Importance of Backlink RELEVANCE?

by orvn
118 replies
  • SEO
  • |
In my experience,
Decent PR + relevant + dofollow
backlinks are extremely difficult to find.
This is why I focus on backlinks that are dofollow from high PR sources. I typically ignore relevance, only because it's so much harder to find.

Generally this works well for me, I didn't think the Googlebot could make too many judgements in terms of relevance of interlinked sites.
However, I notice a lot of you argue that relevant backlinks are a MUST.

Why is it that some of you consider relevance more important than dofollow or PR?

Just because real people are more likely to click on these links? Because that doesn't seem to be a good enough reason, IMO.
#backlink #importance #relevance
  • Profile picture of the author Fraggler
    That is the perfect reason to have them - Google tries to be very user focused (my opinion).

    The argument is really a waste of time because it just becomes a matter of who yells louder.

    My reasoning behind the power of relevant links is from reading articles on some of the patents and alogrithms Google uses or has aquired. The Hilltop Algorithim for example uses a source of relevant hub articles to determine other related authority articles. This is all done using hyperlinks.

    The related:domainname.com in Google also shows that Google can and does determine relationships based via the link profile. There is a visualisation of the related: query somewhere too to see what your competition looks like. They are usually very tightly networked (but not directly).

    Off-topic are easier tp find and do work - but I think you need more of them. It all comes down to efficiency.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2846031].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author orvn
      First off, thanks for the assertive responses. I try to stay attentive and open-minded when the knowledge of more experienced warriors is tossed in my direction.

      The reason I usually don't consider relevance of critical importance is because 80% of my work is SEO for local businesses and organizations.

      This often makes it impossibly difficult to find good backlinks, because, often-a-time, to be truly relevant, they have to target a local audience as well.

      Originally Posted by Fraggler View Post

      The related:domainname.com in Google also shows that Google can and does determine relationships based via the link profile. There is a visualisation of the related: query somewhere too to see what your competition looks like. They are usually very tightly networked (but not directly).
      I think I heard Krishna Bharat speak back in my early days at the University of Toronto, but I didn't form the appropriate mental co-relations then, since I was focusing on a different area of computer science and had just begun.

      I hadn't even considered Google's ability to approximate page similarity and how expert/authoritative sites tie in.

      You guys have both given me something to think about and perhaps the drive to develop a more effective and efficient link building strategy for those trickier endeavors that I take on.

      As a last request: if you could direct to more reading pertaining to information on search algorithms and whatnot, that'd be fantastic.

      Thanks!
      Signature
      Orun Bhuiyan[@orvn] [linkedin] See what I've been doing lately by visiting my marketing agency's site. SEOcial specializes in content marketing and integrated optimization. We create conversions for businesses by gracefully connecting the realms of design, development and marketing.

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2846313].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author dburk
    Hi orvn,

    Relevance is of absolute importance, but probably not in the way you understand it. You can have all the backlinks you want with all the PR you want and it will never help you rank until after you channel that PR through a relevant link.

    Many people seem to think that relevance has something to do with website topics. Website topics are not ever considered by search engines. Search engines are much more granular in their approach to relevance. They not only look at page topics for relevance, they can even look at individual page elements to determine relevance for document sections or even relevance of individual external links.

    Search engine optimization is often broken down into on-page optimization and off-page optimization. Many folks have the mistaken impression that off-page optimization is simply creating backlinks. Technically speaking, creating backlinks is promotional activity that may, or may not include optimization. Just as elements of your own pages can be optimized, or not, elements of the backlinks you place can be optimized, or not. This is what is really meant by off-page optimization.

    Many places where you place your backlinks allow, or even encourage, you to create unique and relevant content on the page where you place your link. This helps their users to understand what they can expect to find when they follow the link. Search engines look for those same signals of relevance and use them to score the landing page's relevancy for specific keywords. PR is simply used to weight the total value of that particular relevancy signal.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2846083].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Amandaa
    Banned
    [DELETED]
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2846495].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author luca6899
      Originally Posted by Amandaa View Post

      Backlinks or Inbound Links (IBL's) are links that are directed towards your website and are the building blocks to good Search Engine Optimization. The number of backlinks a website has is in a good indicator of its popularity or importance with search engines. Search engines, namely Google, give more credit to websites that have a larger number of quality backlinks and consider those websites more relevant in a search query.

      It is not sufficient to just have a high number of inbound links; they need to be quality links. For search engines to determine the quality of inbound links the content of the site is critiqued. The content of the websites you have inbound links with needs to be relevant to the content on your site. The more relevant the inbound links are to your site helps determine the quality of the links. If your site is about breast implants than linking to a site about German Shepherds is not relevant and is therefore not a quality link.
      So aslong the link is relevant... It is a quality link?? (Ofcourse the quality would rise if it would be a PR4-9, On a already popular page)
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2849806].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author dadamson
    All great points, I'd like to back them up by saying that in my experience, relevancy does count.

    Something that hasn't been brought up yet is the fact that Google seems to check the clickthrough rates on all of your backlinks. So this clickthrough rate would seem strangly low to Google if all your links are on off-topic pages that people aren't interested in clicking.

    I've found that the more you use white-hat methods, the better the outcomes. Blasting loads of links from unrelated sources as just as useful as spending half your time looking and building relevant links.

    This also brings me to the 'no-follow' concept. Sure, Google is told not to follow these links, but IMO when people are hitting your website from these nofollow links, they can boost you up because Google sees that you are not spamming links, your links seem to be more natural than your competitor.

    Just some things to keep in mind

    A lot of 'gurus' may tell you otherwise, but in my experience, the above methods work well.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2846547].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author rahulbatra
    Backlinks from relevant websites are important because when Google crawlers visit that particular site they crawl that website for that particular niche and if your website is not related to that niche you might get backlink from them but will not get the benefit of ranking on that keywords.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2846710].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author srbilles
      Originally Posted by rahulbatra View Post

      Backlinks from relevant websites are important because when Google crawlers visit that particular site they crawl that website for that particular niche and if your website is not related to that niche you might get backlink from them but will not get the benefit of ranking on that keywords.
      That is completely untrue. Most of my links come from other pages that are completely off topic of my site and I rank just fine for my keywords.
      Signature

      Get cash producing email copy written for you for cheap. Check out my Warrior For Hire offer at: http://www.warriorforum.com/showthre...1#post10514231

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2857704].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Eswar
        I had great sucess with the profile back links those are completely irrelevant to the content of my website. So i never worry about the relevancy instead of that i always look for the quality of the link.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2859173].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author Jacob Martus
          Originally Posted by Eswar View Post

          I had great sucess with the profile back links those are completely irrelevant to the content of my website. So i never worry about the relevancy instead of that i always look for the quality of the link.
          If you use your target keyword as the anchor text then it is a relevant link.
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2859204].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Jessicalohan21
        Quality backlinks with relevance is extremely important for Search Engine Optimization, and because of their importance, it should be high on your priority list in your SEO efforts.
        site to link to your site should preferably be a focus similar to yours, so it would be conceptually similar to yours. For example, if your site is by car, the inverse of the second site, which focuses on vehicles and would be considered appropriate that a site that focuses on perhaps the background image.
        If the sites that backlink to your website are really interested in similar topics, which certainly can lead to greater importance as these backlinks is concerned - and, in turn, this translates into better overall quality link decline.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2862171].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author thomarv29
        Originally Posted by srbilles View Post

        That is completely untrue. Most of my links come from other pages that are completely off topic of my site and I rank just fine for my keywords.
        same here, have to agree with you!
        Signature

        Im president of White Label Links Inc. A leading SEO and Internet marketing company based out of Jacksonville FL

        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2873607].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author dburk
        Originally Posted by imyours View Post

        RELEVANCE is nothing.Back links will always be back links..
        Yeah... It's not like search engines care about returning "RELEVANCE" in their search results. They should understand that when I search for "popcorn" I want to see nothing about "popcorn". They should show me results for auto insurance and other irrelevant keywords.

        Oh wait... I guess I got a little carried away with the illogic of your response... never mind.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2902773].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author yanivkalfa
    Well i dont thinks Relevance is more important then Do follow or any kind of formula like that.
    Links are links they are all good. relevancy is important PR is important and do follow is important but any kind of link would do.

    Also about relevancy ... you know you can make landing pages to make you none relevant links . to be relevant.

    What i mean is .
    Example - your website is about coca-cola.. you build another 10-20 websites about coca-cola - you spam these 10-20 1 page website with Crazy about of (none relevant links) these 10-20 website will gain authority with time and are relevant to your niche.
    After some time that you start seen these websites ranking for coca-cola . you then make a link from them to your website. and therefore getting 10-20 relevance links with authority .. you can also continue promoting these website and the more authority they get the more your website benefits from them.

    Hope thats helps
    Signature

    - Don't have anything to write Yet. -

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2846784].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author microunique
    Banned
    Search engine like google always like link from relevant site.
    Thanks
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2846800].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Globolstaff24
      I think it's quite difficult to define which is the most important. A backlink that is relevant but nofollow or with no PR can not give you any benefit.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2847071].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author faceblogger
    From my experience RELEVANCE does not matter. Also, an algorithm that looks for relevant words is mathametically impossible and inefficient for a search engine.
    Signature

    no sig

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2847186].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author dburk
      Originally Posted by faceblogger View Post

      From my experience RELEVANCE does not matter. Also, an algorithm that looks for relevant words is mathametically impossible and inefficient for a search engine.
      Yet, this is precisely what a search engine algorithm is designed to achieve. Are you saying that it is just coincidence that search engines algorithms tend to return relevant results? :confused:

      Where do you guys come up with this stuff? Stop and reread what you wrote and ask yourself if it even makes sense!
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2847830].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author sarafina
        Originally Posted by dburk View Post

        Yet, this is precisely what a search engine algorithm is designed to achieve. Are you saying that it is just coincidence that search engines algorithms tend to return relevant results? :confused:

        Where do you guts come up with this stuff? Stop and reread what you wrote and ask yourself if it even makes sense!
        You need to stop and reread. The question is on BACKLINK RELEVANCE not SEARCH ENGINE RELEVANCE.

        Backlink relevance = my health site getting a backlink from another health site. The search engine returns results based on your site backlink anchor text and your onsite factors. What is at debate here is if it matters if the site you get a backlink from is relevant. Are you following?

        Backlink relevance has nothing to do with search engine relevance. Stay on topic.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2847906].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author dburk
          Originally Posted by sarafina View Post

          You need to stop and reread. The question is on BACKLINK RELEVANCE not SEARCH ENGINE RELEVANCE.

          Backlink relevance = my health site getting a backlink from another health site. The search engine returns results based on your site backlink anchor text and your onsite factors. What is at debate here is if it matters if the site you get a backlink from is relevant. Are you following?

          Backlink relevance has nothing to do with search engine relevance. Stay on topic.
          Hi sarafina,

          That is YOUR definition of relevance, not Google's. We can all come up with our own definition of relevance, but I don't see how that helps us to understand the importance of relevance when we use a definition that does not apply to the specific goal or task at hand.

          I took your advice and reread the OP to be sure that he was referring to backlink relevance as it applies to SEO and indeed it does appear to be the point of his post. Last I checked this is a forum about SEO and this discussion is about relevance as it applies to SEO. Please correct me on this if we are not discussing relevance as it applies to SEO.

          My point was that many folks do not try to understand how search engines determine relevance and the importance of relevancy in how they rank your page in the SERP. Your response seems to underscore the acuteness of that ignorance.

          Search engines don't look at website topics for the purpose of relevancy, they are much more granular in their approach. I agree that website topic relevance applies to certain marketing principles particularly when targeting direct link traffic which bypasses the search engines. But the OP seemed to by asking why some of us consider relevancy so important. My answer to that is the search engines, as well as users, both consider relevancy as the most important attribute of search results. I'm simply recognizing and using that knowledge.

          And yes, relevance applies to backlinks, it's silly to think otherwise.
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848084].message }}
          • Profile picture of the author orvn
            There's certainly a lot of SEO's in the Greater Toronto Area

            Originally Posted by dburk View Post

            Hi sarafina,

            That is YOUR definition of relevance, not Google's. We can all come up with our own definition of relevance, but I don't see how that helps us to understand the importance of relevance when we use a definition that does not apply to the specific goal or task at hand.

            I took your advice and reread the OP to be sure that he was referring to backlink relevance as it applies to SEO and indeed it does appear to be the point of his post. Last I checked this is a forum about SEO and this discussion is about relevance as it applies to SEO. Please correct me on this if we are not discussing relevance as it applies to SEO.

            My point was that many folks do not try to understand how search engines determine relevance and the importance of relevancy in how they rank your page in the SERP. Your response seems to underscore the acuteness of that ignorance.

