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G) Outbound Links:
From every page, link to one or two high ranking sites under that particular keyword. Use your keyword in the link text (this is ultra important for the future)?
I never quite understood the purpose of outbound links to high traffic sites, or why some sites have pages with links to every major search engine.
So its to my advantage to link to Google or other high ranking sites, for the sake of being considered part of a "good neighborhood"?
No.
But, it would be to your advantage to link to other sites that are of value to your visitors. Usually those sites will be of an authoritative value and provide a natural relationship based on Trust. ;)
I firmly believe that Google is looking at outgoing links, their anchor text and the information on the site you are linking to. It won't help to link to a PR 10 page that is totally unrelated to your site.
Notice that no one can point a definative finger at anything and show you why?
As SEO's, we have been through two major phases of optimization:
- You are who your site says your are (keywords = search 1.0, Altavista)
- You are what your links say you are (anchor text = search 2.0, Google)
While google has pushed the pendulum as far as possible into the search 2.0 links corner, both of the above two can be manipulated. Something has to be in there to counter the manipulation and to keep sites honest - a gatekeeper.
Links : their belief in links and their reliance on links are the corner stone of the search engine. It is the original Larry Page Rank algo. The heart of the google rankings system is about mining the relationships between websites. The majority of the Google Search Engine algo still relies on links. Google is so link happy, that to hold the position that their search engine doesn't use every form of a link - including outbound links - as a portion of the algo, is a failure to understand how much importance Google puts on links.
If google calcs that there is an 90% chance your site is about Oranges and a good portion of your links are to car sites, it is a safe bet than there is a flag in the algo to mark your site as suspect and bury it (say, around 950). I am sure you can season the idea to-your-taste with dials and knobs on all those variables. They aren't newbies at this kids, and outbound links are massive indicators.
> how much is still applicable.
I have read it and reread it - even started on a series of article about it. I keep geetting stopped, because aside from a few of the dated stats and specific services mentioned, I wouldn't change much of anything there. The concept of fresh content is timeless seo.
Google is so link happy, that to hold the position that their search engine doesn't use every form of a link - including outbound links - as a portion of the algo, is a failure to understand how much importance Google puts on links. If google calcs that there is an 90% chance your site is about Oranges and a good portion of your links are to car sites, it is a safe bet than there is a flag in the algo to mark your site as suspect and bury it
A good post, and probably the only that actually deals with the question at hand and explains WHY outbound links are important. But that raises another question: How much of that is theory/speculation and how much is what we concretely know about Google's algorithm in the past or present?
