Web site links policy
As a web site owner you will get requests from others to place a link from your website to theirs. It sounds like a win-win proposal - is it that simple? Should you agree?
Not automatically. Google's PR (PageRank) system gives an indication of their assessment of linking between your web site and others. They have a patent on the PR system so we do know a bit about how it works.
They assign a PR value to each web page based on the number and quality of links with other websites.
It is possible for anyone to find the PR of each individual web page. Some people think this is the magic bullet: get a high PR and you'll get top ranking on Google. It's not, PR is just one of over 200 factors Google consider. A high PR is better than a low one but it makes only a marginal difference to your search results position. In any case getting a high PR is not achieved by gathering dozens of links with other websites, it's a lot more complicated than that. Google are not at all generous with their PR ratings - of course their own sites do well but otherwise UK "household names" like Tesco might get as high as 7, well known global brands (like Amazon books) 8 but realistic figures for small businesses are usually in the range 2-4.
Good quality links to and from your website may benefit you and your visitors. Low quality links will damage your Google PR.
Don't be confused by PR, it is not the measure of your site's importance to Google it is just one of very many measures they use.
This is how to decide who to link with:
- Are they proposing that you pay? Ignore them, Google will reset the page rank to zero for sites that they find charging for links.
- Visit their home page - how easy is it to find their links page? If it's hard to find then their aim is to mislead Google rather than send "real" visitors to your website.
- Don't accept links from sites with lower PR than yours.
- Having found their links page, look at some of the links they have. Are they about goods, services or information which might in some way be relevant to visitors to the parent site? Are there a few good quality relevant links or dozens of links to second-rate irrelevant sites?
- How "self-interested" do they sound? Is their request is along the lines of "tell us when you've done as we ask and we'll add a link back to your site"? More reassuring would be "We believe visitors to our site may be interested in yours and we would like your permission to add a link. We would also be grateful if you were to add a link back to our site."
- Can you tell if the request has come from the site owner or from an intermediary who may be less selective in their choice of links and more interested in quantity than relevance.
- What does their proposed link from your site to theirs look like? Do they want an image link which might detract from your page? Typically a text link will be a short phrase as the link text with an associated sentence of description. Do you agree with the sentiment of that text? As the link is going to be on your web site the link may look like some kind of personal endorsement from you.
- Are you proactive or reactive? That's to say do you have a thought out strategic links policy, are you seeking link exchanges with carefully selected partners or are you just reacting when someone asks for a link. It should be obvious which of those approaches will deliver the most benefit to you. Even if you are being largely reactive that will be more effective if you have established a policy.
If you do link to other web-sites these are some things to consider:
- Will the links be useful to your customers.
- Do I want the target site to benefit from my high PR?
- Do I risk losing the customer's interest to the other site?
- Pages with large numbers of diverse links from your site may look to Google like a "link farm" and so damaging to your search position.
- If the customer does link to the other site will they find a list of your competitors there and risk you losing the customer?
- How prominent should the link be? If it's on the home page you risk people going there before you've had the chance to tell them about your product.
- Should the linked page replace yours or open in a new window? Your web designer can control this behaviour.
- Think carefully about the link you would like the other party to show - it is intended to attract visitors but should also be "Google friendly" and incorporate one or two relevant key phrases.
- Do bear in mind that there's a cost associated with adding a link, it may only be a few minutes of your time "time is money", don't you have more productive uses for your time?
- Is the pursuit of a high PR an example of "the tail wagging the dog"?. Never mind about the effect on Google, are the links between websites in themselves delivering value to your website visitors? Get that right and you've probably got it right for Google PR too.
- Links pages are easier to implement but not as valuable as "natural" links. That's where the link is embedded in the body of some text. I might write "My website designers did a great job and worked alongside a search optimisation expert, between the two I'm more than pleased with the result".
What is "a good site" ?