            Search engines don't look at website topics for the purpose of relevancy, they are much more granular in their approach. I agree that website topic relevance applies to certain marketing principles particularly when targeting direct link traffic which bypasses the search engines. But the OP seemed to by asking why some of us consider relevancy so important. My answer to that is the search engines, as well as users, both consider relevancy as the most important attribute of search results. I'm simply recognizing and using that knowledge.

            And yes, relevance applies to backlinks, it's silly to think otherwise.
            This whole topic makes a LOT more sense to me now.

            I've been reading up on the published information from various algorithms, Pagerank, trustrank, hilltop, SALSA, Hyperlink induced topic search, etc.

            I've concluded that I was pretty silly to ignore relevance entirely and while it doesn't play a monstrously large factor (I know this because I ignore it fairly frequently and I still get wonderful SERP rankings), it appears to play an important factor nonetheless.

            Originally Posted by sarafina View Post

            I use to believe in backlink relevance until I got #1 in 55 million results with backlinks that had no relevancy whatsoever. Thought it was an anomaly but then I did it again and have been achieving first page results - again with non relevant backlinks ever since.
            This happens to me a lot, but 55 million?! DAMNNNN.
            Signature
            Orun Bhuiyan[@orvn] [linkedin] See what I've been doing lately by visiting my marketing agency's site. SEOcial specializes in content marketing and integrated optimization. We create conversions for businesses by gracefully connecting the realms of design, development and marketing.

            {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848215].message }}
            • Profile picture of the author Look4VGames
              is ranking #1 in 55 million that rare? one my sites 2 months old ranks #2 out of 127 million results, that gets 300,000 searches a month.

              Originally Posted by orvn View Post

              There's certainly a lot of SEO's in the Greater Toronto Area



              This whole topic makes a LOT more sense to me now.

              I've been reading up on the published information from various algorithms, Pagerank, trustrank, hilltop, SALSA, Hyperlink induced topic search, etc.

              I've concluded that I was pretty silly to ignore relevance entirely and while it doesn't play a monstrously large factor (I know this because I ignore it fairly frequently and I still get wonderful SERP rankings), it appears to play an important factor nonetheless.



              This happens to me a lot, but 55 million?! DAMNNNN.
              {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2873863].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author orvn
        Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

        WF has that trust and authority factor. Many of the threads will
        rank for some terms. Almost in an instant.

        Remember that crazy Matt Cutts story? How he had mentioned one
        word in his blog, and then ranked for that? Exactly.
        I always try for the most authoritative, high PR backlinks. Regardless
        of any perceived "relevancy."

        But good people can disagree. The truth is probably somewhere in the
        middle.


        Paul
        Couldn't agree with you more.

        Originally Posted by dburk View Post

        Where do you guys come up with this stuff? Stop and reread what you wrote and ask yourself if it even makes sense!
        I know, right?

        I notice this recurring trend of difference of opinion between experienced warriors and those with slightly less credibility, especially when it comes to counter-intuitive matters.

        Like I said, I try to be meticulously attentive when given advice from those with experience.
        Signature
        Orun Bhuiyan[@orvn] [linkedin] See what I've been doing lately by visiting my marketing agency's site. SEOcial specializes in content marketing and integrated optimization. We create conversions for businesses by gracefully connecting the realms of design, development and marketing.

        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848067].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author seoforu
    I absolutely agree with you Orvn, I have seen many sites ranking well in Google by just gaining backlinks from irrelevant themes.So till now it works fine...!
    Signature

    Guest post links are effective when they are contextual and natural!!

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2847276].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author sarafina
    Relevance doesn't matter on one way links. On reciprocal links it does because Google wants to know if you're doing a link exchange, it is relevant and not just for seo purposes.

    This is my opinion based on my experiences.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2847761].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      dburk was a hard read, but close to what I believe. Close.

      You never know what relevancy google thinks a page is.
      Certain "content"? Perhaps.

      How important is that sig in the WF? I'd rank that pretty high.

      WF has that trust and authority factor. Many of the threads will
      rank for some terms. Almost in an instant.

      Remember that crazy Matt Cutts story? How he had mentioned one
      word in his blog, and then ranked for that? Exactly.

      I always try for the most authoritative, high PR backlinks. Regardless
      of any perceived "relevancy."

      But good people can disagree. The truth is probably somewhere in the
      middle.

      Paul
      Signature

      If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2847822].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author dburk
        Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

        You never know what relevancy google thinks a page is.
        Certain "content"? Perhaps.
        Hi Paul,

        Actually, Google has a tool that shows you precisely which keywords they find relevant for your page, and even sorts the the list of keywords based on relevancy. This allows you to see which keywords are the most relevant and which are the least relevant as google defines relevancy.

        If you a want to know how specific sections of your content effects relevancy, you can copy and paste those sections into a new page and run that page through this tool.

        https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848159].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author paulgl
          Originally Posted by dburk View Post

          Hi Paul,

          Actually, Google has a tool that shows you precisely which keywords they find relevant for your page, and even sorts the the list of keywords based on relevancy. This allows you to see which keywords are the most relevant and which are the least relevant as google defines relevancy.

          If you a want to know how specific sections of your content effects relevancy, you can copy and paste those sections into a new page and run that page through this tool.

          https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
          Yes. Well aware. Should have mentioned it here. I have mentioned it many times.
          I have talked about how I ran my sites through and was flabbergasted to say the
          least. I took the hint and actually SEO'd my sites even MORE for the terms. I was
          quite happy with google implementing instant. Instead of getting mad at google,
          I went with it. Even though the terms were no where close to what I really thought
          I was doing!

          Highly advise that tool.

          Paul
          Signature

          If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848248].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Brad Callen
    I view this with the same point of view, for the most part, building a site up to the authority level - broad results, long tail, and quick rankings - can be done with JUICY unrelated links. Does it mean you shoud? No, Obviously the relevant links are what you should try to obtain but if non-related quality links present themselves, you shouldn't necessarily turn them away. There is always many points to consider when analyzing links & relevancy is one of the many.

    I've seen a lot of link sales sites that build up totally unrelated back links and they really only ranked for their site name.. whereas those links on relevant sites would have undoubtedly brought them rankings for what their content was aboot.

    They both have their place and unless you are doing a side-by-side case study, you can never really be sure how much more effective an equal related link and non-related link would have on rankings.

    dburk has a solid point about inner workings of SE's. Throw my vote into relevant back links too!
    Signature
    iWriter.com - The Original Content Creation Service. Now with over 350,000 active writers. Let us write or re-write your articles, eBooks, blog posts and more... for as little as $1.25! 3,711,814 articles written to date!
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848150].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author sarafina
    I use to believe in backlink relevance until I got #1 in 55 million results with backlinks that had no relevancy whatsoever. Thought it was an anomaly but then I did it again and have been achieving first page results - again with non relevant backlinks ever since.

    dburk, can you please clarify why this would happen?
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848201].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Brad Callen
      Originally Posted by sarafina View Post

      I use to believe in backlink relevance until I got #1 in 55 million results with backlinks that had no relevancy whatsoever. Thought it was an anomaly but then I did it again and have been achieving first page results - again with non relevant backlinks ever since.

      dburk, can you please clarify why this would happen?
      You should totally PM me the keyword/url, would love to take a look.
      Signature
      iWriter.com - The Original Content Creation Service. Now with over 350,000 active writers. Let us write or re-write your articles, eBooks, blog posts and more... for as little as $1.25! 3,711,814 articles written to date!
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848227].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Jacob Martus
      Originally Posted by sarafina View Post

      I use to believe in backlink relevance until I got #1 in 55 million results with backlinks that had no relevancy whatsoever. Thought it was an anomaly but then I did it again and have been achieving first page results - again with non relevant backlinks ever since.

      dburk, can you please clarify why this would happen?

      First off, the number of search results returned for a query has nothing to do with it's competitiveness.

      Second, nobody is arguing that irrelevant backlinks won't get you ranked. They are arguing that relevant backlinks are more powerful than irrelevant. I'm not sure where I stand because much of my time is spent gaining irrelevant backlinks. And I rank well. However, I am not one to say that relevant links aren't more powerful because I don't know.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848247].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author paulgl
        Originally Posted by Jacob Martus View Post

        First off, the number of search results returned for a query has nothing to do with it's competitiveness.

        Second, nobody is arguing that irrelevant backlinks won't get you ranked. They are arguing that relevant backlinks are more powerful than irrelevant. I'm not sure where I stand because much of my time is spent gaining irrelevant backlinks. And I rank well. However, I am not one to say that relevant links aren't more powerful because I don't know.
        No problem here! I only argue on the perceived relevance. I know I said in the past
        that 99% of backlinks we get are probably, in our minds (google's?), irrelevant.

        You take the low lying fruit. But I take the low lying fruit with the authority and PR.

        I have always wondered where this relevancy thing started, and even the logic
        behind it. It seems to be somewhat illogical. Think about it. If you have a book store
        site, how valuable would a link from amazon.com be in google's eyes? In other words,
        the #1 site contributing to your site being #1? Hardly makes sense, right? If this
        were the case, then all #1 sites would need other #1 sites in their niche to contribute
        to their site being #1 in the niche. But that makes no sense. Nobody would ever
        have a chance at being #1, because the #1 sites would never give you backlinks
        and stab themselves in the back.

        But, one little link from a high PR, high authority site like amazon.com would
        trump 1,000 PR2 sites on books. So it can't be just relevancy.

        Paul
        Signature

        If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848321].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author orvn
        Originally Posted by Jacob Martus View Post

        First off, the number of search results returned for a query has nothing to do with it's competitiveness.

        Second, nobody is arguing that irrelevant backlinks won't get you ranked. They are arguing that relevant backlinks are more powerful than irrelevant. I'm not sure where I stand because much of my time is spent gaining irrelevant backlinks. And I rank well. However, I am not one to say that relevant links aren't more powerful because I don't know.
        True, but a high result quantity like 55 million certainly suggests a high likelihood of competitiveness, albeit not a concrete way to measure it.
        Signature
        Orun Bhuiyan[@orvn] [linkedin] See what I've been doing lately by visiting my marketing agency's site. SEOcial specializes in content marketing and integrated optimization. We create conversions for businesses by gracefully connecting the realms of design, development and marketing.

        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848394].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author sarafina
          Originally Posted by orvn View Post

          True, but a high result quantity like 55 million certainly suggests a high likelihood of competitiveness, albeit not a concrete way to measure it.
          Exactly. It was more for illustrative purposes.

          Lets just talk hypothetically speaking. I want an explanation on how rankings in a competitive environment are achieved with non relevant backlinks in a search engine that favours relevancy soooo much.
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848425].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author sarafina
        Originally Posted by Jacob Martus View Post

        First off, the number of search results returned for a query has nothing to do with it's competitiveness.

        Second, nobody is arguing that irrelevant backlinks won't get you ranked. They are arguing that relevant backlinks are more powerful than irrelevant. I'm not sure where I stand because much of my time is spent gaining irrelevant backlinks. And I rank well. However, I am not one to say that relevant links aren't more powerful because I don't know.
        Actually the argument isn't is x more powerful than y. The argument is - does backlink relevance matter. My point is it doesn't or very little. Dburk believe it does matter a lot. This is why I want him to explain if relevance is so important - how people can achieve good rankings with non relevant backlinks.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848411].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author dburk
      Originally Posted by sarafina View Post

      I use to believe in backlink relevance until I got #1 in 55 million results with backlinks that had no relevancy whatsoever. Thought it was an anomaly but then I did it again and have been achieving first page results - again with non relevant backlinks ever since.

      dburk, can you please clarify why this would happen?
      Hi sarafina,

      I'm sorry, I must not be making my point clear. My point it that you are using a different definition of relevancy than the search engines are using. What you describe as irrelevant backlinks may in fact be highly relevant backlinks as search engines define relevance.

      I have heard others claim they had ranked well with irrelevant backlinks, yet when they present the specific page they ranked it's always loaded with highly relevant backlinks. I suspect that your are defining relevance differently from the way search engines define relevance and you, like others making such claims, are confusing folks by making statements like "relevancy doesn't matter".

      There is a common misconception, particularly among folks that are new to SEO that search engines define relevancy based on website topics. This has never been true and likely never will be.

      It seems that many folks confuse search engines with a much simpler type of website known as a website directory. The primary difference between a website directory and a search engine website is that directories index websites while search engines index individual web documents. Search engines by their very definition do not recognize website topics only web page topics.

      The #1 rule of SEO is that search engines index and rank web pages, not websites. It is the most fundamental principle necessary to understand how search engines work.

      Once you understand this fundamental concept you will see why website topics are generally not relevant to SEO. Website topics have nothing to do with what makes a backlink relevant from the perspective of the search engines.

