What is the value of multiple links from the same site?

[friskybits]

Hi,

Yesterday I was offered the oportunity to have my link on every page of a directory web site, for a fairly small annual fee. I had to decide quickly so I went for it, even though I am a little unsure of how multiple links from the same site apply to PR. The site is a PR4 by the way.

Can anyone tell me how 100+ links from a single site rate against fewer links from separate sites when it comes to PR and search engine rankings?

Did I cut a good deal or would I have been better buying fewer links from a variety of sites?

Regards,

FriskyBits

[Brendon]

Forget the toolbar PR; it's a pointless metric, used only by link brokers. What IS of more concern are the following metrics :

1) What is the anchor text being used to link to you?
2) What about any text surrounding the link?
3) What is the theme of the linking page? (Determine this by looking at the <title>, on page text etc. Using the Google AdSense test tool can tell you A LOT about how G see a page)
4) How many other outbound (ie to a different domain) links does the page have?
5) What are the themes of those target sites? (SE's tell a lot about the theme of a page by looking at where it links TO)

To answer your actual question, unless the directory is under a "can't pass PR" penalty, and the fee was small, it was worth it. 100 links is still 100 links. On target links are better, but harder to get. In most niches, there are only a relative handful of sites that can provide killer links, so you have to cast your net wider in any case.

100 links doesn't provide 100 times the benefit of 1 link, but they are better. DOes that answer everything?

[friskybits]

Thanks Brendon,

that's really useful.

I have made sure that the link text has my key words and that it points to a page that is optimised for those keywords.

My site has been live for less than three months and dropped out of Google after about three weeks. I'm hoping that with a few extra links and some elapsed time that it will start to appear in Google again soon.

The other thing I need to get a handle on is how many links I need to make a difference in rankings. Some of my competitors have 10,000 or so links but I think a lot of them come from other web sites that they own. I don't know how much notice to take of such high numbers of links.

Regards,

Martin

[Brendon]

Raw numbers mean very little; quality will win every time. That's not to say that quantity can't have a quality all of it's own however, but we're talking in the tens and hundreds of thousands.

>> My site has been live for less than three months and dropped out of Google after about three weeks.

TrustRank issue. Get incomings from outside your normal link partners, but look for sites that have a history of "commitment", keeping links stable. Directories are often good for this. Any site thjat you know has been linking to your competitors for 6+ months should be an immediate link exchange target. Try for a DMOZ listing, you never know. Pay for a Yahoo listing, about £600 for a "grown-up" site, I think, but it might be worth it to get the traffic hit months sooner

[TD Nick]

Hi FriskyBits,

site wide links, as you are suggesting, can hinder the inbound-link SE benefit you will receive - SE's can now recognise this a deliberate abuse.

Brendon has summarised the attributes you must consider when buying a link expertly, I'd like to reiterate the "authority/theme" a site has which is linking to you is crucial in the benefit you will receive.

As a tip, if you want to rank for "cheap blue widgets" in Google, enter that search term and see which sites are already deemed the "authority" sites for this search phrase, according to Google, and contact them.

These are the sites you want to be securing inbound links from - vary the anchor text on each site you approach and don't go after high PR links (or you show up on the radar) - build the links organically and naturally as to be careful not to trip filters.

How many links do you need to rank better? One or two inbound links from high ranking authority sources on your target theme is worth much more than 10,000 spam links from the same domain.

Hope this helps,

Nick

[friskybits]

Thanks guys,

That's all useful info.

What you have both said is pretty much what I was thinking but it's nice to get other peoples opinions.

Regards,

FriskyBits