Are Reciprocal Links Dead?
If the current indications are correct we may be looking at the end of reciprocal linking as a method of building rank and link popularity, at least as far as Google is concerned.
The latest 'Google Dance', nicknamed 'Jagger', has caused major concern by those suffering loss of position on the top ranks of the search engine's listings. So we decided to take a close look at what is happening and see what we could learn.
We have a few small websites that have a limited number of links. These sites are used mostly for research and testing of our primary business in Web Analytics. By analyzing these sites, we were able to quickly get an idea of what is happening in Google's Jagger Update, which is still in progress at the time of this writing.
By using our web analytics tools, we were able to look at the history of visits by the bots and the links to these small sites. We had to go back as far as January in order to build a picture of Google's actions.
Our software also allows us to look at all links from the SEs, not just those shown by using the browser's 'link:' command. G only reports some of the links to your site, not all.
Here is what we have seen:
Like many other sites, we noticed a sharp drop in rank in our test sites around the first of July. They lost about 40% of their previous link popularity and moved down sharply in rank. Also, duplicate links on a single site disappeared. We now only showed one link from each linking site.
As Jagger started, unlike many others we have seen complain about G's actions and timing, our sites stayed rather stable. Evidently they had already suffered their major losses. However, there was a small increase in the number of links.
This caught our attention. We had expected that, like many others, we would experience further disruptions to our link structure.
But when we examined these links, we were surprised to see that not one of them had been listed with Google a few weeks earlier. Not one. Our research showed that these links had been live in G's archive, but none had shown up publicly before now.
It appeared that there was some sort of 'aging' process taking place, but this may just be coincidental. It is more likely that older links disappeared because the host site was lost in the shuffle and our links no longer appeared 'relevant'.
The other thing we noticed was that not one of these new links was listed on our reciprocal links pages. In other words, all reciprocal links had vanished. We think that this is because G is down-grading or eliminating reciprocal links as a measure of popularity.
This does make sense, actually. Reciprocal links are a method of falsifying popularity. Sort of a cheap method of buying a link, if you want to think of it that way.
If your web sites have suffered from the latest 'dance', you may want to take a look at the type and source of your links. If they are mostly from link exchanges, you are probably looking at the reason for your move down the list on the search engines.
During the second week of the Jagger Update, a few of our reciprocal links did come back up. However, we also noticed that these were from places where we had highly relevant content. They came from articles where we discussed our area of expertise: Web Analytics, or from forums where we had relevant threads. So we feel that these links came back because of content, not linking.
The other group that came back up was one-way inbound text links, regardless of the originating web site. These links also had strong relevance to our web analytics business. In other words, they contained keywords and/or phrases related to our site and its business.
This research has us now re-evaluating our linking strategy. We urge others to do the same.
We are now concentrating only on building strong one-way inbound links. We are focusing on publicity, articles, directories, and other direct methods of building our image and consumer awareness.
In addition, we are also looking for associated but non competing firms like web developers, Search Engine Marketers, SEOs, web site owners and designers to partner with us to build direct business relationships and the resulting inbound links.
This strategy may not be the fastest method of building links, but we feel it is rock solid and within the spirit of good business practices. The best thing is that it is search engine independent.
We will no longer worry about chasing (or beating) the search engines and their ever changing algorithms. That is a fool's game we are sure to lose.
Instead, we will focus on building rock solid links and popularity with the group that counts: our customers. By focusing on beating our competition and providing a top quality product, plenty of educational information and relevant content, we are sure to move up and stay at the top of the search engine rankings.
It's something to think about.
About the Author: Will Moore is a web analytics specialist. Visit Web Stats Gold at www.webstatsgold.com for more articles and information.
The Dust Begins to Settle?
What Happened?
Webmaster's, Site Owners, Online Businesses and SEO Companies everywhere have been desperately trying to decipher the fallout from the longest and most grueling algorithm update in the history of the Internet. Webmaster and SEO Forums have been busier than ever before.
Relevancy and revenue generation are the two top goals of any SE (Search Engine). As the Internet and associated technologies mature, SE algorithms have become much more complex. This was demonstrated in Google's 3-4 week long 3 phase "Jagger" update.
The initial response was very negative and Google received more bad press from every conceivable corner than what could have been imagined, going in. Many sites fell completely out of SERP (Search Engine Result Placement) over night, seemingly unexplainably.
Some have recovered, but many haven't, while others have improved traffic. Compounding prognostication, Yahoo initiated a much milder index update during the latter phase of the Jagger update.
Google had several issues to deal with:
1) Scraper Sites
2) Faux AdSense Directory Sites
3) CSS Spamming Techniques
4) Growing "Generic" SERP Irrelevancy
5) Reciprocal Linking Abuse
6) Ballooning BlogSpam Google had no choice but to act decisively and convincingly.
The following list is how we believe Google has handled these issues in the Jagger update:
1) Increased importance placed on IBL (Inbound Links) Relevancy?
2) Increased importance placed on OBL (Outbound Links) Relevancy?
3) Promotion of relevant Niche Directories (related to 1) & 2)?
4) More weight thrown back to PR @ top domain? (see country's top domain level)
5) Increased importance on AdSense placement relevancy?
6) Possible introduction of CSS Sp@m filtering?
7) Overall Blog demotions?
8) New and unresolved "canonical" issues? Let's look at each action separately:
1) Increased Importance Placed on IBL Relevancy
Reciprocal linking abuse was growing out of hand, even "organic" SERPs were losing relevancy because the majority of active Site administrators were link-mongering anywhere and with anyone they could, regardless of relevant value. Google created that monster throwing the weight behind quantity over quality for a long time.