      I challenge you to show me just one set of search results on Google that ranks a single page highly without either relevant backlinks or little to no competition. It doesn't have to be your own site, any site for any competitive term will do. I have made this challenge before on this forum and no one was able to present a single example without relevant links.

      Keep in mind that since search engines rank individual pages the inbound links from internal linkage can be just as effective at defining relevancy as links from external websites. That is why you should pay careful attention to your internal link structure.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848921].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author sarafina
        Originally Posted by dburk View Post

        Hi sarafina,

        I'm sorry, I must not be making my point clear. My point it that you are using a different definition of relevancy than the search engines are using. What you describe as irrelevant backlinks may in fact be highly relevant backlinks as search engines define relevance.

        I have heard others claim they had ranked well with irrelevant backlinks, yet when they present the specific page they ranked it's always loaded with highly relevant backlinks. I suspect that your are defining relevance differently from the way search engines define relevance and you, like others making such claims, are confusing folks by making statements like "relevancy doesn't matter".

        There is a common misconception, particularly among folks that are new to SEO that search engines define relevancy based on website topics. This has never been true and likely never will be.

        It seems that many folks confuse search engines with a much simpler type of website known as a website directory. The primary difference between a website directory and a search engine website is that directories index websites while search engines index individual web documents. Search engines by their very definition do not recognize website topics only web page topics.

        The #1 rule of SEO is that search engines index and rank web pages, not websites. It is the most fundamental principle necessary to understand how search engines work.

        Once you understand this fundamental concept you will see why website topics are generally not relevant to SEO. Website topics have nothing to do with what makes a backlink relevant from the perspective of the search engines.

        I challenge you to show me just one set of search results on Google that ranks a single page highly without either relevant backlinks or little to no competition. It doesn't have to be your own site, any site for any competitive term will do. I have made this challenge before on this forum and no one was able to present a single example without relevant links.

        Keep in mind that since search engines rank individual pages the inbound links from internal linkage can be just as effective at defining relevancy as links from external websites. That is why you should pay careful attention to your internal link structure.
        I will take you up on this challenge!

        But first....I need you to define what google views as relevant (according to you) so there is no discussion after the fact on what is an irrelevant/relevant link.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2862066].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author dburk
          Originally Posted by c View Post

          I will take you up on this challenge!

          But first....I need you to define what google views as relevant (according to you) so there is no discussion after the fact on what is an irrelevant/relevant link.
          Hi sarafina,

          Okay, great!

          We can let Google tell us which links are relevant, or not, according to Google. We can use Google's AdWords Keyword Tool to determine whether the page, or the text in and near the anchortext, is considered relevant for the keyword query. This will allow us to be completely objective on which links are relevant.

          Deciding which queries are competitive or not, is what we should agree on before you accept the challenge. Please let me know how you think we should define that. I would accept any term with 2000+ monthly searches and at least 5 PPC ad positions on the SERP as a somewhat competitive term. If you find that acceptable then let me know.

          So for clarification, the challenge is to find a single competitive search result query that has ranked a page highly that has no relevant links pointed at it. Relevance to be determined by Google's AdWords keyword Tool. Are these reasonable criteria for the challenge?

          p.s. I would like to open this challenge to the entire Warrior Forum. Any takers?
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2863616].message }}
          • Profile picture of the author dburk
            What, no takers on my challenge?

            How about you sarafina? Are you going to take up my challenge?
            {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2870807].message }}
            • Profile picture of the author sarafina
              Originally Posted by dburk View Post

              What, no takers on my challenge?

              How about you sarafina? Are you going to take up my challenge?
              I already said I was taking you up on this challenge.

              2000 monthly. Global results? Broad or exact? I want their to be no confusion.
              {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2870842].message }}
              • Profile picture of the author dburk
                Originally Posted by sarafina View Post

                I already said I was taking you up on this challenge.

                2000 monthly. Global results? Broad or exact? I want their to be no confusion.
                Hi sarafina,

                I think Local is more appropriate since it reduces the potential false positives caused by localized search results that have no genuine competition. And of course Exact match data since it is the only data that applies to a specific keyword.

                Even if you find something that doesn't quite fit these parameters, but suggests my assertion is incorrect, I'd love to see that as well.

                I hope you find something interesting, Good Luck.

                p.s. If anyone else once to jump in, even anonymously, please do!
                {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2870977].message }}
              • Profile picture of the author 7SearchBrad
                Originally Posted by sarafina View Post

                I already said I was taking you up on this challenge.

                2000 monthly. Global results? Broad or exact? I want their to be no confusion.
                Hello Sarafina, I got your message. Please send me an email at bstanley at 7search dot com. Primarily we are Search Engine dealing with PPC advertising. We do not have banner ads but there are some opportunities for content.
                {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2885725].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
          Originally Posted by sarafina View Post

          I will take you up on this challenge!

          But first....I need you to define what google views as relevant (according to you) so there is no discussion after the fact on what is an irrelevant/relevant link.
          Thats always the issue with these arguments. When faced with a link that is quite irrelevant the other party tries to claim that the link is relevant in some way that is only meaningful to them. Anyone who claims to know what Google considers relevant is fibbing (I mean outside the obvious anchor text). None of us do in any precise way to know that the link is definitely considered relevant by Google. Google is not sharing this with ANYONE.

          Practically when you think about it the debate has little use. If you can get a link with real on page Pr it would be silly not to take it because its not relevant to your site. If you are a great believer in relevant backlinks (like Jacob I am agnostic) then filter it through another site before it gets to the site you want to rank. You can then give the PR juice all the relevance it could possibly want. If its a completely natural link then you don't have any say in whether it is relevant or not anyway.

          Bottom link is whether or not relevancy is a big deal you can make ANY link relevant so concentrating on the issue is somewhat of a waste of time.
          Signature

          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2871070].message }}
          • Profile picture of the author dburk
            Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

            Thats always the issue with these arguments. When faced with a link that is quite irrelevant the other party tries to claim that the link is relevant in some way that is only meaningful to them. Anyone who claims to know what Google considers relevant is fibbing (I mean outside the obvious anchor text). None of us do in any precise way to know that the link is definitely considered relevant by Google. Google is not sharing this with ANYONE.
            Hi Mike,

            I'm sorry, this is just flat out wrong!

            Google provides a free tool that anyone can use to determine which keywords they think is relevant for your page. They even sort the list in order of relevance for you.

            Here's the link to the tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

            Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

            Practically when you think about it the debate has little use. If you can get a link with real on page Pr it would be silly not to take it because its not relevant to your site. If you are a great believer in relevant backlinks (like Jacob I am agnostic) then filter it through another site before it gets to the site you want to rank. You can then give the PR juice all the relevance it could possibly want. If its a completely natural link then you don't have any say in whether it is relevant or not anyway.

            Bottom link is whether or not relevancy is a big deal you can make ANY link relevant so concentrating on the issue is somewhat of a waste of time.
            You seem to be missing the point of the discussion, which is about whether making your backlinks relevant or not is important for the purpose of SEO. While I agree that there are ways to make your backlinks relevant, and at the very least you must channel PR through a relevant link to see any benefit. This is crucial in my opinion and some folks are suggesting that it is not crucial.

            The point of the challenge is to emphasize just how crucial this is, or not.
            {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2871248].message }}
            • Profile picture of the author srbilles
              Originally Posted by dburk View Post

              Hi Mike,

              I'm sorry, this is just flat out wrong!

              Google provides a free tool that anyone can use to determine which keywords they think is relevant for your page. They even sort the list in order of relevance for you.

              Here's the link to the tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
              Hi dburk

              Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm trying to follow along with the point your trying to make.

              If I'm correct with your overall point of this discussion your saying that most people when they are building links to their sites are using anchor text links (obviously).
              And when they find the keywords that they want to rank for, they use those for their anchor text when backlinking. (so far so good, nothing new there)
              And if their ranking high for a keyword in google and you run their page through the keyword tool, the keyword that their ranking for will be shown as one of the keywords that google displayed back when their page was ran through the google keyword tool. Correct?

              If so then almost any link that is using the keywords that gets displayed back from using the keyword tool will be relevant links and it wouldn't matter which site the link was put on. IE. Profiles and the like.

              If that's is the point that your trying to make then I doubt anyone will be able to find a page that isn't ranking based on relevance.
              Signature

              Get cash producing email copy written for you for cheap. Check out my Warrior For Hire offer at: http://www.warriorforum.com/showthre...1#post10514231

              {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2872091].message }}
              • Profile picture of the author dburk
                Originally Posted by srbilles View Post

                Hi dburk

                Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm trying to follow along with the point your trying to make.

                If I'm correct with your overall point of this discussion your saying that most people when they are building links to their sites are using anchor text links (obviously).
                And when they find the keywords that they want to rank for, they use those for their anchor text when backlinking. (so far so good, nothing new there)
                And if their ranking high for a keyword in google and you run their page through the keyword tool, the keyword that their ranking for will be shown as one of the keywords that google displayed back when their page was ran through the google keyword tool. Correct?

                If so then almost any link that is using the keywords that gets displayed back from using the keyword tool will be relevant links and it wouldn't matter which site the link was put on. IE. Profiles and the like.

                If that's is the point that your trying to make then I doubt anyone will be able to find a page that isn't ranking based on relevance.
                Hi srbilles,

                Yes, you are correct if you meant to say "ranking based on relevance" [of backlinks].

                I find it a silly notion to hear someone assert that the relevance of backlinks is of no importance. It is of paramount importance to the search engines.

                I believe this invalid notion is often the result of a misunderstanding of what a search engine is and how it works. Search engines do not index and rank websites, they index and rank individual web pages. This is fundamental to understanding how search engines work and very useful for understanding many of the fundamental concepts of SEO.

                When you hear folks assert that backlink relevance is unimportant, it's typically because they have the mistaken notion that search engines rank websites instead of individual web documents. Since search engines index listings at the individual document level, website topics, or themes are generally not germane to SEO techniques.

                Backlink relevance is important while website topics play no direct role in SEO.
                {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2872479].message }}
                • Profile picture of the author srbilles
                  Originally Posted by dburk View Post

                  Hi srbilles,

                  Yes, you are correct if you meant to say "ranking based on relevance" [of backlinks].
                  Yes that was what I was referring to.

                  Would you agree that a large part of SEO confusion lays in the fact that most people aren't aware that there are in deed fundamental principles that should be adhered to and most just think SEO is all theory?

                  Also that the words "sites" and "pages" and "backlink relevance" and "site relevance" and "site themes" etc. are all being used interchangeably without much thought put behind what words are being used? (I'm guilty of this one).

                  Even if the persons understanding is correct, it's in how they are trying to explain their views that leads to all the trouble.

                  For example, people may know that SE's rank pages but when they go to explain it they refer to SE's ranking sites instead of pages, not really giving much thought behind what words their using. And it is this kind of misinformation that has lead to a lot of the confusion regarding SEO?

                  Especially when talked about in forums like this one.
                  Signature

                  Get cash producing email copy written for you for cheap. Check out my Warrior For Hire offer at: http://www.warriorforum.com/showthre...1#post10514231

                  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2872597].message }}
                  • Profile picture of the author daytonb2
                    Make sure you are aware tha the page rank on the actual page that you're getting the link from is what counts, not the page rank from the home page.

                    Often the argument is that if you have a high PR domain name, that PR juice will eventually flow down to the profile page on an obscure forum that you were able to stick a link on. There are a couple of problems with this.

                    1) The more clicks you are removed from the home page, the harder it will be for your page to every end up getting any link juice at all or even get indexed for that matter. If it takes you more than 4 clicks to get to your profile page from the home page, don't count on a lot of PR.

                    2) As these methods become more and more popular, hundreds, if not thousands of other link builders will go and set up a profile page just like you did. This means that any link juice that does trickle down now has to be split between all these new profile pages. Your page will end up getting no more than a little drop of this big jug of PR link juice.

                    3) Google is pretty good at noticing these spammy links and in the best case scenario will simple ignore those links in their search algorithm. Worst scenario would be that they may punish you for them and not rank you anywhere in the first 100 results.

                    My advice is never to build a link just for the PR. Instead focus on traffic first. Build links that you now will bring you at least a small stream of traffic and aim for pages that relate to your site when you can.
                    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2872684].message }}
                    • Profile picture of the author Jacob Martus
                      Originally Posted by daytonb2 View Post

                      Worst scenario would be that they may punish you for them and not rank you anywhere in the first 100 results.
                      If that were the case, people would be building links to "punish" their competition.
                      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2872789].message }}
                  • Profile picture of the author dburk
                    Originally Posted by srbilles View Post

                    Yes that was what I was referring to.

                    Would you agree that a large part of SEO confusion lays in the fact that most people aren't aware that there are in deed fundamental principles that should be adhered to and most just think SEO is all theory?

