Links are going to be less and less important

[clasione]

Links are going to be less and less important very soon if not already....

You see, companies like Google can absolutely NOT let people like us build link structures and minipulate their technology - It just cannot happen - as we build links to increase our PR - Google MUST find a way to prevent it from being that easy...

My experience tells me that it is going to become very difficult to the adverage webmaster to build PR as it is going to soon be based on more and more factors...

I predict that currently you must build new links on a consistant basis while also displaying constant new quality - non reproduced content on your pages on an almost daily basis.... This combined with link pop on pagfe optimization and a combination of many other factors will become so difficult for the adverage webmaster to maintain that it will begin to filter out the smaller sites and clean up the index leaving mostly major sites and seo'ers that have the time and knowledge to compete... PLUS - not to mention link age will filter out the old ones....

So fresh content on a daily basis is going to be key...

[Dave Hawley]

I agree. I would not be suprised if Google have aleady worked out ways to detect many of the link types that should not pass PR etc. They did it with Guestbooks and FFA sites, then Forum sigs. They have the $$, they have the resources and they have an army of Geeks.

[I, Brian]

Google has already been applying this for some time - as has been often repeated here, all links are not created equal, and number of links tells you absolutely nothing about the quality of the links - something Google absolutely does not let up on.

[Dave Hawley]

Google has already been applying this for some time

Applying what?

[awall19]

links will only become more important over time. eventually search engines will be able to better determine the quality of each link though.

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by Dave Hawley

Applying what?

The idea that all links are not created equal - clasione states in the original post that Google has to address link building practices somehow to prevent people "minipulate their technology".

However, it's been an observation here for some time that Google already has different ways of addressing link value, to try and minimise such impact.

[RingingPHoneML]

These posts of 'Google will determine the quality of a link and filter out bad links' are ridiculous. What happens if a site sells some links and also gives some good faith links, then what?

If I find $100, I am pretty happy. If Bill Gates finds $100, he doesn't blink. What is 'quality' to one is nothing to another.

Links can be manipulated. End of story.

[Sanzbar]

Originally Posted by RingingPHoneML

These posts of 'Google will determine the quality of a link and filter out bad links' are ridiculous. What happens if a site sells some links and also gives some good faith links, then what?

If I find $100, I am pretty happy. If Bill Gates finds $100, he doesn't blink. What is 'quality' to one is nothing to another.

Links can be manipulated. End of story.

Sad but true in my opinion.

[digitalpoint]

Agreed... Google would need to come up with something else rather than just ignore links. Do you really think it's a good idea (for relevancy) for search engines to rely on on-page content?

If we are going to rely on on-page factors, why not have a new meta tag that tells the search engine what position you want to be for any keyword? heh

<meta name="position" keyword="google" content="1" />

[arius]

Here is a stretch. I've heard in the past that the Google bar monitors your surfing activity (It's been stated on this forum as well). What if Google used the volume of requests to guage the authority of a site?
The more frequently a site was chosen for frequently searched for keywords the more valuable or authoritative that site is. Especially if a searcher has used the new Google Desktop tool for indexing everything on their hard drive, they may also use it to monitor peoples surfing habits even more. They could catalogue all your favourite links and use as a link popularity factor. Pretty soon the "link = vote" anaology could be extended to which URLS from the SERPSs are selected most often. This would help to redefine the most relevant SERPs especially over a time period average.

What if they secretly read your web server log files to know what keywords were landing people on your site. Talk about going full circle. They could use all this user behavior info to recommend the most popular sites to other searchers. GMail proves that they are interested in your behavioural info, How many people recommend sites to others using email? They could index those links too and give them a higher link weight than a link on a link exchange related page.
Link pages are identifiable by their carateristics:
Lack of full paragaphs
1 link, short description
followed by other text with a similar pattern
High outgoing external link volume.


Google wants to leverage internet users to rate the internet for them.
Google technology will contine to develop to survey our surfing habits of the masses and feed that information back to the individual searcher who uses the same keywords as a group to find something.

Google has a good feedback loop happening. We are all volunteer Google employees whether we want to be or not.
What do you think?

[Dave Hawley]

However, it's been an observation here for some time that Google already has different ways of addressing link value, to try and minimise such impact.

Yes they do. However, I believe clasione was suggesting that what they do now is only the thin end of the Wedge. Which I agree with.

