Now that we know Google has changed the way it views incoming links, how do we proceed with Google's new link filter?
Wayne Hurlbert of Blog Business World has lots of tips that will help you plan your SEO and linking campaign to match Google's new standards.
On the existence of a dampening filter on new incoming links:
The thought that Google may be employing a dampening filter on new incoming links is not new. The idea has been given serious consideration, especially as part of the "sandbox theory" discussions. Advocates of the new link filter theory believe that Google does not give immediate full credit for an incoming link.
The theory says that Google provides a partial immediate credit, by running new links through a dampening filter. Only as the link ages, and remains linked to the site for a given period of time, does the full value of the Google PageRank and the link popularity receive its complete credit level.
That total link value and PageRank credit, is also measured for link theme relevance, making the process of link building much more difficult than in the past.
What the theory contends, in short, is new links don't provide immediate benefit to the receiving website. The link popularity and Google PageRank benefit is not passed in its entirety, from the date of discovery and indexing of a new link. In effect, the theory postulates the existence of a Sandbox for new links.
Much like the Google Sandbox theory itself, there is evidence in support of this dampening effect theory. Also like the sandbox theory, there is evidence that the phenomenon doesn't exist, or is simply one of mistaken identity.
How this applies to your linking campaign:
As with all potential filters, their possible existence must be taken seriously. If there is indeed a filter in place to dampen the value of new links, steps must be taken to reduce or eliminate its effect. If there is no such dampening filter, the same sound practices will provide additional benefits as part of a well designed link building program.
I mentioned in a previous post that Google was in the process of implementing filters to clamp down on purchased links. Wayne explains how the new link filter works to do this.
While Google's algorithm is not made public, it's generally thought that Google intends to clamp down on link sales for PageRank and for ranking in the SERPs. Also on Google's hit list are multiple interlinked sites, existing on the same ip c block, entirely for the purposes of link popularity and PageRank enhancement.
Purchased links tend to be added to a website in medium to large quantities, and often all at one time. Large quantities of incoming links, appearing all at once, might indeed trip a filter. Google could suspect a high volume of links added at one time to be purchased, and therefore suspect.
By dampening the value of new incoming links, Google probably hopes to discourage link sales in particular. By lessening their value, and removing any immediate link boost, Google might reason that website owners will be less inclined to buy incoming links.
The problem lies with the possibility that all incoming links, including natural and relevant ones, are being filtered along with the purchased and non-theme related links.
On devaluing interlinked sites:
The ip c block is the third series of numbers in the identity of an ISP. For example, in 123.123.xxx.12 the c block is denoted as xxx. Google is able to readily identify those links.
A dampening filter is not only used on such linking schemes, but a penalty filter as well. They are not the type of links that are part of the possible link dampening filter. The alleged link dampening filter is supposedly placing new incoming links in a version of the sandbox.
Google doesn't consider purchased links, or interlinked sites to be natural, and has provided some indication that they are devaluing them. In the case of interlinked sites, Google is even penalizing sites in much the same way that link farms are given penalties.
On what loss of link value means to SEOs:
A loss of link value kicks out one of the most important legs of the optimization stool. Should such a link dampening filter exist, a radical rethinking of SEO strategy would have to take place. There is definitely much at stake.
Many website owners have added new incoming links to their sites, but have not received a corresponding boost in the search engine rankings as a result. Conventional SEO wisdom holds that additional incoming links will enhance the any site's placement in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for the targeted keyword phrase.
Some webmasters and SEO experts no longer believe that link boost to be the normal course of events. In fact, some experts believe almost the opposite, that the new links are dampened by a filter, and could even cause a temporary drop or hold in the SERPs.
On how to design a linking campaign to bypass Google’s link filters:
Instead of worrying about new link filters, develop a sound linking policy, and any potential problems shouldn't affect the vast majority of websites. A good linking program will bypass most, of not all possible filters, real or imagined.
A linking strategy should concentrate on developing natural incoming theme relevant links as its ultimate objective. While that goal is a bit idealistic for many website owners, it certainly has the potential to avoid any filters.
By providing precisely the type of link Google prefers, it is far less likely to trigger any dampeners, if at all. Because they are added gradually over time, relevant natural links are highly unlikely to be sandboxed.
To receive this type of natural incoming link, strong theme relevant content must be developed for the website. Good informative content for website visitors attracts links. The problem is that natural linking is a slow process, and the real world SERPs need faster attention.
Add one way directory links. Google's spider crawls the major, and even minor directories, on a very frequent basis. Categorized directory links, especially from human edited directories, are very relevant and theme oriented.
As incoming links, they are far less likely to be filtered than links from other websites. It's widely thought that a link from the Open Directory Project (DMOZ) provides an almost immediate boost to the indexed website.
Keep link exchange programs confined to theme relevant sites. Avoid exchanges with websites that have little to no topic relation to your site. Entirely non-relevant links are much more likely to be viewed with suspicion by Google, and possibly filtered. We already are quite certain, that Google passes along more PageRank and link popularity boost from theme relevant sites, than from topically unrelated sites.
When making link exchanges, space them out over a period of time. Instead of doing all of the link trades in one week, use a two to three month time frame instead. A longer time lag will give each link a full opportunity to be integrated into the Google system, and avoid being dampened.
If a link is going to be dampened, it may as well be delayed.
In a previous post, I mentioned why blogs are excellent tools for linking. Wayne’s thoughts on why bloggers will benefit from the new link filters:
Bloggers are less affected because the links are from similar theme relevant blogs. Because the topics discussed are similar, the inbound links are given more weight faster by Google. The fact that links are often from within posts themselves help, as do permanent links from blogrolls.
Google is also rewarding sites that link out to other sites. Talk about another win for bloggers!
Bloggers freely link to other blogs and traditional websites. This generous linking policy, shared by most bloggers, is rewarded by Google. Higher search rankings for the helpful blogger are the benefit. The reason for this benefit, resulting from linking out, is to encourage links to other people who provide useful and interesting content.
I talked about how one of my sites had suffered in Google because of the lack of fresh content, coupled with not-so-good linking practices.
Wayne stresses the importance of fresh content:
Fresh content is rewarded by Google. It's doubly rewarded as your blog becomes better established over time in the search engine rankings. Older sites, while still strong, slip lower in the search results over time, when no fresh content or information is added.
On the Sandbox:
In effect, new sites are placed on probation to see if they last, or if they are only disposable get rich quick spam sites. Those spam sites break every Google guideline in the book, but rise to page one very quickly.
The idea of spam websites is to glean as much revenue as possible, prior to a Google banning from their index. Google does ban them too. Don't worry about that one.
To prevent this sort of mischief, Google has instituted the Sandbox to keep the new sites lower in the rankings until they prove their worthiness. While the system might be unfair to new sites, it's a fact of life. There are also some ways of minimizing the damage caused by the Sandbox filter.
As always, if you are following good SEO practices, you won't be affected as much by the new filter.
Yes it will take much longer to actually get good rankings for your site and because Google now also considers higher clickthroughs from its SERPS as an indication of your website's value to users, sites that already rank well will do even better.
So its going to become harder to displace sites that already rank well in the Google index.
Good SEO and linking practices, coupled with relevant, fresh, quality content added over time are now even more important to achieving high rankings in Google.
# posted by Priya Shah @ 5:54 AM