                    Also that the words "sites" and "pages" and "backlink relevance" and "site relevance" and "site themes" etc. are all being used interchangeably without much thought put behind what words are being used? (I'm guilty of this one).

                    Even if the persons understanding is correct, it's in how they are trying to explain their views that leads to all the trouble.

                    For example, people may know that SE's rank pages but when they go to explain it they refer to SE's ranking sites instead of pages, not really giving much thought behind what words their using. And it is this kind of misinformation that has lead to a lot of the confusion regarding SEO?

                    Especially when talked about in forums like this one.
                    Hi srbilles,

                    Well said, I agree with 100% of what you said. Words mean things, and when we choose the wrong words it often leads to misunderstanding. We all suffer from miscommunication caused by the misuse of words. How ironic that a profession, based on the precise use of words, produces so much misinformation from the misuse of words.
                    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2872857].message }}
              • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
                Originally Posted by srbilles View Post


                If I'm correct with your overall point of this discussion your saying that most people when they are building links to their sites are using anchor text links (obviously).
                And when they find the keywords that they want to rank for, they use those for their anchor text when backlinking. (so far so good, nothing new there)
                Exactly the point Srbilles. Nothing new and nothing misunderstood by anybody. the standard conversation when people bring this up is NOT in regard to their anchor text.

                there have been several threads on this before and thats the only issue. pages have been shown to rank just on forum profiles where the forums had nothing to do with the niche. Dburk answer to this has been to try and find ways for the forums to have relevancy in such a elastic manner that it becomes pointless to talk about relevancy anyway since anything on earth can be connected to anything else on earth.

                Tests have been done on this. terry had one last year and concluded that relevancy out of the anchor text has had no effect. I have no qualms about relevancy mattering but in thread after thread there has been zero evidence presented just confusing serps with the issue of backlinking.
                Signature

                {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2886103].message }}
            • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
              Originally Posted by dburk View Post

              Hi Mike,

              I'm sorry, this is just flat out wrong!

              Google provides a free tool that anyone can use to determine which keywords they think is relevant for your page. They even sort the list in order of relevance for you.

              Here's the link to the tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
              Oh give me a break Dburk. Cut the sophmorics. I teach how to use the keyword tool . You know I know the tool. We've had many discussions on your concept of relevance and you have NEVER proven your point. No one denies that Google does not rank on relevance of a page in the serps. The issue is beyond anchor text none of us knows exactly how Google evaluates a page a link comes from in regard to relevance of the referrer. Despite your theatrics of referring me to the Google keyword tool you are flat out lying if you state you know how exactly a page is evaluated FOR LINK RELEVANCY beyond anchor text. Read what I wrote.


              You seem to be missing the point of the discussion, which is about whether making your backlinks relevant or not is important for the purpose of SEO.
              Its you that is missing the point. Very few people argue with the effect of anchor text. The argument usually comes in when people state that the RELEVANCY OF THE PAGE OUTSIDE OF THE ANCHOR TEXT greatly matters. That was my point. I fully conceded relevancy in the anchor text POINT BLANK in the post you said was flat out wrong.

              So if you want to prove that it is flat out wrong - go ahead show the evidence that relevance outside of the anchor text is a key ranking factor with link building and do us the favor of not wasting our time pointing to a keyword tool when what I was talking about is LINK BUILDING and on page relevance outside of anchor text..

              and as for the nonsense about people believing that Google ranks domains rather than pages thats just you misunderstanding the point. No one ever claims that the serps are ordered by domain authority its that domain authority CAN play a part as a SINGLE factor in the algorithm similar to link age (which is indicated of interest by Google's filed patents). So you are just confused on the term ranking. Ranking in the serps is based mainly on relevancy it does not mean that when all things are equal in relevancy other factors cannot play a part. You stubbornly resists what is a well known fact in SEO circles. Thats all.
              Signature

              {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2885958].message }}
              • Profile picture of the author dburk
                Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

                Oh give me a break Dburk. Cut the sophmorics. I teach how to use the keyword tool . You know I know the tool. We've had many discussions on your concept of relevance and you have NEVER proven your point. No one denies that Google does not rank on relevance of a page in the serps. The issue is beyond anchor text none of us knows exactly how Google evaluates a page a link comes from in regard to relevance of the referrer. Despite your theatrics of referring me to the Google keyword tool you are flat out lying if you state you know how exactly a page is evaluated FOR LINK RELEVANCY beyond anchor text. Read what I wrote.


                Its you that is missing the point. Very few people argue with the effect of anchor text. The argument usually comes in when people state that the RELEVANCY OF THE PAGE OUTSIDE OF THE ANCHOR TEXT greatly matters. That was my point. I fully conceded relevancy in the anchor text POINT BLANK in the post you said was flat out wrong.

                So if you want to prove that it is flat out wrong - go ahead show the evidence that relevance outside of the anchor text is a key ranking factor with link building and do us the favor of not wasting our time pointing to a keyword tool when what I was talking about is LINK BUILDING and on page relevance outside of anchor text..

                and as for the nonsense about people believing that Google ranks domains rather than pages thats just you misunderstanding the point. No one ever claims that the serps are ordered by domain authority its that domain authority CAN play a part as a SINGLE factor in the algorithm similar to link age (which is indicated of interest by Google's filed patents). So you are just confused on the term ranking. Ranking in the serps is based mainly on relevancy it does not mean that when all things are equal in relevancy other factors cannot play a part. You stubbornly resists what is a well known fact in SEO circles. Thats all.

                Hi Mike,

                I'm sorry, evidently I did not make my point clear. I meant to point out that the tool provides us a means to see which keywords Google finds relevant, which it does, and that we can get a sense of how relevant each keyword is judged to be by the fact that the tool sorts the keywords in order of relevance. I have found this to be a very useful resource while experimenting with on-page elements of SEO.

                One thing you will discover when experimenting with this tool is just how much a page's relevancy is effected by anchor text elements. It is no possible to separate the relevancy of the page from the relevancy of the anchor text as one is an integral part of the other. If you change the anchor text you change the overall page relevance. Another very interesting thing you will find is that changing the words near the anchor text can make a substantial difference in the relative relevancy of that anchor text.

                As far as backlink relevance goes, you are right no one knows the specific details of Google's proprietary algorithms, however there is much that Google has disclosed and much that we can garner from experimenting. I was simply pointing out some things I have found useful through my own research.

                Feel free to critique my conclusions, however I would appreciate it if you could offer some of you reasoning behind you disagreements. Please tell us why you think I am wrong and how you came to that conclusion.

                As far as what you call "a well known fact in SEO circles", I have searched high and low for any evidence that supports "domain authority" and have never seen anything that I have tested, nor anything published by anyone else that suggests authority at the domain level, rather than the page level, is distinguishable in any measurable way. Therefore, if it does in fact exist as a signal within Google's algorithm it is so insignificant that it doesn't merit any real attention.

                This is totally in line with Rand Fishkins research. Rand has been the most vocal proponent of so called "domain authority" and seems to have backed off completely on the importance of it in favor of page authority. I believe that Rand did not go far enough. When you look at the data he published it seems completely reasonable to assume that there is absolutely no evidence that supports its' actual use by search engines. What is measurable and significant is what Rand calls "Page Authority". Which makes sense when you realize that the data structure used by Google's search engine (as revealed in the founder's research papers) does not store any site level data.

                The whole notion of domain authority seems to have arisen from the observation that established websites seem to get new pages ranking faster and often higher than new pages on a less authoritative website. When you take a closer look you will find that sometimes a new page on an "authoritative" website does not act as expected based on this theory. It appears that if you do not link to the page from other pages on the website then whatever "authority" factors that exist are not passed to the new page.

                Simply being placed an a so called "authority" domain appears to have no measurable benefit outside of links that point to the newly created page. What pushed me to conclude that "domain authority" is just a myth is that through my own experiments I observed something interesting. I can reliable create a new page on an established website and do the usual internal linking and get the expected authority boost. When I do the exact same thing on that same website, except I point those links to a page that I place on a newly registered domain I seem to get that exact same level of authority boost. My conclusion is that the authority is passed from the inbound links and that I could find nothing measurably difference based solely on the domain.

                For anyone reading this thread, feel free to duplicate my experiments and let us know what you find. Mike, you can take what I tell you as worthless if you wish, but I challenge you to run the same test and report back your findings.
                {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2886572].message }}
                • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
                  Originally Posted by dburk View Post

                  Hi Mike,

                  I'm sorry, evidently I did not make my point clear. I meant to point out that the tool provides us a means to see which keywords Google finds relevant, which it does, and that we can get a sense of how relevant each keyword is judged to be by the fact that the tool sorts the keywords in order of relevance. I have found this to be a very useful resource while experimenting with on-page elements of SEO.
                  Sorry Dburk you are barking up the wrong tree. the google adwords tool gives a very wide response to terms in order to sell the adwords medium. If you spend any time with the tool then you know many times it gives you results that has VERY little relevance. Regardless you cannot generalize from it to the algorithm that you have alleged is used to analyze a page. Does it give a sense of related words to google? yes but its far from enough to determine whether Google considers an entire pages worth of text to be relevant for a particular niche. Do you have evidence that adwords keywoord tools is synonymous with LSI?


                  It is no possible to separate the relevancy of the page from the relevancy of the anchor text as one is an integral part of the other. If you change the anchor text you change the overall page relevance.
                  Exactly so the argument about relvance beyond anchor text is meaningless. If you drop a link on a page with anchor text then it becomes relevant and the whole debate is nonsense. Didn't I say this? that outside of anchor text it has yet to be proven that relevancy has any bearing. Are you pretending that your position has not been that relevancy even outside of anchor text has bearing?


                  Another very interesting thing you will find is that changing the words near the anchor text can make a substantial difference in the relative relevancy of that anchor text.
                  There you go. one second it can't be isolated from anchor thext and there you just did with "near the anchor text" . You do need to make up your mind. My position on this has been clear either way. Put up the evidence. In every debate where this has come up I have asked you to and you haven't. yet in thread after thread in these forums people have put up their evidence that relevancy seems to have little affect outside of anchor text.

                  It appears that if you do not link to the page from other pages on the website then whatever "authority" factors that exist are not passed to the new page.
                  Captain obvious. If it has no link then it won't even crawl the page as part of the run through of that website's home page (usually) . Who told you that domain authority works strictly on a domain registrar level not on the basis of a crawl?

                  I can reliable create a new page on an established website and do the usual internal linking and get the expected authority boost. When I do the exact same thing on that same website, except I point those links to a page that I place on a newly registered domain I seem to get that exact same level of authority boost. My conclusion is that the authority is passed from the inbound links and that I could find nothing measurably difference based solely on the domain.
                  or your sites don't have any meaningful authority. Despite saying that you got an "authority boost" you haven't indicated how you measured it, how the test was done or how the results were read. I think its obvious you used the serps as your determiner and then we would have to know the niche, keywords etc to see if that test isolates out other factors. But then if you don't think it exists then we know it wasn't measured. Do you see the problem there? Meanwhile I have seen sites with poor navigation conistently rank new pages higher. I think we all have. Of course it doesn't show in all niches since its not the major factor.

                  Sorry but the on some level authority domains are a fact. the Algorithm must start a crawl with a set of trusted sites. The only questions is how far does Google take it.


                  Mike, you can take what I tell you as worthless if you wish, but I challenge you to run the same test and report back your findings.
                  I and others already have. People report their findings routinely on this forum. Its the evidence to back it up that makes the disucssion meaningful.
                  Signature

                  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2903487].message }}
                  • Profile picture of the author gjedda63
                    According to Brad Callen yahoo site explorer shows backlinks numbered for importance. If thats correct many of the sites I check have many important irrelevant backlinks. Google might classify backlinks in another way, but it can be a indicator for all SE`s.
                    I have several backlinks from my sites ranked in YSE high above relevant links, so links from any site is valuable at least if link is placed on a page with PR. This is a "pattern" that I have discovered when checking backlinks.
                    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2903600].message }}
                  • Profile picture of the author dburk
                    Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

                    Sorry Dburk you are barking up the wrong tree. the google adwords tool gives a very wide response to terms in order to sell the adwords medium. If you spend any time with the tool then you know many times it gives you results that has VERY little relevance. Regardless you cannot generalize from it to the algorithm that you have alleged is used to analyze a page. Does it give a sense of related words to google? yes but its far from enough to determine whether Google considers an entire pages worth of text to be relevant for a particular niche. Do you have evidence that adwords keywoord tools is synonymous with LSI?
                    Not if you know how to use this tool. Based on your reply I can only assume that you haven't learned how to use this tool beyond getting "broad" match keywords.

                    It is my understanding that Google uses LSI for the AdSense program, not search.



