt Cutts, Google engineer

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Evaluating a Text Ad Opportunity  Good –High rankings for the search terms targeted with the existing ads’ link text –Stats showing the page you’ll be on gets good traffic numbers –Stats showing a respectable amount of traffic is sent to the advertisers –Site is topically relevant to your business –Site is likely to be considered an authority site –Inbound links from.gov,.edu,.mil sites –Good Alexa rank –Extra good if the site you’re placed on is a.gov,.edu, or.mil –Reasonably good PageRank score on the page you’ll be on –Reasonably few other links on the page you’ll be on –Link is within the main body of the page

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts 984th most popular website Note: Alexa rankings can be manipulated

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Evaluating a Text Ad Opportunity  Bad –Sitewide link –Site has been greybarred (i.e. banned) –Neighboring ads are of dubious nature (casinos, Hoodia, Viagra, etc.) –Acquired PageRank through dubious means (e.g. hidden or obscured links) –Advertisers have left in droves (evidenced by Wayback Machine archives) –“Advertisers”, “Sponsors”, or “Sponsored” closely associated with the ads –No visibility in top 10 pages in Google for advertisers’ targeted keywords

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts

A year ago (was a PR8)

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Today (now a PR7)

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Advertiser is not in the first 10 pages in Google for “college football”

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Get Creative  Give awards / recognition –Badges with link text underneath  Allow webmasters to republish your articles –Require a link in your byline  Publish unique content –Podcasts (e.g. SteveSpangler.com) –Screencasts (use TechSmith’s Camtasia Studio) –Wikis (e.g. SEOGlossary.com)

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Get Creative  Offer useful tools for webmasters, such as… –Hit counters E.g. NOT 123counters.com –Weather stickers E.g. Wunderground.com, SuperPages.com –RSS feeds Lottery winning numbers from SuperPages.com

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Get Creative  Start a blog  Give testimonials –E.g. –E.g.  Sponsor a nonprofit –E.g. Kohl’s supports the Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer Association  Leverage your affiliates –Get a straight link (e.g. from Legal Notices page) –301 redirect

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts In Summary  Best links are: –Topically relevant –One way (not reciprocated) –Not in footer and not site-wide –Earned by merit, rather than bought, bartered or stolen –Not crowded with many other links on the page –On a high PageRank-endowed, high Alexa-ranked,.edu/.gov/.mil authority site

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Wouldn’t it be nice to have a link on here?… ;-)

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts In Summary  Get creative –With your content, functionality, free tools, your budget –Think “Web 2.0” (blogs, RSS, tagging, etc.)  Measure success not by fixating on the PageRank meter, but by measuring the rankings lift  Don’t hamper the PageRank flow within your site

© 2005 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts Q&A  Thank You!  Time now for some Q & A!  Also, feel free to me:  for my Best & Worst Practices in SEO whitepaper, free