First, lets get the obvious out of the way: Linking is important to achieve rankings on the SEs especially Google.
Along with that I firmly believe that SE especially Google are looking for ways to weed out links that are not relevant, not important, purchased or simply swapped, and want to favor links that appear to have a purpose.
Because the search engines are always changing algos, it is imperative that SEO firms work to stay ahead of the curve and be forward thinking for new strategies. Anybody who’s been in the business for more than a couple of years knows that today’s common practice is tomorrow’s spam, especially when it involves unnatural manipulation of sites, links, etc.
Link popularity building swapping or one-way links could be and probably is viewed by the search engines as just this sort of practice.
It is my opinion that Google and others will soon devalue link pages. For one, how relevant is a link on a page with 50 other links? Two, how hard is it to program an algo to devalue any link on any page considered to be a link page?
Google has stated that the value of a particular link is divided by the number of other outgoing links on the page. if there are 50 links on the page, each linked page only gets 2 PR points. If 100 links on the page, the linked page only gets 1 PR point. If only one link on the page the linked page gets 100 PR points.
So the obvious goal is to be the ONLY outgoing link on a page in order to get the full outgoing PR value. In the current culture of link swaps and link directories this is virtually impossible, you’re certainly not very likely to get many people to link to you off their home page. So if link pages are on their way to just being another page of worthless clutter to the SE algo, what is the solution?
A New and Positive Way to Link
What is the web supposed to be? A resource for good quality content. What is it the search engines are supposed to favor? Good quality content. Most link pages don’t fall under that description.
My own company has just started a new linking program to exchange articles rather than links. I’m sure I’m not the only way who has thought of this, but I’ve yet to see anything definitive out there or a even a small minority of SEOs actively doing such.
Here is what we are doing. Instead of trading links we trade new and unique content. That content is placed on a new page linked from a master Industry Articles page which is linked into the primary navigation. Within the content are two links, one internal, back to the home page of the main site and one external link to the linked site.
If the article pages are link as they should be those pages would soon be spidered by the SE’s and develop a PR of their own. The PR does not have to be great because instead of sharing the link value with 20, 50, or 100 other links, you are getting the total outgoing PR value. On top of that the web is being populated not with junk link pages but unique valuable content.
Admittedly, its a tougher sell, but so was link exchanges just a year ago before people were educated on the value of linking. But as I said before, anything prone to manipulation is eventually doomed to be devalued. I strongly believe link pages are headed that way. On the other hand, swapping articles is EXACTLY what search engines claim to want, valuable unique content. And if that content links to you, even better.
I’m interested in hearing your thoughts and opinions on this. I’m sure there are some cons that I may not have thought of and perhaps some pros as well.