                    Exactly so the argument about relvance beyond anchor text is meaningless. If you drop a link on a page with anchor text then it becomes relevant and the whole debate is nonsense.
                    Thanks for ceding this point.


                    Didn't I say this? that outside of anchor text it has yet to be proven that relevancy has any bearing. Are you pretending that your position has not been that relevancy even outside of anchor text has bearing?
                    No, I'm not saying that. I contend that on-page anchortext plays a major role in determining the page's relevancy score and I also assert that words in and near the anchortext are the primary influence of backlink relevancy. My experiments have should that words near the anchor can have a very substantial influence, both positively and negatively depending on how you use them. This is measurable not only in SERP but easily demonstrated using the Google keyword tool as well.




                    There you go. one second it can't be isolated from anchor thext and there you just did with "near the anchor text" . You do need to make up your mind.
                    Yes, that is what I said. I don't know why you are having trouble grasping the concept that BOTH play a role, in my opinion. I never asserted that one precludes the influence of the other, so please don't try to suggest that I have.

                    My position on this has been clear either way. Put up the evidence. In every debate where this has come up I have asked you to and you haven't. yet in thread after thread in these forums people have put up their evidence that relevancy seems to have little affect outside of anchor text.
                    Sorry Mike, clearly you are distorting the facts here. You just seem intent on trying to discredit everything I say by twisting my words and pooh poohing every bit of evidence I point out. For example discrediting Google's own keyword tool. If Google is not a credible source then I think we can safely assume you will accept absolutely nothing as credible.

                    Yet you only counter with non-existent or non-credible evidence like "everybody knows". Who are these everybody's that you imagine know all?



                    Captain obvious. If it has no link then it won't even crawl the page as part of the run through of that website's home page (usually) . Who told you that domain authority works strictly on a domain registrar level not on the basis of a crawl?
                    This just wouldn't be the classic "Mike Anthony Troll Post" we've all come to know without the straw man argument you are so infamous for.

                    or your sites don't have any meaningful authority. Despite saying that you got an "authority boost" you haven't indicated how you measured it, how the test was done or how the results were read. I think its obvious you used the serps as your determiner and then we would have to know the niche, keywords etc to see if that test isolates out other factors. But then if you don't think it exists then we know it wasn't measured. Do you see the problem there? Meanwhile I have seen sites with poor navigation conistently rank new pages higher. I think we all have. Of course it doesn't show in all niches since its not the major factor.
                    You want test results? Do you own tests. You have already demonstrated that you won't accept anything I say as credible, heck you don't even accept anything Google does as credible. I'm not going to play you game of gotcha. If you have a counter opinion, present you case along with any credible evidence. Readers of this forum can decide for themselves which is more useful and perform any tests the deem necessary to convince themselves.

                    I and others already have. People report their findings routinely on this forum. Its the evidence to back it up that makes the disucssion meaningful.
                    You are talking about the evidence that no one has managed to find? Why don't you cite this evidence. You can't because it doesn't exist. That has been my primary contention all along, there is absolutely no evidence that suggests irrelevant links have ever directly influenced SERP.

                    Yet you keep asking for the evidence that I maintain doesn't exist. I have challenged everyone reading this thread, and in other threads to show me a single example of a page ranking for a competitive term without using any relevant links. Surely if they actually existed someone would have chanced upon one by now. There are so many authority pages out there with so many backlinks, yet somehow none of those pages ever seem to rank for any competitve keyword without relevant backlinks. How do you explain that?
                    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2903894].message }}
                    • Profile picture of the author Tom Goodwin
                      Originally Posted by dburk View Post

                      . I have challenged everyone reading this thread, and in other threads to show me a single example of a page ranking for a competitive term without using any relevant links. Surely if they actually existed someone would have chanced upon one by now. There are so many authority pages out there with so many backlinks, yet somehow none of those pages ever seem to rank for any competitve keyword without relevant backlinks. How do you explain that?
                      The problem is that you have defined relevancy in a way that most of us have never ever ever seen described before, and IMHO, is set up in a way as to prove your overarching point that "relevancy" is needed by just tweaking the definition. I really don't care how you define it, but I can assure that the majority of the folks on here are going to read your blanket statement, apply what 99% of the SEO world think of in terms of relevancy, and come to a different actual conclusion as you (as they don't consider the actual backlink's anchor text as part of the relevancy determination). It seems to me you need to be an asterisk next to the word "relevant" or "relevance" everytime you use it so others will know what the heck you are talking about

                      Basically, you are saying that a link from a site on hamsters, with the anchor text "my big blue hippo", won't help my page rank for "SEO"? Holy crap, what a revelation.
                      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2903993].message }}
                      • Profile picture of the author dburk
                        Originally Posted by Tom Goodwin View Post

                        The problem is that you have defined relevancy in a way that most of us have never ever ever seen described before, and IMHO, is set up in a way as to prove your overarching point that "relevancy" is needed by just tweaking the definition. I really don't care how you define it, but I can assure that the majority of the folks on here are going to read your blanket statement, apply what 99% of the SEO world think of in terms of relevancy, and come to a different actual conclusion as you (as they don't consider the actual backlink's anchor text as part of the relevancy determination). It seems to me you need to be an asterisk next to the word "relevant" or "relevance" everytime you use it so others will know what the heck you are talking about
                        Hi Tom,

                        When I speak of "relevance" on this SEO forum I speak of relevancy as defined by search engines. I will cede to your point that many folks do not understand relevancy as Search Engines do. And in a way that is one of the main points that I'm trying to make.

                        This misguided notion that so many folks have about relevancy as it relates to SEO stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of a search engine. The most basic thing an SEO professional needs to understand about how search engines work is that search engines index and rank individual pages, not websites. The misguided and incorrect notion that search engines index websites and not individual pages is at the root of this basic misunderstanding, in my opinion.

                        Search engines never look at website level factors for relevancy signals, they are much more granular in their approach to determining relevancy. Website topics have as little to do with SEO as logo colors. It is something that may effect user behavior, but not relevant to SEO.

                        Basically, you are saying that a link from a site on hamsters, with the anchor text "my big blue hippo", won't help my page rank for "SEO"? Holy crap, what a revelation.
                        If you are trying to say relevance matters then I will agree with you. Yet we constantly hear folks on this forum suggest that relevance makes no difference. I assert that it makes all the difference and I also assert that search engines are not concerned with website level signals for determining relevancy. It's all about the individual page.

                        Since search engines do no look at site level factors there is no way that a website topic can play a role in determining whether a backlink is relevant. When someone claims that you don't need backlinks from relevant websites, I agree, website level factors are not used by search engines for determining relevance. But when someone makes that blanket statement that relevant backlinks are not important I must disagree. I also challenge you to show me a single site that has every ranked for a competitive term without relevant links. Relevant links are not just important they are absolutely essential when it comes to ranking for a competitive term in Google.

                        I can understand why the lay person is confused by the website verses individual page concept, but you Tom are a smart fellow, I don't get why you don't see this. Hasn't your own experiments demonstrated time and time again that website topics never play any kind of role in SEO?
                        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2904369].message }}
                        • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
                          Originally Posted by dburk View Post

                          I can understand why the lay person is confused by the website verses individual page concept, but you Tom are a smart fellow, I don't get why you don't see this. Hasn't your own experiments demonstrated time and time again that website topics never play any kind of role in SEO?

                          I am sure Tom can answer for himself but I haven't seen anyone talk about website "topics". The issue is relevance on the page outside of the anchor text. you can try to back peddle all you want but you just claimed that other content on a page besides ( "near") the anchor text is analyzed for relevancy. Proof needs to be furnished before you tell people its a waste of time to leave non relevant links. No one is talking about leaving links without anchor text and NO ONE ever has. as Tom stated - absolutely no revelation there.

                          You comment about analyzing content NEAR the anchor text confirms I was right all along that you are arguing for relevancy outside of the anchor text but you can continue to pretend that that is not the issue I suppose. free country
                          Signature

                          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2904928].message }}
                        • Profile picture of the author Tom Goodwin
                          Originally Posted by dburk View Post


                          I can understand why the lay person is confused by the website verses individual page concept, but you Tom are a smart fellow, I don't get why you don't see this. Hasn't your own experiments demonstrated time and time again that website topics never play any kind of role in SEO?

                          I absolutely agree with the conclusion in terms of website topics.

                          What I don't agree with is what I see as a misuse of the term "relevancy" and "relevant" by you. It is like you are arguing that 2+3 = 6, and when we say no it isn't, you are saying "but in my world, 3 really equals 4, so therefore the sum does equal 6."

                          Relevance, as defined by everyone else except you, does not matter. But, I will concede that by morphing relevance to include the given anchor text in the link you are getting, does matter. Again, every time you use the term relevancy around here you need to include an asterisk or else 99% of the people here will not understand your conclusions.
                          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2904961].message }}
                          • Profile picture of the author dburk
                            Originally Posted by Tom Goodwin View Post

                            I absolutely agree with the conclusion in terms of website topics.

                            What I don't agree with is what I see as a misuse of the term "relevancy" and "relevant" by you. It is like you are arguing that 2+3 = 6, and when we say no it isn't, you are saying "but in my world, 3 really equals 4, so therefore the sum does equal 6."

                            Relevance, as defined by everyone else except you, does not matter. But, I will concede that by morphing relevance to include the given anchor text in the link you are getting, does matter. Again, every time you use the term relevancy around here you need to include an asterisk or else 99% of the people here will not understand your conclusions.
                            Hi Tom,

                            We can all decide to define relevancy any way we want, however is really useful to define it any other way than Google defines it?

                            What I'm saying is that it is not useful to define it differently than Google and I, like many professionals in the field, have taken the time to learn how Google defines relevancy and anyone who is serious about this business would do well to understand how Google defines relevancy.
                            {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2905504].message }}
                    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
                      Dburk before I answer your points I want to make it clear why i oppose what you are saying and will continue to do so. You are actually telling people that links that are not relevant are probably a waste of time. This is just destructive and will do more harm than good to any newbie. It wil cause them to put less links to their site even when those links are high PR. Its complete nonsense amd HAS to be opposed. Whenever you are going to make statements that make people skip links you should be prepared to put up evidence and back your case which you have NEVER done. Now....



                      Originally Posted by dburk View Post

                      Not if you know how to use this tool. Based on your reply I can only assume that you haven't learned how to use this tool beyond getting "broad" match keywords.
                      ROFL. my students would roll on the floor with that one. Hear that guys I only know about broad match searches? Please disregard what I say in my keyword research videos. LOL


                      Thanks for ceding this point.
                      Ceded no point. You just caught up with what every one else already knew was never an issue.

                      I also assert that words in and near the anchortext are the primary influence of backlink relevancy. My experiments have should that words near the anchor can have a very substantial influence, both positively and negatively depending on how you use them. This is measurable not only in SERP but easily demonstrated using the Google keyword tool as well.
                      So for the fourth or fifth time in this thread (and countless times in other threads you have argued this) POST the METHOD, The RAW DATA and the results of this experiment. A few months ago you tried to and it was instantly discovered as bogus.


                      For example discrediting Google's own keyword tool. If Google is not a credible source then I think we can safely assume you will accept absolutely nothing as credible.
                      I am discrediting your use of the tool. Thats not synonymous with the tool. Nice try but I think people can see the clear difference.


                      You are talking about the evidence that no one has managed to find? Why don't you cite this evidence. You can't because it doesn't exist.
                      Really ? Lets keep it local then.


                      http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...eriment-3.html


                      Read it. Terry indicated in results and data that he actally posted (which you are refusing to do) that relevancy had no bearing in his tests. Furthermore others have tested a plethora of forum profile links and seen ranking improved. this has proven so effective that we have even had arguments about the practicing of blasting thousands at a time. Most of those profiles share such common content that people are able to "scrape" to find them. There is little content on the page relative to the standard software platform content regardless of niche.
                      .

                      . There are so many authority pages out there with so many backlinks, yet somehow none of those pages ever seem to rank for any competitve keyword without relevant backlinks. How do you explain that?
                      You just explained it yourself with "so many" backlinks. Any site that has ranked has attracted BOTH Relevant and non relevant backlinks. Your absolutely BOGUS nonsense is that because webmasters ALWAYS go after ANY link they can get and end up with some relevant links it proves your point that only relevant links matter or matter more. Meanwhile you just plain ignore the hundreds of people who even on this forum have said that profile backlinks has helped them and the very nature of profile pages is that they tend to be more generic than content laden pages.