That depend on who you ask and what is important to them. Google are concerned with factors like relevance, authority, textual content, some aspects of "correct" use of the underlying technologies. Others may be making aesthetic judjements - that's valid but not really relevant to Google.
I regard legal compliance as telling feature - not so much because of the legal aspect but because the legal requirement is reflecting what from a customer's, perspective is "good practise". It amy also reflect the web site owner's attitude to compliance with the law. Company law requires that "company communications" (which now specifically includes web and email communications) include company registration number and registered address. Surely you would require at least that of anyone you are doing business with - also a phone number and email address (or web based enquiry form).
There are some special cases to think about too.
Your action is a matter of individual choice depending on your circumstances and commercial relationships.
- If you are a paying member of a trade association or professional body you should have an expectation that they will provide links from their website to yours. If not, seek the support of other members and raise it at the AGM.
- As a manufacturer should you link to retailers of your product? This is closely linked to whether you sell direct to the public. In general there is probably mutual benefit. But what if the retailer sells a competitor's product too? Might you lose sales?
- If you only link to some retailers then others will not unreasonably ask why you are favouring them. You should establish a links policy you can share with them. Perhaps categorise retailers based on sales volume, the extent of your product range they stock, the size of their stockholding, their relationships with your competitors.
- As a retailer should you link to manufacturers of products you sell? The manufacturer may sell direct and may list competing retailers. They may have announcements of new products which will damage your ability to sell stocks of the older model. On the other hand the information the manufacturer provides may benefit your customers and save you dealing with unproductive queries - such as manuals for obsolete models.
- As a wholesaler you are "piggy in the middle" and have to think very carefully about links to manufacturers and retailers. Is there a risk of those two parties eliminating you from the supply chain?
In summary: What is our advice
We believe that Google regards links to other sites as indicative of your personal endorsement. You risk losing visitors from your site to the linked site. Google takes the view that you are helping the community of Internet users and so may be deserving of slightly improved position in their results. Nothing is simple with Google - those links should be few and only to good quality, relevant web sites. Be realistic, even the best researched set of links isn't going to catapault you to top listing in Google results. The effect might just be that you are moved from page 97 to page 96. Only in combination with the other 200 factors - and an element of luck - might you hope for more dramatic improvement.
Should you ask permission before linking to another web site.
It is neither obligatory nor common practise but in the rare event of the other party complaining then you should remove the link promptly.
Can I stop someone else linking to my site.
In general it is to your benefit - they are sending visitors to your site. If there is a problem the first option is to ask them to remove the link. In extreme cases we can implement a technical block.
Deep linking.
This refers to links which go deep into another web site rather than, say, the home page. Deep links can be used to give access to useful information on another web-site without the visitor having to navigate to that from the other site's home page. In general deep linking is bad practise and can result in a legal challenge from the site owner as he may be losing the opportunity to benefit from those visitors. Deep links should only be implemented with the agreement of the site being linked to. Deep links to non-commercial sites, Government Information for example are less contentious.
What about paying for links from well-known directories.
Most common with "business pages" directories and in respect of holiday accommodation. Some are very expensive and not cost effective. If you do choose to try one of these services we can arrange for you to get statistics showing how many visitors they send your way (rather than relying solely on figures they provide). That will at least give you negotiating power at renewal time.
An online "yellow pages" directory who provide free phone and street address listings offered to add our web address for "only" £400 p.a. I wish I could get away with charging £20 per keystroke.
A colleague who had a site listed in one of these told me that he got very impressive reports advising him that for example "3456 people have searched our directory using your key phrase this month". Not so impressive when you find that the "his key phrase" gave over a hundred results and his link was on page 7 - except for a day or two around renewal time when it magically appeared on page one!
Don't pay for links from places you've never heard of and beware of actively promoted "free directory listings". Some of these are scams, you may find you have inadvertently signed up to an "enhanced listing" and will receive an invoice. Even if not you have announced that you are a promising target for such schemes (otherwise known as "a sucker"!) so you'll get more approaches of a similar nature.