Do links from unrelated sites dilute your rankings for your key phrases?
-
do links from unrelated sites dilute your rankings for your key phrases? i've always heard don't get links from unrelated sites but if that mattered, then how would sites with totally diverse pages such as newspaper sites, sears, and other catalogue sites rank for these diverse subjects on their site? How does Facebook rank when it gets 100,000 links a day from sites that have nothing to do with a social media site? I'd love to hear everyone's opinion on this. Also, Do links from unrelated sites give less push than related links?
Take care,
Ron -
Thanks so much Ross!
-
IT won't hurt your site and will probably pass back some benefit but just how irrelevant is it? Back in the days of the Google wonder wheel, I was amazed to see how Google deemed certain topics semantically related.
The best thing to do is look at the domain authority in open site explorer. If it is above 30 you are probably on to a winner. If you were to write an article for SEO Moz that detailed how to do SEO as a musician, that would be a great link and a great article. IF you wrote an article for SEO Moz that explained tri tone substitution or chord progressions, that would be a bad article and a poorer quality link.
If the site is more than a year old i wouldn't be scared of throwing some less relevant links at it, as long as you don't nail the same anchor text and don't leave any footprints.
Hope that helps. .
-
Hey Ron,
That's a great idea. Google won't think you site is an employment site but it will think the page is related to employment in some way.
If you have a link that directs back to your brand promo page this will help it rank for the terms you want.
To make sure the promo page is coming up for the right terms, link to internally with the keyword (or a variation of) that you want to rank for. Also remember to make sure the keyword is in your meta title.
Another thing you might want to look into is getting a gig at the local student unions and making sure they link out to your band page with the official student union site. These types of links would also be valuable long term.
Hope that helps,
Ross.
-
For a good laugh, take a look at what Google's captioning system thinks Ross is saying. I don't think it handles non-American accents as well.
Ross, for the people who cannot view YouTube videos or have audio at their workplace, could you include at least a brief summary in your answer in this forum? Thanks so much!
-
One more question on relevance, is guest blogging for links worth the effort if it's an irrelevant blog but your post is very relevant to your site?
Will the promised "do follow" link you can earn from SEOMOZ hurt your rankings for your key phrases if your site is not an SEO site?
-
Hi Ross! I'm honored that you made a video response for my questions, thanks so much for the extra effort! You said i really needed to be more specific, so here's what actually coined my questions. I have a rock band site that i'm promoting and to get some high authority links, i was planning on creating a page that had lots of employment resources for music students and then email the music colleges in my state this information to get them to link to this employment resource page from their employment resources page and then funnel the page rank to my bands promo pages. Is this a good idea or will Google now think that my band site is an employment site? Thanks in advance for your input!
Take care,
Ron
-
Hey Ron,
Hope you are doing well. I put together a video answering you question for you
Hope you find it helpful.
Thanks,
Ross
-
Interesting question but got some easy answer for this!
Yes, links from unrelated sites are going to impact negatively on your website and possibility you will witness a dip in rankings from your desired key phrases. The reason why websites like newspapers and social media platforms like facebook are ranking when they are getting links from all Tom, Dick and harry websites is because news papers and social media platforms are talking various different topics… news paper in a day talks about international news, business news, talibans, and Hollywood movie reviews… similar is the case with social media so it’s possible for them to link from every different website.
Plus, Links when build have patterns that Google can track, there is a huge difference in pattern between building links and getting links naturally… Google possibility can track this and then analyze things accordingly.
Also, Google have 200+ signals that Google keep in mind when ranking websites against keyphrases so you never know if links are the real problems why you are witnessing a dip in rankings from your desired key phrases.
-
Its not about related or unrelated sites but its about Is it natural ? For example, Suppose I have seo case study of my website and I write blogpost in seomoz in which I mention out URL my website which is natural.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Home Page not ranking?
Hey guys, I'm working on a relatively new client and have noticed that all the initial rankings that we have point towards a sub page rather than the home page. Only a branded search appears to bring up the home page which seems really strange. Any ideas? Home page; www.geraldmiller.com Sub page (ranking); www.geraldmiller.com/dwi-dui-defense
Algorithm Updates | | Webrevolve0 -
How does this site rank no 1 for big terms with no optimisation?
