SEO Linking

[Jaffro]

Just got an email from something or other, cant remember now! doh. Talking about linking basically. The way i understood it basically comes down to page ranking mainly dependent on incoming links. So it doesn't matter how many outgoing links you have (as long as it all well structured and stuff) its the incoming links that matter.

So why is it that people dont want to give links? Or try to give links that are not seo friendly? Surely it doesn't matter with regards to the rank of your page/site what outgoing links there are?

I'm confused please explain! Is the only reason people dont link doing this is because they dont want to pass on pr to their competition?

[sitepointRefugee]

I'm confused please explain! Is the only reason people dont link doing this is because they dont want to pass on pr to their competition?

Here's what I think. There are those who simply do not believe in the idea of "sharing" or "win-win." They take and that's the end of it(I was just mentioning about this at sitepoint http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=161384). I don't get into this whole notion of ethics and what have you, but that's just how it is. There are billionaires who do not share a penny, and you know what? those people are everywhere and you will find those people in any age. This applies on the web as well. They take ... period. That's what it is. It's not so much about PR or competition. It's simply about how they view the world and how they respond.

[r2d2]

The amount of PR you pass on is the PR of the page divide the number of links on it (internal or external). So if you link to external sites, you are passing less PR back round your site.

[Jaffro]

I get that the pr is passed on, but passing on that pr doesn't effect the the pr of the page where the link is does it?

So, linking to other sites will lower the pr passed onto each of the pages in your site (because pr is divided between the links). So the main point is to drive pr into other pages within your site?

And if the pr on those pages wasn't important at all then the number of links placed on the pr important page wouldn't matter?

[chromate]

Originally posted by Jaffro
I get that the pr is passed on, but passing on that pr doesn't effect the the pr of the page where the link is does it?


Yes. If you link to another page, be it external or internal to your site, the page where the link is placed will lose some PR, because it's been sent on to the page being linked to.

[Jaffro]

Ok. Clearly undersood! hehe But surely the outgoing links will have to pass on a small percentage of the incoming links pr? Otherwise you could just flow pr through the page without it having any pr at all?

[r2d2]

Originally posted by chromate
Yes. If you link to another page, be it external or internal to your site, the page where the link is placed will lose some PR, because it's been sent on to the page being linked to.

Um, no. From this it sounds like you are saying links on a page affect its PR - they dont. Pages dont give away PR at their own expense.

A page's PR is calculated from links pointing to it. If I have a PR5 page, it will still be PR5 if I put 0 or 1,000,000 links on it.

If I put 1 link on it to another of that sites pages, I will get all the PR voting power from that page directed back into my site. If I also put an external link on the page, half the voting power will go outside the site, gone forever.

PR gives a page voting power, it doesnt lose any PR from voting.

[Jaffro]

NOW thats what i thought r2d2. It seems a bit stupid to duduct from a sites pr if that site is linking elsewhere, wouldn't that give directories a hard time of things?

[Chris]

Indirectly though outgoing links lower PR of all pages on a site, including the page doing the linking.

This website: http://www.iprcom.com/papers/pagerank/ has good graphical/mathematical examples of how outgoing links work (and all links for that matter).

[Jaffro]

That is one QUALITY read. Thanks chris that's so much help :) finally a understanding of pr! :D Cheers!

[incka]

I wonder what I could give away free to get back links...

[chromate]

Originally posted by r2d2
Um, no. From this it sounds like you are saying links on a page affect its PR - they dont. Pages dont give away PR at their own expense.

I think we actually agree, I just worded what I was saying badly.

Say for example, page A links to page B and page B links back to page A forming a loop. On an isolated basis, their PR will be equal between the two pages. Now, if page B links out to an external site without a return link then the total PR of our two pages will drop. So in effect, the page doing the linking is giving away PR at its own expense and, in turn, at the site's expense because not so much PR is flowing from page B to page A anymore, and so on from page A back to page B.

I'm sure we agree anyway. It just gets confusing unless the explinations are good, unfortunately, mine aren't :) lol

[Jaffro]

I think explaining anything mathmatical like this takes alot of hard reading and examples, which aren't easy.

[chromate]

I know you already know about this Jaffro, but another good way to get a better understanding is to play around with this calculator for a while... http://webworkshop.net/pagerank_calculator.php3

[r2d2]

Ah OK Chromate, cool :)