Today, my best practices are being challenged by the link war going on. My best practices still work eventually and over time, but the quick-fix, get cha' to the top on MSN overnight, days are gone.
That's a good thing. That means the search engines are improving their algorithms and preventing webmasters and spammers from going for the quick score. They're actually taking more factors into consideration when ranking a site and it makes sense that a newly launched site shouldn't rank well from the moment it is launched.
How many of us SEO's now own Arelis or some other link development software? WebPosition combined with a few best practices use to be enough, but now it's all about the links; but how many and where should they be on and off your website?
Tools like Areilis are a great way to get your website into trouble. The search engines despise any attempt to manipulate their rankings and tools like Arelis do just that.
And it's been all about the links ever since Google decided they were the best way to rank a website. No one has looked back ever since.
Well, we all know that each link ON your website gets a hypothetical "vote" and the more links you have on a page, the less value each vote has.
Incorrect.
1) Links pointing
to your page are a vote. Not the links on a page. They are votes for other pages.
2) This only applies to Google. Yes, links are important to MSN and Yahoo but they don't see them as votes like Google does. That's because what you are describing is how PageRank works. Not how valuable links can be (and why).
We also understand that pointing outside of your domain without a ref=nofollow is a way to "leak PageRank".
To clarify this further, you don't lose PR from the page but you do send less PR to your internal pages. This gives them less for themselves and less to pass on to other pages in your site.
So the general answer to the On-Page question is simple: Fewer outgoing links, with incoming links increased only proportional to the current PageRank.
For example, if the page your editing only has a PageRank of 3, I'd recommend keeping your external links down to 5 or less and your internal links under 10. Use your sitemap page to maintain intuitive navigation for the web crawlers. Now, if your page has a PageRank of 6, you can increase your outgoing links to about 15 and safely have about 50 internal links. You get the picture.
This is not a bad recommendation but too broad in scope. Typically the higher PR pages a important pages in a site like the home page and main category pages. The lower PR pages are deeper subpages within a site.
Typically the main pages are used to channel users to the subpages. These main pages shouldn't have many, if any, external links on them by design. If the goal is to get users to the subpages then external links are contrary to your goals. The subpages at that point should have to content your users are looking for and that may include links to external sites.
Also, you shouldn't be limiting internal links on a page. There's absolutely no reason to do so. Internal links channel PR to
your pages which is a good thing. Limiting the number of internal links limits your use of your own pages which is the only thing you have control of. That's just silly. You also lose out on the anchor text of those links which we all know Google loves to use in its ranking algorithm.
Limit outbound links? Sure. Limit internal links? Never.
I've learned that one or two links from PR5+ web page can put you in the number one position for your keywords.
That is only the case if the links are on topic. High PR links from pages that are unrelated to your page will do absolutely nothing for your rankings. It will only increase your PR.
This is also a broad generalization and should be avoided. Do you really think two PR5 links, even if from on-topic pages, are going to get you to rank #1 for "web hosting"? Or "Cancer"? Or even moderately competitive terms? If this was the case everyone would be buying two PR5 links from any page they can. And considering that a PR 5 is relatively easy to get for anyone who tries, I don't see how it can be considered very valuable in Google's rankings (which of course is all this discussion is good for since only Google uses PR).
[*]Make sure the link contains your keywords in the link text
This doesn't help SEO. For internal links it does but for external links it only helps the site you are linking to. The keywords in the anchor text just count towards the keyword density of your page's content. That's it. A drop in the bucket if you will.
[*]The page linking to you has at least a PageRank of 4 or greater
This is the worst advice that gets spit out over the Internet.
1) PR only affects Google so it is shortsighted from the get-go.
2) Every incoming link is a good link. Some are worth more then others but they all add up.
3) PR is much less important then the context and anchor text of a link. I'll take an on-topic PR1 link with good anchor text over a off-topic PR6 link any day.
Limiting which incoming links you seek is limiting your opportunities to improve your sites rankings.
[*]The link is prominently placed amongst text and not lingering in the footer or bullet list
1) Being in a list as no effect on SEO. None.
2) Being in a footer is only bad if the page is long. Then that portion of the page might not be indexed and your link is never found. But being in a footer does not reduce the weight of the link.
[*]If possible acquire links in .ORG or .EDU domains - since they have the highest PR
Very poor.
1) PR is assigned by links, not by domain extension. You don't get high PR just because you are a .gov or .edu. That's very basic knowledge.
2) Let me tell you what the real myth is and then shoot it down. People say get links from .edu and .gov because they are seen as authority sites since the are gov't sites and educational sites. They say the search engines give them a boost simply because of their domains.
NOT TRUE.
Web pages on .edu and .gov domains tend to rank well because they contain quality content and many webmasters will link to their content as a result. Both of these are key elements in SEO.
Good content and
incoming links. Yes, content is king and these sites are further proof of that.
You want to know the real reason why you should get links from .edu and .gov pages? Because it is hard as hell to do. If you get one the odds of your competitors getting one there, too, is small and that link is helping you exclusively (and thus not helping them).
I'd say the first place to start is the Yahoo! Directory and DMOZ. Pay the lousy $300 on Yahoo! - it will pay off.
I sold nearly $1,000 copies of my ebook since I paid for that one little link in Yahoo! Get over your budget and just do it.
Yahoo is rarely worth the $300. You may have had success with it but most people get nothing from it. Most people recommend only doing it if you have a large budget and are in a very competitive environment. Otherwise, it's only worth doing doing if you have a large budget and nothing else to spend it on.
As for Dmoz, good luck getting in. After submitting a site to it you are best to forget about it as it could be week or months to get in...if you ever do. Dmoz's value in SEO also have been reduced thanks to its poor management and tales of corruption.
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