Home Page Links Carry More Weight?

pcarlow · #1 (**permalink**) 12-28-2004, 09:25 AM

I was wondering if you think that links from the home page of a web site carry more weight in the Google algorithm than links from other pages in the site?

bcombs · #2 (**permalink**) 12-28-2004, 01:21 PM

I don't believe that homepage links inherantly carry more weight. The homepage willl usually be the highest PageRank page of a site, which means that a homepage link effectively carries more weight.

Brian

trevHCS · #3 (**permalink**) 12-28-2004, 02:46 PM

I think I'd agree with Brian on that one because how would Google know which is your homepage? Also there wouldn't be any real point in giving homepages massively more voting power in the Pagerank system that I can think of at least.

Trev

longcall911 · #4 (**permalink**) 12-28-2004, 06:57 PM

It all depends on what you mean by 'more weight'. If your mean PR, I'd agree with others that the home page normally has a higher PR, so it would be more valuable.

But, if you mean 'more weight' in terms of SERPs, I'd say no. Deeper pages are normally more topic specific (themed) at least in larger sites, and so the deeper pages could very well carry 'more weight'.

Dave Hawley · #5 (**permalink**) 12-28-2004, 07:57 PM

With all else being equal, no. However, it will likely hold more click value.

pcarlow · #6 (**permalink**) 12-29-2004, 06:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by trevHCS

how would Google know which is your homepage?

Because the home page resides in the root of the domain structure and is the default page when no other page is specified after the top level domain. Should be fairly easy to determine.

walkman · #7 (**permalink**) 12-29-2004, 09:11 PM

I would say so. Doesn't the home page gets all the incoming links and the highest PR ?

Dave Hawley · #8 (**permalink**) 12-29-2004, 09:27 PM

Surely we are to assume all else is equal?

pcarlow · #9 (**permalink**) 12-30-2004, 06:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by walkman

I would say so. Doesn't the home page gets all the incoming links and the highest PR ?

Well yes, but for arguments sake, lets compare your inner PR5 page to my PR5 home page. Would Google give more weight to a text link on my home page? The reason I brought this up is because while doing some backlink research I noticed that a relatively small number of home page links has put some sites on the top for competitive keyword phrases. I haven't really analyzed it completely, it was more of just an impression I got while doing research. I could be totally off base.