Using links effectively...

what's the big deal?

In an online webmaster forum, to understand the effect of using links effectively, a webmaster described the link experiment that he did with his websites. He tried to find out how linking to the home page affected his rankings.

What did the webmaster test?

This particular webmaster tested the effect of links from sub pages of his website to his home page. He also tried links to the home page of his website from the navigation bar and as well as from the content and he tried links with and without keywords.

This particular test was done with a 4 year old domain name with a dedicated IP address. The web pages were HTML only. The website ranks top 5 in Google for its main, second and third keyword phrases and it has a total of 90 pages with unique content.

What were the results of the test?

Surprisingly, it seems that too many links to the home page of your website can have a NEGTIVE effect on your rankings:

1. Linking to the home page from every page from within the content with the SAME keyword caused a six pages drop in rankings (-6 pages).

2. Linking to the home page from every page from within the content using keyword variations caused a three pages drop in rankings (-3 pages).

3. Linking to the home page from the navigation bar with "main keyword" also caused a six pages drop in rankings (-6 pages).

4. Linking to the home page from the first 10 pages listed on Google.com for "site:domain.com/*" increased the ranking from 5th to 3rd (+2 positions).

This webmaster also observed the following:

* Linking from within the content using keyword variations was effective, but only to a point, after which the rankings dropped.

* There seems to be a page threshold. What that threshold is is anyone's guess. If the number of pages that link is even slightly above that mysterious threshold, the rankings will drop.

Does this mean that you shouldn't link to your home page?

It's hard to tell whether the results of this experiment are valid because there are too many other variables that influence the rankings of a web page. My experience tells me that although website owners should be aware of issues like this it actually becomes counter productive after a certain point.

What I have discovered as I frequent various forums is that webmasters tend to get sidetracked by the search for the "pot of gold" at the end of the search engine rainbow. I advise them to focus on building web pages with quality and then stick to the basics of building a sound website.

It doesn't sound sensible that Google will downrank a web page that has a link to its home page on every page. Afterall, most users expect a link to the home page on every page of a website and even Google has a link to its home page from every page.

I think that it's more likely that the ranking drops are caused by Google's change filter. In other words, if you change your web page contents, Google will temporarily downrank your web pages. This has been described in a Google patent.

High positions on Google depend on much more than the internal links on your website. If you want an analysis of all important factors that influence the position of your website on Google, analyze your site with IBP's Top 10 Optimizer.

If you want to learn more about this subject then there is an ebook published by IBP that goes into greater detail for webmasters who are intereted in using links effectively.