                      I don't use any sex or adult related profile links but come across Cialis and viagra backlinks all the time on gaming sites, sports sites and music. Now can you try and fudge and say that video games is related and relevant to Viagra. Sure but only because you want to not because theres any evidence that they are.
                      Signature

                      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2904880].message }}
                      • Profile picture of the author dburk
                        Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

                        Dburk before I answer your points I want to make it clear why i oppose what you are saying and will continue to do so. You are actually telling people that links that are not relevant are probably a waste of time. This is just destructive and will do more harm than good to any newbie. It wil cause them to put less links to their site even when those links are high PR. Its complete nonsense amd HAS to be opposed. Whenever you are going to make statements that make people skip links you should be prepared to put up evidence and back your case which you have NEVER done. Now....
                        Please don't try to rewrite and mis-characterize what I have said. I have said that links that are not relevant do nothing directly to help you rank. This is true and I stick to my assertion. But I don't stop there. I also state that website topics have absolutely nothing to do with SEO and is not used by search engines. Relevance is based on the individual page and the direct links to and from that individual page.

                        An irrelevant backlink will do absolutely nothing to directly help you rank for a specific keyword. You must first pass the link juice through a relevant link to see any benefit. This is why you, and nobody else, has ever been able to find a single example of a page ranked highly against competition without relevant links pointing at the page.

                        I simply point to this fact as ample evidence of my assertion.


                        ROFL. my students would roll on the floor with that one. Hear that guys I only know about broad match searches? Please disregard what I say in my keyword research videos. LOL
                        For their sake I hope you offer refunds.




                        Ceded no point. You just caught up with what every one else already knew was never an issue.
                        :confused: Are you taking back what you said?



                        So for the fourth or fifth time in this thread (and countless times in other threads you have argued this) POST the METHOD, The RAW DATA and the results of this experiment. A few months ago you tried to and it was instantly discovered as bogus.
                        Apparently everything you disagree with is "bogus". I guess you are the final arbitrator on bogus. I'll just consider your the resident expert on what is bogus.




                        I am discrediting your use of the tool. Thats not synonymous with the tool. Nice try but I think people can see the clear difference.
                        I'm not having any problem with the tool. Just pointing out that you seem oblivious to some of it's many uses.



                        Really ? Lets keep it local then.


                        http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...eriment-3.html


                        Read it. Terry indicated in results and data that he actally posted (which you are refusing to do) that relevancy had no bearing in his tests. Furthermore others have tested a plethora of forum profile links and seen ranking improved. this has proven so effective that we have even had arguments about the practicing of blasting thousands at a time. Most of those profiles share such common content that people are able to "scrape" to find them. There is little content on the page relative to the standard software platform content regardless of niche.
                        .
                        It's a nice case study that totally misses the mark on the conclusion. The only thing this study proved is that search engines pay absolutely no attention to website topics. In fact they don't use any relevancy signals at the site level. It's always been page level.

                        The problem here is that folks are trying to define relevancy differently than search engines define it. That is at the heart of the confusion many people seem to have trouble grasping. Why can't you stop listening to yourself talk for once and listen to Google. Try to understand exactly how they are building their index, how they apply the PageRank algorithm and the signals they look for to determine relevancy. Much has been published by their founders and engineers that reveal a great deal about how they index and rank pages.

                        Would it kill you to learn so well established facts about how they actually work!

                        You just explained it yourself with "so many" backlinks. Any site that has ranked has attracted BOTH Relevant and non relevant backlinks. Your absolutely BOGUS nonsense is that because webmasters ALWAYS go after ANY link they can get and end up with some relevant links it proves your point that only relevant links matter or matter more. Meanwhile you just plain ignore the hundreds of people who even on this forum have said that profile backlinks has helped them and the very nature of profile pages is that they tend to be more generic than content laden pages.
                        Now here is the crux of the matter. Many folks post on this forum that they are not seeing results from profile links. Could it be that they are failing to add the prerequisite relevant content? Perhaps they have been listening to some ninny on this forum that keeps saying relevance doesn't matter.

                        I don't use any sex or adult related profile links but come across Cialis and viagra backlinks all the time on gaming sites, sports sites and music. Now can you try and fudge and say that video games is related and relevant to Viagra. Sure but only because you want to not because theres any evidence that they are.
                        Ahh... There it is... the classic staw man argument. Your Troll techniques are so predictable. Let's stay on topic, shall we?
                        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2905647].message }}
                  • Profile picture of the author thomarv29
                    Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

                    Sorry Dburk you are barking up the wrong tree. the google adwords tool gives a very wide response to terms in order to sell the adwords medium. If you spend any time with the tool then you know many times it gives you results that has VERY little relevance. Regardless you cannot generalize from it to the algorithm that you have alleged is used to analyze a page. Does it give a sense of related words to google? yes but its far from enough to determine whether Google considers an entire pages worth of text to be relevant for a particular niche. Do you have evidence that adwords keywoord tools is synonymous with LSI?




                    Exactly so the argument about relvance beyond anchor text is meaningless. If you drop a link on a page with anchor text then it becomes relevant and the whole debate is nonsense. Didn't I say this? that outside of anchor text it has yet to be proven that relevancy has any bearing. Are you pretending that your position has not been that relevancy even outside of anchor text has bearing?




                    There you go. one second it can't be isolated from anchor thext and there you just did with "near the anchor text" . You do need to make up your mind. My position on this has been clear either way. Put up the evidence. In every debate where this has come up I have asked you to and you haven't. yet in thread after thread in these forums people have put up their evidence that relevancy seems to have little affect outside of anchor text.



                    Captain obvious. If it has no link then it won't even crawl the page as part of the run through of that website's home page (usually) . Who told you that domain authority works strictly on a domain registrar level not on the basis of a crawl?



                    or your sites don't have any meaningful authority. Despite saying that you got an "authority boost" you haven't indicated how you measured it, how the test was done or how the results were read. I think its obvious you used the serps as your determiner and then we would have to know the niche, keywords etc to see if that test isolates out other factors. But then if you don't think it exists then we know it wasn't measured. Do you see the problem there? Meanwhile I have seen sites with poor navigation conistently rank new pages higher. I think we all have. Of course it doesn't show in all niches since its not the major factor.

                    Sorry but the on some level authority domains are a fact. the Algorithm must start a crawl with a set of trusted sites. The only questions is how far does Google take it.




                    I and others already have. People report their findings routinely on this forum. Its the evidence to back it up that makes the disucssion meaningful.
                    Got to agree with mark anthony on this one
                    Signature

                    Im president of White Label Links Inc. A leading SEO and Internet marketing company based out of Jacksonville FL

                    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2930098].message }}
                    • Profile picture of the author dburk
                      Originally Posted by thomarv29 View Post

                      Got to agree with mark anthony on this one
                      About which part?

                      I also agree with some of what he says, just not his troll like approach to discussing the topic.
                      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2930887].message }}
                      • Profile picture of the author thomarv29
                        Originally Posted by dburk View Post

                        About which part?

                        I also agree with some of what he says, just not his troll like approach to discussing the topic.
                        Regarding Relevancy in terms of Anchor Text in the links and matching anchor text on the linked to page. Its really the only part that matters in regards to relevancy. Having LSI words is also semi important but at the end of the day it too really plays an insignificant role in showing up in the SERPS. At best it will help you with Page Rank but if you are concerned with Page Rank you are missing the boat.
                        Signature

                        Im president of White Label Links Inc. A leading SEO and Internet marketing company based out of Jacksonville FL

                        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2931046].message }}
                        • Profile picture of the author dburk
                          Originally Posted by thomarv29 View Post

                          Regarding Relevancy in terms of Anchor Text in the links and matching anchor text on the linked to page. Its really the only part that matters in regards to relevancy. Having LSI words is also semi important but at the end of the day it too really plays an insignificant role in showing up in the SERPS. At best it will help you with Page Rank but if you are concerned with Page Rank you are missing the boat.
                          Hi thomarv29,

                          I mostly agree with you. So are you saying that authority and topic relevance doesn't apply at the website level, only the page level? If so i agree.

                          I agree that anchor text is the most important element effecting relevancy of a backlink. You seem to be in agreement with me on that point. I also believe that words near your anchortext have a significant influence on your relevancy and you seem to disagree with me on that. While that has not been the primary point of contention in our discussion in this thread, I find it interesting that you seem so sure in your position. Can you share a little on how you came to believe that?
                          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2931998].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author kingofseo
    Banned
    [DELETED]
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848296].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author orvn
      Originally Posted by kingofseo View Post

      Here is some backlink info to help you out


      What are backlinks?...............
      etc.etc.etc.etc.
      Holy crap lol, did you just copy/paste that?
      Signature
      Orun Bhuiyan[@orvn] [linkedin] See what I've been doing lately by visiting my marketing agency's site. SEOcial specializes in content marketing and integrated optimization. We create conversions for businesses by gracefully connecting the realms of design, development and marketing.

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848327].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author lotre
    Hi guys

    IM only a novice to this but i have only used links that are mostly irrelevent and i have gained the same page rank as my competitors in 9 months, which took them 10 years to get.

    How i see it is: if i have a blog and i put some really juicy gossip on it- say pictures of someone famous doing something they shouldnt or something similar and do this often -then people will link to my blog, doesnt matter where they link from as long as they are all backlinks.

    Irrelevancy has not seemed to matter so far IMO. Of ocurser if you can get relevant links all the better, but the more niche you are the less likely you are to get loads of high pr sites linking to you.
    Signature

    I think...therefore I am

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848480].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author seoiwc
    hi,

    thanks many to share the back link importance..meet again.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848619].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author jhonsean
    Backlinks is always a backlinks no matter if it is no follow or do follow but the point is how much quality of your content and how you optimize your site as well.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2848953].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author marketgoal
      Originally Posted by jhonsean View Post

      Backlinks is always a backlinks no matter if it is no follow or do follow but the point is how much quality of your content and how you optimize your site as well.
      Yeah... good point.
      Signature
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2852428].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author keliix06
    While relevance may matter, what really matters is if it's worth your time to find that relevance.

    How many relevant links do you think any site currently ranking for "buy viagra" has? I'll give you a hint, the answer is 0

    You'll never rank for a keyword like that going only for relevant links. What that says is that link volume can trump relevance, in every case.
    Signature
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2849890].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author dburk
      Originally Posted by keliix06 View Post

      While relevance may matter, what really matters is if it's worth your time to find that relevance.

      How many relevant links do you think any site currently ranking for "buy viagra" has? I'll give you a hint, the answer is 0

      You'll never rank for a keyword like that going only for relevant links. What that says is that link volume can trump relevance, in every case.
      Hi keliix06,

      I sorry, but I must inform you that technically you are wrong. You can have all the irrelevant links you want and not rank well for many keywords that appear on your page.

      If what you said were true then the page with the most links would be able to outrank every page for every keyword they decided to add to their page. One webpage would own the top ranking for every word they decided to put on their page. Search results would be crappy since so many SERPs would be dominated by barely relevant pages. We would need to scroll through hundreds of listings to find one that satisfied our search requirements. Since that is not how the search results actually appear, there must be something going on other than your assertion.

      The fact is that acquiring many irrelevant backlinks can boost your PR, but that PR alone does nothing to boost your ranking for your targeted keyword. You must first channel that PR through a relevant link before you will see any ranking benefit. Backlinks without relevance is worthless for SERP. But, as soon as you channel that link juice through a relevant anchortext link you will positively influence your keyword relevancy score and thus your power to rank in SERP.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2850675].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author thomarv29
    There are two ways to get ranked... The first is by producing tons of Links consistently that may or may not be relevant and varying the types of links created. The other is a more tedious task and that is finding high quality, High PR Links that are relevant to your niche but may not give you massive numbers of links. I think it comes down to the type of goals you have and how much money and time you have. Just my thoughts. I got my website ranked on 35+ Keywords the day my URL was indexed by Google and i didnt have any on-site SEO done. I just had my backlink team build 15K Backlinks... Worked like a charm. I have used the same strategy over and over again with the same results.
    Signature

    Im president of White Label Links Inc. A leading SEO and Internet marketing company based out of Jacksonville FL

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2851288].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Dynamosh
    [DELETED]
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2852510].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author dburk
      Originally Posted by Dynamosh View Post

      I was trying to search for that experiment done by a blogger, who proved that Backlink relevance is not THAT important...if I could find it,Ill post i here

      bottom line: backlinks that arre non relevant but are of high pr still hold value to Google
      Hi Dynamosh,

      Not really!

      It's not until you channel that PR through a relevant link (keywords in or near the anchortext) that you will see any ranking benefit.

      The only thing that experiment proved is that website topics are not important to SEO. Website topics and keyword relevance are two very different things. Search engines don't index websites, they index individual pages and that is why website topics have no importance in SEO. But to make the leap to say relevance doesn't matter is just fundamentally wrong.

      While it was an interesting experiment, the conclusions were all wrong, IMHO, due to a lack of understanding the basic function of a search engine. Website topics are not important, however relevant backlinks are paramount.

