How Google, MSN, Yahoo count links.

[sniperhiga]

My experience and opinion:

Link from directory:

Google - loosing value.
Yahoo - loosing value.
MSN - still good for ranking

Reciprocal link

Google - loosing value
Yahoo - small value
MSN - Can ban website if more than 50% links reciprocal

Related Site - In Content

Google - Top value
Yahoo - Good value
MSN - Top value (can place website with 1 link on front page if you are lucky)

Link from Not related site

Google - Reduce value (see pagerank and ammount of other links)
Yahoo - Reduce value (anchor should match metatags)
MSN - still count good

Link from forum without nofollow

Google - doesn't really like and can give red flag if you have too many
Yahoo - same like Google
MSN - still count

Sitewide link

Google - Doesn't care
Yahoo - Pay little attention
MSN - Count well

*Good to have if front page has 200 other links with pr6 and other page has pr5 and only your link.

Link Farm

Google - Hates is
Yahoo - Hates it
MSN - It is still works for some sites and i saw some examples.

Link on the page with 100+ other links

Google - Only if pr6+ , .edu site , or all links 100% related
Yahoo - reduce value
MSN - reduce value

EDU sites

Good to have for all search engines. Google count more.

Awards, Top sites, Best sites, prize from trusted resources

Google - count like any other good link
Yahoo - loves it
MSN - count the same way like any other link

Quality Pagerank

Google - loves it but it not as it used to be
Yahoo - there are gosips that Yahoo check pagerank also
MSN - I have no clue They rank sites wierd

Link from nice blog

Google - love it
Yahoo - Count like any other link
MSN - Count well

100+ links overnight

Google - doesn't like fast link building, can be long delay before your site will go up.
Yahoo - 50/50 depends where this liks appeared
MSN - work fine

Anchor

Google - very important, count even if you don't have this words in content or metatags
Yahoo - always check metatags
MSN - vwry important

Keyword spam

Google - Fast way to get banned
Yahoo - Long delay to get positions
MSN - somethimes work fine

Links from articles

Google - good if article are uique. Can little loose value if you submitted the same article in many article directories
Yahoo - count like any other link
MSN - count like any other link

Deep links (links for other pages than homepage)

Google - great way to get better positions, index more pages, and spread Pagerank.
Yahoo - good, try build nice anchor also.
MSN - good.

Link from Yahoo directory

Google - don't really count
Yahoo -good way to increase positions
MSN - count like quality link

Link from DMOZ

Google - like it
Yahoo - I belive they check tham all the time and give better positions if you listed
MSN - count like any other link

Social bookmarks. Digg, Del.icio.us, Furl

Google - like tham
Yahoo - I belive they check them
MSN - count like any other link

Link with nofollow

Google - doesnt' count, but i belive they still count some Wiki, Slashdot, and other top sites. (it doesn't affect ranking but play role to ban website or keep in index)
Yahoo - I belive they check this links once in a while
MSN - I think that they still count this links and give better positions for not competitive keywords.

Extra about Yahoo: I believe that Yahoo check Pagerank, Google results, Google banned sites, Alexa, Trust, Digg, Del.Icio.Us, DMOZ, Wikipedia and other statistic, awards, top sites.


So, it is what i found. What do you think?

[MakePB]

Interesting. Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

[Janna122003]

Thanks for sharing your experience.

[digiweb]

Excellent work...

[maldives]

Overall a good call!

[sheena]

Thanks for the info and it is interesting

[Kasparoff]

Get some green

[sniperhiga]

I also noticed that Google count well links from press release, trusted blog, good appearence in social bookmark sites (front page or saved by many users).
That's why it is important once in a while to pay for press release or pr7 blog PPP.
If your site has 0 chance to appear in "Boston Globe Official site" or "Discovery Channel News"... don't miss a chance to pay once in year for pr7 blog or press release for $100-200 in local official newspaper.
As example i can give you a website which used to have great positions when "New York Times" wrote article about this them.
http://www.everynote.com/NYTimes.htm
They have only 100 backlinks and they was compeeting with websites who had 1000s backlinks... When article became too old and was placed in "New York Post" archieve which richable only for registered / subscribed users... website dropped back on positions they deserved with only 100 backlinks.

[thecat]

Google rates any link valuable that is embedded in relevant content text.