Do Outgoing Links Worsen My Google Ranking?

@BigMoosieApr 08.2005

I know that the more people that link to me the better it is for my rank. But If I have hundreds of links going out back to those sites does that make my ranking on google worse?

-BigMoosie

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15 Comments(s) _↴

@IntensityApr 09.2005 — #No.

Think about it this way.. The web is here to provide resourceful information to the Searchers. If you provide outgoing links, you are just providing additional information to the readers. Topic related links over course will be more beneficial than non topic links.

@BigMoosieauthorApr 09.2005 — #Somebody told me that Google has in their algorithm stuff which benefits you more if people link to you but you dont link back, they sayed google does this to try to stop people making linking schemes to improve their ranking. You can verify this also is false? As I was planning on making all the links on my links page in javaScript to get around it if it is true.

Thanxalot

- Benjamin

@BigMoosieauthorApr 09.2005 — #EDIT: oops, posted comment in wrong thread

@IntensityApr 10.2005 — #Yes, one way links are given a little more weight. However I have achieved excellent rankins with the use of recipricol links.

Blocking your links with JavaScript is going to be unethical. Word gets around pretty quick, so be a good sport and don't manipulate reciprical links.

@vinothApr 12.2005 — #no outgoing links donot worse, it is all about the incoming links.

@gimbrasApr 12.2005 — #"Blocking your links with JavaScript is going to be unethical."

I agree, and then the Google guys would find this hack and change their scheme all over again.

@lindamoranApr 12.2005 — #Hi all. Has anyone here heard of Mike Moran? He is a Web search expert, and is the person responsible for the drastic change this year to IBM's Web site. His long-awaited book, [I][B]Search Engine Marketing, Inc.[/B][/I], will be out this summer. Below are some thoughts I know that Mike has about the topic of this thread:

Mike says that while reciprocal links are not rated as highly as inbound links from authoritative sites, reciprocal links are still very useful. They can improve your rankings a little bit, and they increase your overall presence on the web. Just be careful that any link you add to your site is relevant to your visitors. If you do that, the link will benefit you in terms of search rankings as well as customers returning to your site. Search engines do NOT penalize you for reciprocal links.

One more thing--don't worry too much if the Google page ranking of the guy you're exchanging links with is lower than yours. His page may be new, or could very well increase in rankings and even surpass yours. It's more important that it's a good link for your visitors. Avoid becoming a "link farm."

I've been hanging around these Web Developer forums for a few years now but recently got too busy doing a technical review of Mike's book to be able to post much.

Regards, Linda Moran (Mike's wifey)

@gimbrasApr 12.2005 — #lindamoran, with that nick I guessed right that you were his wife ?

I have, this maybe is stupid, but it is still a question, does the link-exchange you are talking about refers only to text-links or these links may also be image links?

@lindamoranApr 12.2005 — #To gimbras--

You could be referring to two types of images:

1. If when you say image links, you mean an image contained within an anchor tag in HTML, with no javascripts, those image links are for all intents and purposes identical to text links. The search engines will treat them the same as text links.

2. But if you mean image maps, those are ignored by search engines. This is because image maps create javascript events. So even if the image itself is not in a javascript, the event, and therefore the link that will be activated is in a javascript. Javascripts are ignored by search crawlers, and therefore anything in them is not seen by search engines.

Hope this helps.

@BigMoosieauthorApr 12.2005 — #lindamoran: what you sayed earlier was that the benefit of linking to people was for the customer's sake, that is not worsened by using javaScript. You also sayed that a link from somwhere and not back is better than a reciprocal link for pagerank. Well it seems there is no comprimise from using javaScript for the users or me only for the people I'm linking to, that doesnt worry me in the slightest. I will use javaScript i think. If anybody has any other reason (other than ethical issues) that i should not do this please tell me.

@gimbrasApr 12.2005 — #Javascripts are ignored by search crawlers, and therefore anything in them is not seen by search engines.

[/QUOTE]

Thanks linda (linda in portuguese -I'm portuguese- means pretty, beautiful,so you have a nice name) it really did help.

BigMoosie: it only affect those sites which links to you are displaying.

If you agreed on a link-exchange for rank purproses, and you do not act in good faith, they can remove the link to your site from theirs for that reason. And then you go down and down.

@lindamoranApr 12.2005 — #Hey gimbras. You make a good point. It's best to be clear about what you're giving and what you're getting. But in some cases, it's not black and white.

I have done some link exchanges with folks who have higher page ranking than I do. As I've said, what appears to be an uneven exchange may not be so uneven because page ranking can change and because there are other benefits to links.

In some of those cases, I did not go out of my way to point out the unevenness. This was a judgment call on my part. Not everyone has the google toolbar, so they might not know, and might be confused by this information. I deal with non-tekkies a lot. I think too much information just scares them away.

But I would never intentionally mislead. If it were me, I wouldn't solicit a link exchange for which the other guy would get no ranking benefit at all because I think there's an understanding implied in reciprocal link agreements that this is the main benefit. But that's my call on it.

@gimbrasApr 13.2005 — #lindamoran:

just a question (maybe it is stupid) those link-exchanges text-links, is there any difference between a link like this

<i>
 </i>&lt;a href="http://forum.redcodestudio.com"&gt;http://forum.redcodestudio.com&lt;/a&gt;

and one of this kind?

<i>
 </i>&lt;a href="http://forum.redcodestudio.com"&gt;The Portuguese Web and Flash Developer Community&lt;/a&gt;

?

I mean what matters the most the url embebed or the setence that is linked?

Another question:

I'm working as a webmaster for a company now, if I place links on the comments of the code of its websites, does it count as a bennefit for going up in the ranks?

I mean can I place an invisible link like one in a HTML comment


@lindamoranApr 13.2005 — #The answer to your first question is that meaningful anchor text is important to search engines. It should have good keywords. If the anchor text closely matches the visitor's search query, it will rank higher in the search results list. Therefore, your second example is better than your first.

The answer to your second question is that search spiders ignore comments. They do not crawl them. So anything within the comment is ignored by the search engine. Besides, inbound links have more value than outbound links. Best to put your efforts into your link campaign.

Here is a writeup on [URL=http://www.lindamoran.net/searchwifey/linkcampaign.html]link campaigns[/URL].

@gimbrasApr 14.2005 — #Thank You!

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