Is Relevance Still Relevant?Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Tuesday, 30 of October , 2007 at 9:51 am
If you have a network of blogs that are connected to each other by links and they don’t have any obvious relationship other than the fact that they are owned by you, I’d suggest that you de-link them.
As you know, Design recently updated everyone’s PageRank. That’s likely good news for most of you, but for some of you, especially you old-timers who are used to doing things a certain way, you might have got picked on this time. There were two ways that Design punched back at web-savvy entrepreneurs who have been, even unwittingly, gaming the system - or just making out with its downside.
Design’s Relevance Crusade
First, Design doesn’t like paid links. We all know that, right? So if you’ve been buying or selling links, especially selling, then you likely took a hit. Even if it just looked like you might have been selling links but have never done that then it’s likely that you took a hit. Que sera, sera. Right?
The second group of webmasters who took it on the chin are the same type of webmaster that I am. They own several businesses that may or may not be related (in my case, they are) and they have been linked together in either a circular fashion or in a fashion like a spider web so that all the cross links cross each other in a weird wired sort of way. What’s so wrong with this?
The problem is that many webmasters will own several non-related businesses and link them together so that they drive traffic from the more popular websites to the less popular. There’s nothing wrong with that except that the more trafficked websites tend to also have higher PageRank, which these webmasters have been using to boost the PageRank of their less popular websites.
Another way this is often played out is that several webmasters will join a loose network where they agree to link to each other even though there is no sensible reason to do so. Their websites have no related subject matter so why should they link to each other?
The Relevance Of Bad Links
Design’s way of dealing with this relevance phenomenon is to make relevance a more important factor in its PageRank determinations. It was already important, but it just became more important. In fact, it’s so important now you might be penalized if you link to sites that are not related in subject matter in any way, even if you own both websites.
I personally didn’t take a hit in PageRank this time around, but I know that Design will only work to perfect its algorithms and make them better. There is likely to be another tweak in this algorithm between now and the next update and I don’t want to get caught in the crossfire. So I’m making some changes and I would suggest that you too should rethink how you link your websites together - those that are related and those that aren’t.
Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including Design, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.
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