Comments on: Links are content

By: Forrest

Forrest — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:18:27 +0000

Now this brings up another question … one that probably can’t be answered by someone that doesn’t have a recent check stub from Google. Do they really care about quality, or only how well a match a given page is to a particular search phrase? Because … thinking of Google as an evaluator of research papers might blind us to the ways Google is not like an evaluator of research papers.

I’m just curious on whether anyone has tried their hand at researching this?

By: dockarl

dockarl — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 18:46:34 +0000

I’m up in the air on that question.

I certainly notice that position for more competitive keywords / phrases tends to improve when I link out to relevant sites within my post. It would make sense - the quality of a paper is often measured by the quality of references it makes, not just how many times it is referenced.

I guess if you link out to lots of relevant sites you start to look like a bit more of a ‘knowledge center’ to Google.

Also, the naturallness factor - if you hoard all your pagerank by not linking out, it becomes obvious to the gbot.

By: Forrest

Forrest — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 22:15:54 +0000

Interesting to see someone remember back to Google’s humble academic birth. Unfortunately, it seems like without a job there, anecdotal evidence is all we have to go on.

I like the theory, though. I wrote an article on black and white photography a while ago, and naturally linked out to Ansel Adams and other masters. And to lesser known artists, like the great Sebastiao Salgado. I’ve always thought that if you manage to get your audience’s attention, it makes sense to point to where they can find more information. And that by introducing people to other good resources, you at least stand a chance of getting on their good side, making them more likely for a return visit.

By: Richard Hearne

Richard Hearne — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 04:27:53 +0000

My €0.02 - don’t go for it personally. Outbound links can hurt, but would be far too noisy a signal for any sort of positive ranking. I think Wiki has a ’special’ rapport with Google - but undoubtedly the sheer volume of in bound links and the retention of all pagerank within the site is playing a major role also.