      This is not to say that you can't make use of link juice passed from irrelevant backlinks, only to say that the link juice must be passed through yet another "relevant" link before you see any ranking benefit. So the benefit from irrelevant backlinks, if channeled through a second "relevant" link, will be an order of magnitude LESS powerful than it would have been if had it been a relevant backlink.

      To conclude, generally speaking, you will need many more irrelevant backlinks to equal the power of a single relevant backlink. And those irrelevant backlinks provide no direct ranking power, only a potential secondary, less powerful benefit that is only realized after you channel the link juice through a relevant link. No relevance = No ranking benefit.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2853791].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author chestmary
        Originally Posted by dburk View Post

        Hi Dynamosh,

        Not really!

        It's not until you channel that PR through a relevant link (keywords in or near the anchortext) that you will see any ranking benefit.

        The only thing that experiment proved is that website topics are not important to SEO. Website topics and keyword relevance are two very different things. Search engines don't index websites, they index individual pages and that is why website topics have no importance in SEO. But to make the leap to say relevance doesn't matter is just fundamentally wrong.

        While it was an interesting experiment, the conclusions were all wrong, IMHO, due to a lack of understanding the basic function of a search engine. Website topics are not important, however relevant backlinks are paramount.

        This is not to say that you can't make use of link juice passed from irrelevant backlinks, only to say that the link juice must be passed through yet another "relevant" link before you see any ranking benefit. So the benefit from irrelevant backlinks, if channeled through a second "relevant" link, will be an order of magnitude LESS powerful than it would have been if had it been a relevant backlink.

        To conclude, generally speaking, you will need many more irrelevant backlinks to equal the power of a single relevant backlink. And those irrelevant backlinks provide no direct ranking power, only a potential secondary, less powerful benefit that is only realized after you channel the link juice through a relevant link. No relevance = No ranking benefit.
        I think I've finally got it. gonna bookmark it
        Signature


        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2854148].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author srbilles
        Originally Posted by dburk View Post

        Hi Dynamosh,

        Not really!

        It's not until you channel that PR through a relevant link (keywords in or near the anchortext) that you will see any ranking benefit.

        The only thing that experiment proved is that website topics are not important to SEO. Website topics and keyword relevance are two very different things. Search engines don't index websites, they index individual pages and that is why website topics have no importance in SEO. But to make the leap to say relevance doesn't matter is just fundamentally wrong.

        While it was an interesting experiment, the conclusions were all wrong, IMHO, due to a lack of understanding the basic function of a search engine. Website topics are not important, however relevant backlinks are paramount.

        This is not to say that you can't make use of link juice passed from irrelevant backlinks, only to say that the link juice must be passed through yet another "relevant" link before you see any ranking benefit. So the benefit from irrelevant backlinks, if channeled through a second "relevant" link, will be an order of magnitude LESS powerful than it would have been if had it been a relevant backlink.

        To conclude, generally speaking, you will need many more irrelevant backlinks to equal the power of a single relevant backlink. And those irrelevant backlinks provide no direct ranking power, only a potential secondary, less powerful benefit that is only realized after you channel the link juice through a relevant link. No relevance = No ranking benefit.
        So then wouldn't a simple article with an on-topic link be considered a relevant link.
        Signature

        Get cash producing email copy written for you for cheap. Check out my Warrior For Hire offer at: http://www.warriorforum.com/showthre...1#post10514231

        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2857723].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author dburk
          Originally Posted by srbilles View Post

          So then wouldn't a simple article with an on-topic link be considered a relevant link.
          In most cases, yes, but on-topic isn't necessarily what defines relevance for search engines. They are not quite as good at abstract constructs as humans, so you need to dumb it down a bit for the search engines and use extremely relevant keywords (read as exact) within that article, particularly in and near the anchortext of your link for best results.
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2858562].message }}
          • Profile picture of the author srbilles
            Originally Posted by dburk View Post

            In most cases, yes, but on-topic isn't necessarily what defines relevance for search engines. They are not quite as good at abstract constructs as humans, so you need to dumb it down a bit for the search engines and use extremely relevant keywords (read as exact) within that article, particularly in and near the anchortext of your link for best results.
            Would you be interested in providing an example? Not to call you out but because I'm finding what your saying to be interesting and it would help to see an example so that I can complete the picture in my mind.

            Maybe you could send it as a PM if you don't want to post it here.

            I'm finding this interesting because if applied on all backlinking efforts, even profiles you could get more bang for your buck, (ranking wise) which would result in less backlinks needed to rank pages.
            Signature

            Get cash producing email copy written for you for cheap. Check out my Warrior For Hire offer at: http://www.warriorforum.com/showthre...1#post10514231

            {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2861201].message }}
          • Profile picture of the author pethanks
            Yes back links are important because without them it would be impossible to your to rank in Google Search engine.
            {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2906731].message }}
  • Submit articles that are relevant to your niche, site or whatever, and put links in the articles. THIS MAKES THE LINKS RELEVANT, AND GOOGLE LIKES IT.

    Short and sweet...lol
    Signature
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2854419].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author dagaul101
    I agree with you, it will extremely difficult (not to mention time consuming) to find backlinks with relevance to your niche, I suppose emailing those web admins to see if they can include your links is a try
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2854476].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author atrbiz
    I also agree that it's very difficult to get relevant links and can be time consuming. In my experience a blend of links from relevant and non relevant sites will do the job. As long as the links are HIGH PR.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2854488].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author gittar1122
    Backlink from any site will add value to your site whether its related to your niche or not. So its better to get 50 dofollow non-related backlinks in one day instead of 3 nodofollow niche-related backlinks in one week.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2854866].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author orvn
    Dburk gives a lot of insight in this thread.
    Everyone should read his posts on the matter.
    Signature
    Orun Bhuiyan[@orvn] [linkedin] See what I've been doing lately by visiting my marketing agency's site. SEOcial specializes in content marketing and integrated optimization. We create conversions for businesses by gracefully connecting the realms of design, development and marketing.

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2855067].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author FindOut
    Originally Posted by orvn View Post

    In my experience,
    Decent PR + relevant + dofollow
    backlinks are extremely difficult to find.
    This is why I focus on backlinks that are dofollow from high PR sources. I typically ignore relevance, only because it's so much harder to find.

    Generally this works well for me, I didn't think the Googlebot could make too many judgements in terms of relevance of interlinked sites.
    However, I notice a lot of you argue that relevant backlinks are a MUST.

    Why is it that some of you consider relevance more important than dofollow or PR?

    Just because real people are more likely to click on these links? Because that doesn't seem to be a good enough reason, IMO.
    I don't think it is very hard to create relevant links that are dofollow. The PR issue is overblown in my opinion. So many people stress out about PR ratings, but down the road a page that is Low PR today can gain PR later.

    My school of thinking is that if you can get a relevant link then it doesn't really matter if it is nofollow, dofollow, or what PR rating it is. Relevant is going to gain you traffic and that = <3
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2859608].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author srbilles
      Originally Posted by FindOut View Post

      I don't think it is very hard to create relevant links that are dofollow. The PR issue is overblown in my opinion. So many people stress out about PR ratings, but down the road a page that is Low PR today can gain PR later.

      My school of thinking is that if you can get a relevant link then it doesn't really matter if it is nofollow, dofollow, or what PR rating it is. Relevant is going to gain you traffic and that = <3
      I agree on the PR. People spend way too much time dwelling on it. I'd much rather get links that have ip spread.

      As far as nofollow goes. If I'm getting the link for SEO purposes then I want a link that can pass link juice and unless I'm mistaken a nofollow link doesn't pass link juice which makes it pointless for ranking.

      If I'm getting the link for traffic then I don't care if it's nofollow or other wise.
      Signature

      Get cash producing email copy written for you for cheap. Check out my Warrior For Hire offer at: http://www.warriorforum.com/showthre...1#post10514231

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2861233].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author kenmadarimot
    [DELETED]
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2861204].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author srbilles
      Originally Posted by kenmadarimot View Post

      Hello guys! I need some help on how to get traffics from a site. I need someone who can share me ideas. Thank you.
      Why don't you start another thread on your topic so your not thread jacking this one.
      Signature

      Get cash producing email copy written for you for cheap. Check out my Warrior For Hire offer at: http://www.warriorforum.com/showthre...1#post10514231

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2861235].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author orvn
        Originally Posted by srbilles View Post

        Why don't you start another thread on your topic so your not thread jacking this one.
        I was about to notify the authorities.
        Signature
        Orun Bhuiyan[@orvn] [linkedin] See what I've been doing lately by visiting my marketing agency's site. SEOcial specializes in content marketing and integrated optimization. We create conversions for businesses by gracefully connecting the realms of design, development and marketing.

        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2861247].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author jacksonlin
    You don't need relevant backlinks to rank. It'd be fantastic if you could get related links, but that's not always the case.
    Signature
    Want a 13 Part FREE Internet Marketing Course - Taught By A PREMIER CLICKBANK SUPPER AFFILIATE? Did I mention taught through VIDEOS?
    Yup, I'm not hyping things up for you. Click here to check it out!
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2871205].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Dani P
    Well the only way I can say how things work is by what you see, its irrelevant what you are told and read, for instance I to have read and heard people saying that links have to be relevant, then when I check the biggest competitiors links and they are number 1 for all our keywords, hardly any of their links are relevant!! So I'm just copying what I see working
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2871397].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author dburk
      Originally Posted by Dani P View Post

      Well the only way I can say how things work is by what you see, its irrelevant what you are told and read, for instance I to have read and heard people saying that links have to be relevant, then when I check the biggest competitiors links and they are number 1 for all our keywords, hardly any of their links are relevant!! So I'm just copying what I see working
      Hi Dani,

      When you say "hardly any of their links are relevant", you seem to be acknowledging that at least some of their links are relevant.

      All you need is a few powerful backlinks, backlinks from high PR pages, to outrank many web pages that don't have the the same relevant and powerful backlinks.

      Ask yourself, have you ever seen any page rank for a competitive term without relevant inbound links? If so, can you provide a single example?
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2871588].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author tomaz
    I think that relevance are important.

    But if i colud chose no relevant link from PR4 or relevant link from P3 I will chose link from PR4.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2872692].message }}
  • Search engines give more wight to relevant backlinks than do-follow backlinks. Do-follow backlinks can be considered as spamming
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2886752].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Jacob Martus
      Originally Posted by wordpresstrainingpackage View Post

      Search engines give more wight to relevant backlinks than do-follow backlinks. Do-follow backlinks can be considered as spamming
      Thanks for this insightful post. Great addition to the discussion here....
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2886775].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author brandonbaker
        Originally Posted by Jacob Martus View Post

        Thanks for this insightful post. Great addition to the discussion here....
        Love the irony, too.
        Signature
        10 OBL - Full Link Report - Zero Footprint
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2886783].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author jacksonlin
    I have tested getting links from relevant pages and non relevant pages.

    My conclusion is - the more links you get the better you rank.

    Relevancy doesn't matter, you still get ranked.

    Although Dburk disagrees with me generally, there is one thing we both agree on.

    Do the test yourself and find out for yourself.
    Signature
    Want a 13 Part FREE Internet Marketing Course - Taught By A PREMIER CLICKBANK SUPPER AFFILIATE? Did I mention taught through VIDEOS?
    Yup, I'm not hyping things up for you. Click here to check it out!
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2888550].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author LiamMcArthur
    I think relevance is the key factor out of all of the statements you have made, if the post isn't relevant to your website then Google will add no points to your overall ranking score, like I mentioned in another post - if you're website is about dogs then post on blogs/forums about dogs (in a non-spammy way).
    Signature
    Liam McArthur
    Web Developer | Eden Mobility
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2890878].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author samual james
    Definitely search engines made for users not for webmasters. So if user likes your link then definitely search engine will likes your links. Relevancy is much important that's why we try to submit our site in relevant category in directory and bookmarking.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2902805].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author madison_avenue
    Suggesting that you have achieved great rankings by using non relevant links does not prove that relevant backinks are not more powerful. The achieved rankings need to be looked at in the context of the competition: The competition may not have many relevant backlinks either! So in this case you would rank well. But if a competing website did have relevant links then it would win.

    So you can do well with non relevant links so long as the competition is weak, but you will lose if up against a site with relevant links.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2902860].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Raul991
    My experience says that relevance does not matter! I have ranked and am ranking with unrelevant backlinks in all kind of different niches. In small niches you just cant find enough relevant links if you tried to and still need to find other ways to beat your competition(if you are not #1 they are probably not concerned about the backlink relevance issue)
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2903272].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author dburk
      Originally Posted by Raul991 View Post

      My experience says that relevance does not matter! I have ranked and am ranking with unrelevant backlinks in all kind of different niches. In small niches you just cant find enough relevant links if you tried to and still need to find other ways to beat your competition(if you are not #1 they are probably not concerned about the backlink relevance issue)
      Hi Raul991,

      When you say "I have ranked and am ranking with unrelevant backlinks in all kind of different niches" it doesn't mean that any of those irrelevant backlinks helped you one iota to rank for your targeted keyword. I assert that they did not and it may have been a colossal waste of time.