[scisoft]

Originally Posted by RingingPHoneML

These posts of 'Google will determine the quality of a link and filter out bad links' are ridiculous.

They are not. I believe that the algorithm already places more weight on links surounded by relevant text.

[RingingPHoneML]

Originally Posted by scisoft

They are not. I believe that the algorithm already places more weight on links surounded by relevant text.

Great, so let's get rid of natural search and make everything PPC because if 'keyword rich anchor text' is sooooo important than he with the most money wins. Just go out and buy links, links and more links.

I have a budget of $2000 month and you have a budget of $500. I win, no matter how many articles you write and friends you make.

No matter what the algorithm is, it cannot...should not weigh too heavily on one copmonent or factor because it would be too easy to manipulate be it on page or off page.

[longcall911]

Originally Posted by arius

What if Google used the volume of requests to guage the authority of a site?

I don't think it is a stretch at all. As massively parallel neural network technologies continue to develop, pattern recognition is sure to become more and more a factor.

I am confident that Google would never rely on a single factor for ranking, but human surfing behavior en masse, is the only thing I can think of that can not be manipulated to the extent that it would make a difference.

Sure, there are already click-bots, but it would be relatively easy (with enough user info over the past hour let’s say) for a neural net to determine whether the click was a human, or a click-bot.

The challenge for GG would be to filter those humans who are poor judges of content. I believe that current stats show that about 70% of searchers click the first listing. The implication is that searchers are lemmings, and not good judges of content. Find a way to get around that, and you’ve got the makings of a great SE.

/*tom*/

[arius]

Originally Posted by longcall911

I don't think it is a stretch at all... ClickBots... Find a way to get around that, and you’ve got the makings of a great SE.

Great Post longcall911 !
I think we have hit on something here. But you are right SEO would be really difficult in that environment. The only way to influence a Search Engine like that is to have great content that draws an audience. I think offline marketing would become more important with radio and tv ads or PR designed to bring people to a site. The SERPs would be pure though and pretty much tamper proof. It would still be a case of the rich getting richer. Or the popular pages staying popular. To get really specific results you would have to use longer strings of keywords in multiple combinations to hit on that 1 article in a sea of almost 10.e+9 pages.
Best regards.

[arius]

As for Click Bots manipulating a Surf Behaviour Aware Search Engine. You could see some unscrupulous guy creating spyware that would install a process to run queries on the SE and always select the site they were promoting. They'd have to put it on a lot of machines. To Filter the SEs would have to scan for activeX controls and other binary downloads that visits to the site might trigger. This would really up the ante on the SEO/SE Filtering game.

[Johan007]

Originally Posted by clasione

So fresh content on a daily basis is going to be key...

This would penalise encyclopaedias and recourse journals? Not all sites are "news" sites are they?

I thought opinion was that links from various IP’s was the way forward. Using not only the text in the link but the text from the page the link is on, + Hilltop ?

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by Dave Hawley

Yes they do. However, I believe clasione was suggesting that what they do now is only the thin end of the Wedge. Which I agree with.

Indeed - Google keep making for a bigger wedge - the past 12-14 months has seen Google get tougher and tougher on all forms of SEO, so that it takes more to do less. No doubt it's going to get harder yet.

However, it's worth remember that just because someone is trying to manipulate SERPs, it's usually for relevant content. So at some point there has to be a balance where some degree of manipulation is within acceptable limits. Google seems to constantly raise the bar, though.

[Papadoc]

Sorry, I cannot go with the idea that G will place any value on surfing habits as indicated by the G-bar. If so, get you and your mamma and cousin Horst to surf your site all day long and so you are the crowned king. Also, that places them at risk of losing their business model if statutes are passed against spyware or even requiring full disclosure of any changes made to the user's system.

There are a limited number of options that any SE can implement and they pretty much include page content, various linking criteria, and click-through history. None of these are perfect and any combination of these will be subjected to criticism by those who do not rank well.

All they can really do is tweak and tighten up on the specs and attempt to thwart those who attempt unethical manipulations. But pull any factor out of the mix and all you end up with is making all the remaining criteria more potent, offering greater chances at manipulation. They are best off to keep as many criteria as possible and keep factor weights secret, to dilute the effect that any one factor has on the balance.

[eCommando]

If not links, I wonder what is going to be used to determin a web site's ranking.