It appears they simply started applying several published relevancy measurement factors (See US Patent Application #2005007174), which seem to have started becoming more noticeable during the "Bourbon" update.
2) Increased Importance Placed on OBL Relevancy?
The patent application mentioned above is ripe for OBL Relevancy algorithm application. The "Bourbon" update ushered in a marked hit on irrelevantly linked and broader based Directories, while promoting "niche" or "focused" more relevant topical based directories.
It makes perfect sense to cut sp@m at its source. This move was subtle but at the same time was an engineering masterpiece because it addressed every form of link sp@m to some degree, including CSS spammed links.
Theoretically, if a link can't be seen, it won't be selected by visitors and no measurable time is spent there, therefore it's "Relevancy Rating" starts to diminish immediately.
Some even hypothesize that those kind of links can effect the overall "Relevancy Ranking" for the entire site and has potential to effect the page and Site PR (Page Ranking). We definitely saw a promotion of "Relevant" Directories almost across the board with Jagger.
3) Promotion of Relevant Niche Directories (related to #s 1, 2 & 5)?
We began seeing a Directory SERP shift in the "Bourbon" update and definitely saw a promotion of "Relevant" Directories almost across the board with Jagger. Based on those facts, no one can deny that there has been a significant algorithm re-emphasis in and about "Linking" issues.
4) More Weight Thrown Back to PR @ Top Domain?
Google had seemed to stray from earlier value ascribed to PageRank for some time in quest of content, content freshness and other goals. After Jagger3, I was surprised to find PR zero pages highly placed in important Topic SERP with a great deal of code and 2 sentences of content. One example is prominent just below Matt Cutt's Blog when doing a Google search for "Jagger Update".
This particular example is mostly javascript, Adsense and intra-site links. On further inspection, the site is well done, contains a good deal of relative information and has a top domain ranking of PR6.
Based on these observations one might concur that more emphasis has been placed on top domain PR. This "observed" return focus to "Authoritative" or Sites holding "Trusted" status should hold no real surprise in the quest for "relevancy" improvement.
5) Increased Importance on AdSense Placement Relevancy?
Google has declared all out war against Sp@m AdSense Sites of every kind. Many of these are/were faux directories and scrapers or other Mega-Sites utilizing auto content and auto link generation technologies and services.
Matt Cutts in his Blog openly asked for and gave specific instructions on how to report these Sites to help augment the overall effect of the alg changes targeting those raging atrocities. The war rages on against all kinds of sp@m, but you can always bet that relevancy, revenue protection and growth will be at the top of the list.
6) Possible Introduction of CSS Sp@m Filtering?
g
Matt Cutts issued an unusually stern warning about using CSS Sp@m techniques, coinciding with the Jagger Update (strangely enough) Oct 19, 2005:
Here is link to the article in Threadwatch entitled: Google Engineer Hammered over CSS Sp@m Comments. There is a great deal of controversy over this issue, but it has been a growing cancer for a long time.
Some almost seem to be speculating that Google couldn't figure out the algs to combat these issues yet outside of OBL Relevancy implementation, almost dismissing Matt's warning as "huff and puff" to scare CSS sp@m abusers into compliance.
Google always addresses serious sp@m issues eventually and this one has been on the table for around a year, that I know of! It just doesn't make sense to ignore a warning from a top Google Engineer, does it?
7) Overall Blog Demotions?
BlogSpam became a growing problem after Blogging gained prominence in 2004. Google had to backtrack on Blog SERP prominence because many of them were not managed well, or at all, losing topical relevancy.
Jagger seems to have ushered in a SERP sweep of Blogs that were not topically focused, managed with purpose, and contained adsense and link sp@m. It got to the point that it seemed that half the top SERP for almost any topic were Blog listings. Many have fallen in Jagger.
8) New and Unresolved "Canonical" Issues?
Many are complaining of incorrect indexing issues, especially for sites that were indexed for the first time during Jagger. The problem seems to stem from Google treating the abbreviated Site URL (without www) and the complete URL.
I'll use one of my own as an example:
www.precisioncompletion.com is a new unranked launch during Jagger and comes up correctly. Do a Google search for precisioncompletion.com and look at the cache - A PR7 and the wrong website!
Half of the listings are correct and the other half pertain to that other site.Google is aware of these canonical issues being reported, and I believe they are planning to address them as the dust settles a little more on this update.
Maybe I need to do a 301 permanent redirect to the full "URL" before I lose that PR7 and see if I can get it to transfer and magically pump up that PR zero! What to expect next?
There are a large number of sites that saw crippling SERP demotions, including clean coded, relevant, W3C validated, completely "White Hat" sites that haven't ever even engaged in link exchange programs. I know, I had one that got hit, my first time ever in a Google update.
Many of us in that position hope that effect is temporary "Collateral Damage" which will be rectified in subsequent alg tweaking as the dust continues to settle on the "Jagger" update. I don't see that Google has deviated off their widely expressed intentions and historical path in the Jagger update.
They will continue to fight sp@m at any level that protects the footsteps in their expressed intended path: Relevancy - Market Share - Revenue Generation (Maintenance & Growth) - Fiscal and Community Responsibility.
About The Author
Ken Webster is a published, award winning technical author, US Patent Holder and Moderator on a leading Internet Webmaster Forum.
Nov 11th, 2005
