The Secret

John Scott · 07-09-2004, 02:59 AM

In SEO forums we often see the anti-PageRank crowd claiming that PageRank means nothing in regard to search engine rankings, even on Google. One blaring example of this is found in the search for Internet Marketing. The number two position is held by internetmarketinginfo.com, with a paltry PR6.

On the other side of the fence, PR lovers can often point out some super competitive keyword phrases where the top positions are all held by PR8's and higher. And, you won't find a PR3 in the top for pretty much any worthwhile search term.

Part of the equation is of course that PageRank is not the only factor in determining rankings. Page titles, body copy, anchor text of IBL's - these are also factors in rankings.

But the problem I see is this. Site-wide links, such as the links that we buy from the Internet.com network, will increase PageRank without necessarily increasing ranking to the same degree.

Or, let me put it this way. Link building is indeed the way to top rankings. Getting links with the right anchor text is the key to SEO. But - here's the secret - it's not the number of links per se, but the number of unique domains and IP's that are linking to you.

Why does internetmarketinginfo.com outrank many other sites with higher PR? Let's look at the backlinks.

www.internet-marketing-research.net PR8
19,100 backlinks
In DMOZ : Yes
In Yahoo: Yes
Unique linking domains: 13 (Out of top 1,000 reported backlinks)

www.internetmarketinginfo.com PR6
536 backlinks
In DMOZ : No
In Yahoo: No
Unique linking domains: 349 (Out of top 1,000 reported backlinks)

PageRank-wise, Internet-Marketing-Research.net blows the other out of the water. But the other has a mostly single links from many, many unique domains.

It's not about PR. It's about anchor text links from unique IP's.

crazyhorse · 07-09-2004, 03:18 AM

cheers for sharing that info JS....

I ll jsut keep working on the links then.

cray · 07-09-2004, 05:22 AM

Thanks for the info

I, Brian · 07-09-2004, 05:31 AM

This "secret" has been a v7n/IMR mantra for a long time now.

John Scott · 07-09-2004, 05:32 AM

True.

Johan007 · 07-09-2004, 08:22 AM

What about deferent domains on the same IP? Is there any evidence that show that its actually the IP and not the domain?

nandini · 07-09-2004, 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johan007

What about deferent domains on the same IP? Is there any evidence that show that its actually the IP and not the domain?

Different domain don`t effect much if they share same IP.
when you go to your hosting provider, he can offer you Uniqie IP Address. virtual IP Address and shared IP Address.

You are talking about shared IP Address.
John is talking about Unique IP Address, or you can say diiferent Class C IP addresses.

John I too noticed the same thing... BLs, PR and Link Text (Anchor text).. very important + links from different class IP address have more impact on SERP than anything else. And this has been proved at so many places, even in your articles.. Monster.com. Apple.com etc which don`t have jobs and computer kws in the entire pages.

And onsite SEO, is useless when it comes to rankings of commercial or competitive kwds. But then also my opinion is to optimise your site also.

Now my reason is monster is in top 5 for jobs.com ... very good.. apple is in top 5 for computers.

But how many serious buyers search for single words.. not anymore.. I really miss good old days.. They know what they exactly want to buy. so they will directly go to apple.com or monster.com without the help of google.
Only if they are a bit unsure they will take help of google....for eg.. they will search cheap computers, computer deals, pentium 4 computers, jobs in usa, jobs in america.... Now where are apple.com and monster.com...

If and only if they would have used a little of onsite SEO (with such a high PR), they would have captured everything, all the traffic...

This is what I believe in, fight till your enemy is dead. My client get optimisation for maximum keywords. Most competitive keywords are optimised through JohnScott methodoly, link or anchor text... but since there is a limit to lenght of anchor text (depends upon your linking partners devotion for you...pun intended), you have to get rest of the traffic by doing onsite SEO...Again which is not possible until and unless you have got a good PR (I am resorting to John's help again..)
I hope he doesn`t kick me out this time.

I will go after Backward links, different class C IP address. Directories, same topic sites etc...
But will also do onsite optimization..

So in brief I say onsite and offsite optimization should be done hand in hand. One is King and otheris Queen. But offsite SEO is definately more powerful... No doubt...

------- Just my opinion -------

loki · 07-09-2004, 10:06 AM

along these lines, i'd love to get a reseller hosting programme that could put each website on a different IP.

and if they were in the UK i'd be laughing.

nandini · 07-09-2004, 10:10 AM

Yeah i am doing the same.. I have got 10-20 websites, and I have partnered with one of my host to provide me all fifferent class C IP address... But remember they shouldnot be virtual or Shared IP address....

If you have any other problem regarding this... Let me know..

Pinyo · 07-09-2004, 10:19 AM

Thanks for sharing the "secret"

bcyber · 07-09-2004, 10:51 AM

How do you check to see how many unique linking domains you have?

awall19 · 07-09-2004, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bcyber

How do you check to see how many unique linking domains you have?

usually different site owners have different ip addresses. if you think some sites are in common you can do an IP lookup. If memory serves I think you can do this from www.whois.sc

samer · 07-09-2004, 12:47 PM

nice info JS, thanks.

RonHollingsworth · 07-09-2004, 02:30 PM

I don't think having a dedicated IP is necessary.

I, Brian · 07-09-2004, 03:54 PM

Btw - as a side note - is BlueFind in the sandbox for all those advertising links?

Shawn · 07-09-2004, 05:09 PM

I agree with this, but what about a situation where say msn.com linked over to a auto website using autos in the anchor text. Would sites that had more unique backlinks from places like joebobsblog.com beat that site that msn linked to?

Lets say for hypothetical purposes that the site msn linked to is bobsauto.com and msn was it's only backlink, but autobook.com had 500 backlinks from different ip's but none were huge authority sites like msn. Would autobook.com still win?

Shawn · 07-09-2004, 05:23 PM

Also, lets say someone has a directory and the directory has categories like cars, widgets, houses, etc. Why do some directories whose backlinkins of the actual pages that are for example:

www.directory.com/cars-category/

rank #1 for terms, when the only backlinks that page are from the same site, ie the directory structure.

So, when using your philosophy, does it just mean the number of unique backlinks to the domain...not that page? I thought search engines dont index sites, they index pages?

If so that means that the pages which only have one unique backlink (itself) are outranking sites with many more unique backlinks.

So now Im confused

Shawn · 07-09-2004, 05:26 PM

Also, would the age of the sites matter? For example, the theory that google rewards older sites? (Not the sandbox theory)

Example:

1999-07-29 internetmarketinginfo.com/

13-feb-2003 INTERNET-MARKETING-RESEARCH.NET

UKZJ007 · 07-09-2004, 06:51 PM

Thanks for sharing the secret. Great Article!

nandini · 07-09-2004, 07:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RonHollingsworth

I don't think having a dedicated IP is necessary.

There is a difference b/w dedicated IP and a unique IP Address.
I am just saying if you have two sites, host them on different servers, so that they have different class C IP addresses.
And you can even go for shared IP Address, but its better to avoid shared IP addresses...

Links from different class C IP address matters a lot.

--- Just my opinion ---