News July 28, 2005
Does Google place varying levels of
value on the types of links pointing to
a site when it comes to ranking
considerations? This is one of the most
oft discussed topics on the subject of
Google linking strategies. Will Google
punish what it may perceive as too many
links too quickly? Are relevant links
the only ones given weight?
Editor's Note:
How does Google give credit for the
large amounts of backlinks it has to
sift through when factoring a result
ranking for a specific keyword?
Relevancy is king, but will Google
actually sandbox a site for getting too
many non-relevant links too fast? A lot
of it depends on the situation, but you
probably won't get as much or any credit
for links Google considers to be without
editorial discretion. Join the
continuing discussion at
WebProWorld.
This particular discussion was brought
up and hashed out quite thoroughly at
WebProWorld (among other places), in
a thread featuring some really good
information. The main point of
contention seemed to be whether or not
sites can get sandboxed for acquiring a
large number of links in a short period
of time. Will Google discount these
links if they are from sites that aren't
relevant to the subject of your site?
The answer, as with all things related
to Google's approach to search rankings,
is fluid; meaning there is nothing
definitive.
When you compile the various levels of
information related to this subject, it
gives you the indication that Google
operates on situational level with most
of the IBLs that pass through the
ranking algorithm.
It's quite obvious that Google values
relevant in-bound links. In relation to
Google, link relevancy has to do with
the subject matter of the sites sending
and receiving the links. If the site
linking to yours shares similar
"interests," then Google will place more
value on the link when it comes to
ranking. This concept was further
supported by Matt Cutts of Google who
said the same thing at last year's
San Jose SES conference. Essentially,
good content relevant to your
subject/target will more than likely
bring what the WPW topic starter calls
"Relevant "Generic" (one-way) links,"
which Google values a great deal.
 Conversely,
the other point discussed in the thread
was the propensity for people to blame
the mythical Google sandbox when their
ranking algorithm discounts these links.
As many in the thread indicate, this
seems to be a mistake made by those who
are new to the SEO game and don't grasp
the concept of relevancy versus
quantity, or people who merely want to
place blame because something they
attempted did not have the desired
affect.
Would Google discount a site's ranking
if an article or point of interest
within the site received a large amount
of IBLs from many different sources?
That seems quite unlikely, especially if
the majority of site providing the IBL
are relevant to the subject being
linked. Google's ranking system seems
quite capable of noticing the
differences between link farms and
topically relevant sites when it comes
to applying weight for backlinks.
Although, Google does seem to take the
speed with which these links were
acquired into consideration. To further
this point, poster DMC_34 pointed out
this portion of Google's algorithm
patent:
A large spike in the quantity of
back links may signal a topical
phenomenon (e.g., the CDC web site
may develop many links quickly after
an outbreak, such as SARS), or
signal attempts to spam a search
engine (to obtain a higher ranking
and, thus, better placement in
search results) by exchanging links,
purchasing links, or gaining links
from documents without editorial
discretion on making links. Examples
of documents that give links without
editorial discretion include guest
books, referrer logs, and "free for
all" pages that let anyone add a
link to a document.
 This
would suggest sites receiving large
amounts of backlinks at an accelerated
rate will in fact be scrutinized a
little more closely, and rightfully so.
However, if Google finds these IBLs are
relevant to the site, they will give the
appropriate "weight" to that link. To
think that your site is being sandboxed
because a number of links didn't get
acknowledged may be the wrong approach.
It is more likely that Google just
didn't give the link any weight because
it came from a site that it would
consider to be without editorial
discretion.
While it's true you can't control who
links to your site, you can control the
amount of reward expectation you place
on receiving different types backlinks.
Some links weigh better than others.
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