      If you take a closer look at your own web pages you will see that you probably had plenty of backlinks that would be considered relevant, by search engine standards, and it was exclusively those relevant backlinks that are helping you rank for your target keyword.

      I believe that you may simply be defining relevance in a way different from how search engines define relevance. When it comes to SEO it only matters how search engines define relevance.

      If you really believe what you said then why not take me up on the challenge I made earlier in this thread. Can you find a single example of a page that has ranked highly in a competitive niche based exclusively on the use of irrelevant links?

      It is possible to build your page's PR using irrelevant backlinks, however they will do nothing to directly help your page rank for your targeted keyword. You must first channel that PR through a relevant link before you see any benefit. While this secondary effect can be useful, it is a tiny fraction of the value of relevant backlinks.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2903342].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
        Originally Posted by dburk View Post

        .

        If you really believe what you said then why not take me up on the challenge I made earlier in this thread. Can you find a single example of a page that has ranked highly in a competitive niche based exclusively on the use of irrelevant links?
        Why should he take up a nonsense challenge though? I mean what real world webmaster goes out and looks exclusively for non relevant links to rank their site? Most just look for links period and get both. Since thats not a rational course of action for anyone to take then I don't see how it would prove your point. Basically its a challenge to find some stupid webmaster that hapens to rank for a term regardless and then claiming that since none exist your point is proven - hardly.

        Ever looked at a forum profile page? Many people have said that these pages help them rank. Ton loads. Yet on most forum profile pages most of the content is standardized and has little variation to the niche of the forum. Now I know from past debates you will TRY to make those pages relevant but most non biased people will indicate that on most forum profiles theres is nothing outside of the anchor text that is relevant to their niche.
        Signature

        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2903570].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author sparckyz
    IMO relevance in the anchor for the backlink (and surrounding text if possible) is important for ranking for that keyword. Even better if the web page is relevant to the subject matter. But high PR, low OBL relevant webpages to your niche are hard to find.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2903298].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
    Dburk you can continue to be dense about what many have posted in this thread. the idea that anchor text is needed was stated in my very early posts in this thread.

    Anyone who claims to know what Google considers relevant is fibbing (I mean outside the obvious anchor text).
    Since then you have been pretty much fibbing claiming to know how google calculates relevancy on a page besides the anchor text. Now you are running away to website topics when no one said anything about that. We ARE concentrating on the page relevancy. As I said outside of anchor text you have no point and refuse to post any data or methodology for your claim of anything close to, above, around the corner , at an angle to, one block up and head east or wherever else you want to claim goolge calculates relevancy outside of anchor text.

    It's a nice case study that totally misses the mark on the conclusion. The only thing this study proved is that search engines pay absolutely no attention to website topics. In fact they don't use any relevancy signals at the site level. It's always been page level.
    and no one was talking about site level. thats just your strawman because you are backed in a corner by evidence you said no one shared. I give terry's study one thing I can't give you - its shared. the methodology is there, the data is there and the results are there. thats what you need to show and refuse to. so whats the point? You present no data, no methodology to your research and point at no results in any specified serps. But its terry that drew the wrong conclusion because you say so.

    Try to understand exactly how they are building their index, how they apply the PageRank algorithm and the signals they look for to determine relevancy. Much has been published by their founders and engineers that reveal a great deal about how they index and rank pages.
    Dburk please I mean I have studied so much about search engines that I have probably forgot more than you know. See? two can play at that you don't know nothing game. Proof. stop fudging and put up proof. IF it were jus t my opinion versus yours then fine but many people here have posted their success with profile links that have little relevance on the page

    Now here is the crux of the matter. Many folks post on this forum that they are not seeing results from profile links. Could it be that they are failing to add the prerequisite relevant content?

    LOL. no Dburk many of them show a surprising lack of keyword research skills, don't get their links indexed. some even expect to rank without on page SEO and on and on. and you know why? because there is always some guru or wannabe guru that is telling them some secret way of doing SEO that they claim few know about.

    I find thats the greatest challenge in teaching people SEO. They have all these guru concepts that they have filled their heads with. All in title searches, push button Seo, buyspecial tools etc. SEO is easy and basic. when they correct those problems they rank and rank well. And go figure often with the same set of backlinks that you call worthless. So basic SEo isn't the problem with them its some wannabes running around saying that they know how search engines work and have the magic key if people just come to them for it.

    anyway can you stop running around and put up the proof? this is like the 7th request. I'm all ears to - the proof.
    Signature

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2905785].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author dburk
      Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

      Dburk you can continue to be dense about what many have posted in this thread. the idea that anchor text is needed was stated in my very early posts in this thread.



      Since then you have been pretty much fibbing claiming to know how google calculates relevancy on a page besides the anchor text. Now you are running away to website topics when no one said anything about that. We ARE concentrating on the page relevancy. As I said outside of anchor text you have no point and refuse to post any data or methodology for your claim of anything close to, above, around the corner , at an angle to, one block up and head east or wherever else you want to claim goolge calculates relevancy outside of anchor text.



      and no one was talking about site level. thats just your strawman because you are backed in a corner by evidence you said no one shared. I give terry's study one thing I can't give you - its shared. the methodology is there, the data is there and the results are there. thats what you need to show and refuse to. so whats the point? You present no data, no methodology to your research and point at no results in any specified serps. But its terry that drew the wrong conclusion because you say so.



      Dburk please I mean I have studied so much about search engines that I have probably forgot more than you know. See? two can play at that you don't know nothing game. Proof. stop fudging and put up proof. IF it were jus t my opinion versus yours then fine but many people here have posted their success with profile links that have little relevance on the page




      LOL. no Dburk many of them show a surprising lack of keyword research skills, don't get their links indexed. some even expect to rank without on page SEO and on and on. and you know why? because there is always some guru or wannabe guru that is telling them some secret way of doing SEO that they claim few know about.

      I find thats the greatest challenge in teaching people SEO. They have all these guru concepts that they have filled their heads with. All in title searches, push button Seo, buyspecial tools etc. SEO is easy and basic. when they correct those problems they rank and rank well. And go figure often with the same set of backlinks that you call worthless. So basic SEo isn't the problem with them its some wannabes running around saying that they know how search engines work and have the magic key if people just come to them for it.

      anyway can you stop running around and put up the proof? this is like the 7th request. I'm all ears to - the proof.

      Hi Mike

      You keep asking me to prove a negative. Anyone with even a little knowledge knows you don't "prove" a negative. For example "how do you prove you don't beat your wife?" All you can do is point to the lack of evidence. Which is what I've continued to do for my assertion. You are the one that brought up the study Terry did which only supports my assertion that search engines do not recognize website topics. His study did not attempt to classify relevance of backlinks based on the methods Google uses.

      Again, I point you to the nice convenient tool Google has provided and recommend you perform your own experiments using that tool. You don't seem willing to trust anything I say and it's useless for me to play you game of "I gotcha cause you didn't do it exactly as I wanted you to". If you stop trolling long enough and run a few experiments for your self you will quickly see how revealing this tool can be and you can see how relevancy is effected when adding anchortext and how words near the anchortext can sometimes radically change the relevancy for a particular keyword.

      Since I already know that you plan to disparage any test methods I suggest, I won't bother suggesting any. Use what ever methods you find acceptable and run the tests yourself. But please don't pretend that you already know the results of tests that you have never ran, that is just disingenuous.

      By the way it's been more than a week since I challenged folks in this thread to come up with just one SERP example that proves me wrong. Nothing but the sound crickets so far.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2906384].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
        Originally Posted by dburk View Post

        Hi Mike

        You keep asking me to prove a negative. Anyone with even a little knowledge knows you don't "prove" a negative. For example "how do you prove you don't beat your wife?" All you can do is point to the lack of evidence. Which is what I've continued to do for my assertion.
        You are stalling. Lets go with the evidence. No one is asking you to prove a negative. you have said straight up that relevant content near to anchor text affects ranking positively. For the 8th or 9th time - research methodology, data and results please.

        You are the one that brought up the study Terry did which only supports my assertion that search engines do not recognize website topics. His study did not attempt to classify relevance of backlinks based on the methods Google uses.
        You don't know what google uses and terry's research indicated that relevancy had no bearing. he said nothing about web topics. again you are stalling.

        Again, I point you to the nice convenient tool Google has provided and recommend you perform your own experiments using that tool.
        and again I point you to the fact that the Google adwords tool IS AN ADWORDS TOOL and does not state ANYWHERE that it is a straight relevance for relevance relationship to LSI or even comes close to attempting to give you the weight that any combination of the words would give for a serps listed page. you've been fudging that for ages now and the chief reason why you won't post the research or even the methodology up is you know full well it is suspect.


        Since I already know that you plan to disparage any test methods I suggest, I won't bother suggesting any.
        Yes you really think people are so stupid as to believe that as an excuse when you have been asked to present your evidence repeatedly and you've run from doing so? People really are not that foolish Dburk. they can see though things quite easily. You won't post them because you know they can't stand up to scrutiny is all.

        By the way it's been more than a week since I challenged folks in this thread to come up with just one SERP example that proves me wrong. Nothing but the sound crickets so far.
        I can't really determine whether you are being deliberate or just can't grasp the obvious. Your parameters are bogus. Any and every webmaster that has a goal of ranking uses every link he can to rank. Doing anything else would be foolish. So do we all use relevant backlinks along with non relevant? of course. What fool says - Oh I want to rank but I will only take non relevant links? So your nonsense packed full of straw argument is that if webmasters take both in order to rank it means that that only one has any value. its amazing to me you can't see how silly that is but I've explained it to you now three times and you have no answer but to continue to claim that your so called test condition is not foolishness.

        Now once we dispense with your qualification that a site must only have non relevant links we find plenty of sites that clearly are ranking on BOTH relevant links and Non relevant ones. Sticking to the case in point we can see sites that climb steadily as the backlinks are applied over time - whether the backlinks were relevant outside of anchor text or not.

        Plain and simple. Now rebut with evidence instead of more hand waving. Research in this very forum has been given to you now and the only crickets that are chirping is when i ask you to present your evidence complete with data and methodology that positively proves your point about relevance near the anchor text. I'd love to see it.
        Signature

        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2906642].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Benjustin
    I used to focus on backlink relevance...and it took time for my sites to rank .... then I tried experimenting on Non-relevant but high pr sites, created backlinks and my site's rank jumped to page 1 in a week
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2906190].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author mikey21
      Originally Posted by Benjustin View Post

      I used to focus on backlink relevance...and it took time for my sites to rank .... then I tried experimenting on Non-relevant but high pr sites, created backlinks and my site's rank jumped to page 1 in a week
      Yup you've figured out the big secret!
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2906684].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author janiethomas
    The more relevant incoming links to your site to determine the quality of links. If your site is about Internet marketing which link to a site about German shepherds are not relevant and is thus not a quality link.By having quality backlinks, you can able to attract visitors to your site.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2908040].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author John Williamson
    I've heard different opinions on this but I'd say pay more attention to the page PR where the link is coming from, regardless of relevance.
    Signature
    The Google Adwords Keyword Tool is hiding your valuable keywords!
    OFFLINERS, Start using this simple technique and these 6 "weapons" today to get more clients and skyrocket your conversions! - FREE, no opt-in.
    Make some money by helping me market this idea.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2933927].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author leo.prash
    having relavent backlinks is only considered. it has so many advantages.

    coz it is easy to get traffic from search engines. when its relavent. but if it is not relavent it is difficult to get ranked high coz the traffic will ovbsly be low.

    so it is always suggestable to have relavent baclinks.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2934454].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author victoriakeenato
    I think it's pretty difficult to define what is most important. A backlink is relevant, but nofollow or without PR can not give you an advantage.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3009318].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author mayorlan
    A backlink is a backlink.What of if you have a nice content on A niche and someone put a link to your site on his B niche site,wouldn't google not recognize this just because it is not relevant.
    Signature

    Ever wonder why the big bloggers like Neil Patel,Chris Brogan,Derek Siver,Chris Guillebeau etc are making it big and you aren't? Here is why as 34 Top Bloggers Shares Their Greatest Success Secrets

    And This Is How To Pursue Your Dream When You Don't Have Money

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3010284].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author chiwawa
    I think relevance is of high importance when it comes to ranking high on google.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[3123706].message }}

Trending Topics