Hi, A client recently asked me abut a site that appears to have popped up out of nowhere and is ranking for big terms within their industry: http://bit.ly/11jcpky I have looked at the site for a particular term: Cheap Beds I was using unpersonalised search on google.co.uk with location set to London. The site currently ranks no 1 for that term and other similar terms. The question is how? SEO Moz reports no backlinks (they must have blocked?) Ahrefs and Majestic report report some backlinks but not many and no anchor text with the term in. The Page title and meta do not contain the term nor does the page seem to contain the term anywhere. The domain does have some age though has no keyword match in the URL. I'm a little stumped to how they are achieving these results. Any Ideas Anyone?
Algorithm Updates | | JeusuDigital0 -
Are links irrelevant now?
After having one of my sites trashed by penguin, I rebuilt it on a new domain. Pretty much everything was the same except for the look of the site plus I decreased the keyword density and did a few other things to avoid future Penguin penalties. I created a small number of directory links. My site is now maybe 6 months old, doesn't get much traffic, however I wa suprised to see that my main keyword " uncontested divorce lawyer" is now ranking number 1 in google in US ! This despite the EMD update. The domain name is www.uncontesteddivorce-lawyer.com . Like I said I still don't get a lot of traffic on this site. I have another site which until recently was driving over 500 visitors a month, since November it has declined to 350 a month. This site is over 4 years old and was unaffected by all the updates, until recently. It too is an EMD but has more links. Not co complain but can anyone explain the #1 rating? Also it would appear that links are practically irrelevant. I have read and heard that practically no one is linking to content, instead they are sharing, liking, etc. Any comments
Algorithm Updates | | diogenes0 -
Please provide tips and tricks to improve alexa rankings.
Even though we have constant traffic our alexa is flickering between 9000 to 10000 Please let me know what should i do to get 7000 rank. Here is the link to our website. http://www.teluguone.com saikiran
Algorithm Updates | | saikiranvijay0 -
What do you think Google analyzes for SERP ranking?
I've been doing some research trying to figure out how the Google algorithm works. The one thing that is constant is that nothing is constant. This makes me believe that Google takes a variable that all sites have and divides it by that number. One example would be taking the load time in MS and dividing it by the total number or points the website scored. This would give all of the websites a random appearance since there that variable would throw off all the other constants. I'm going to continue doing research but I was wondering what you guys think matters in the Google Algorithm. -Shane
Algorithm Updates | | Seoperior0 -
Javascript hidden divs, links to anchor content
Hello, I am working on a web project that breaks up its sections by utilizing hidden divs shown via javascript activated through anchor links. http://www.janandtom.com/ First question: Is this SEO suicide? I have confirmed that the content is being indexed by searching for specific text but have been led to believe that hidden div content will be afforded a lower 'importance'. One suggestion has having the text as display:block and then hiding it on page load. Will this make a difference? Second: Is there any way to have Google index the anchored content by the specific anchor text? An example for the second question: If you search google right now for: buyers like to look at floorplans Tom & Jan You will get a link to: http://www.janandtom.com but I would rather it be: [http://www.janandtom.com/#Interactive Floorplans](http://www.janandtom.com/#Interactive Floorplans) Sorry if this is redundant or addressed before. I tried searching the questions but wasn't getting and definitive direction to go and this project is a little unique for me. Also, I'm just getting my feet we into this 'high-end' seo (new member of SEOMoz) so please bear with me. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | MASSProductions0 -
SEO Ranking & Brand Names
I have several situations where one of my sites rank organically in 4th or 5th place for a specific search term relating to a 'big brand' .. I usually fall in behind the brands main website .. commercially this is very good for me. Let me give you an example .. in google.co.uk type in 'thomas cook exchange rates'. I rank position 4 (comparecurrency.co.uk). Position 1-3 are thomas cook's own pages. Naturally. However, my question is .. could I outrank them and how could I initially measure the effort involved in getting to position 1? I noticed Google recently put me into position 1 for this term and then quickly (within a few days) pulled me back down to position 4. Does anyone have any experience of this type of search positioning and have any information that may help me? My gut feel is that I have maybe maxed out the economically viable potential of these keywords and that I should invest my SEO $s into other phrases? Thanks in advance Olly
Algorithm Updates | | ojkingston0 -
Rankings changing based on location within a country... normal?
I recently had a satellite office across the country come to me and say that they couldn't find us on Google, based on a number of keywords they were searching on. I thought that isn't right... I know we rank for those terms. So, I did a search here, and there we were for those very terms, and ranking quite nicely. Sooo, what's going on there? I know there are variations from Google.com to Google.ca in terms of ranking. But within Google.ca I've not seen this before. Can anyone shed some light on that?
Algorithm Updates | | atcosl0