How Google could quickly fix the whole Links problem...
-
A Thursday morning brainstorm that hopefully an important Google manager will see...
Google could quickly end all the problems of link buying, spammy links, and negative SEO with one easy step: Only count the 100 best follow links to any domain.
Ignore all the nofollows and everything beyond the 100 best. They can choose what "best" means.
Suddenly links would be all about quality. Quantity would not matter. Fiverr links, comment links, and all the other mass-produced spam links would literally be ignored. Unless that's all a domain had, and then they would surely be stomped by any domain with 100 decent natural links.
Would it be an improvement over today's situation?
-
It's a cool thought, and it very well be an improvement over today's situation. The major reservation that jumped out at me was that it would hurt fresh content. I'm guessing 100 was a number you just threw out there, but whatever the number, once a site hits that number of quality links, they wouldn't need to produce anything else. Well, at least in terms of link building, they wouldn't need to produce anything else.
Also, different size sites would need different numbers. For example, 100 really high quality DA of 90 and above links would take my site a long time to get, but, Moz, for example, probably already has that. If you decide to make the number really high, 10,000 high quality DA of 90 then it might take Moz awhile to get that, but since neither myself, nor any of my competitors will ever reach number, it's not much of a deterrent for us to get fivver, comment links.
- Ruben
-
Hi Gregory,
I like your thinking, but Google would then need to rely heavily on other ranking factors in order to establish higher authority between websites that have equally strong links in their top 100. There's plenty of websites that have equally fantastic, relevant and followed links in their 100 - how would Google decide which one is most relevant and authoritative?
Thinking about it, it could become quite problematic. A new startup entering an established market with a strong product or USP might be able to acquire 100+ high-quality press links and suddenly level up with a competitor who's been in the game for years - perhaps even a heritage brand - and has the extensive portfolio of good quality links to prove it.
I like the idea, but I don't think Google uses its other ranking signals enough yet to take such drastic action.
Don't you think?
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
-
I can get hundreds of natural links from real estate agent sites, but should I?
I have a website that generate leads for real estate agents nationwide. I have an auto email that sends out the referral agreement and in the email I ask them to place a link to our website on their site somewhere to be a part of the program. I can get as many as 10-15 links in a few hours in every major city in the U.S. Most realtor websites have websites that are new, or haven't posted blogs and have a Moz domain score of 1 and trust score of 1. I have been thinking of only selecting websites with descent Moz rankings instead of having all agents link to me, even ones with a low moz score. Is it a bad idea to get a bunch of links from legitimate websites that have low Moz scores?
Industry News | | esv21110 -
Google Cached "Text Only" version
Is there a way to test what a page would look like in Google "Text Only" version before a page is indexed in Google? Is there a tool out there to help with this?
Industry News | | activejunky10 -
How to report rankings after the Google Venice update?
As a profesional agency we focus on traffic and conversions, but rankings are still a good KPI to please customers. Unfortunately rankings are not reliable anymore sinds the Google Venice update. My question is; "How can you still report about rankings, but without the risk that your customer sees total different results?" Software we use At the moment we use Rank Tracker from Link Assistant.
Industry News | | VanSoelen0 -
How to go about removing bad/irrelevent links?
We have been made aware of a series of irrelevant links on some rather dodgy sites. http://www.designerdogstop.com/level-static/http://www.bestfirepits.net/some-of-the-best-vacations-for-families/2010/05/05/ http://whatcigarsdoismoke.com/cigar-lighters/cigarette-cigar-2/ http://dollfuss.org/build-bear-hawaii/ Absolute rubbish im sure you will agree. These links must surely be causing our link profile some damage. They are currently wordpress sites with no means of contacting the authors. What ways and means are there of removing these negative pages and links? Cheers all, any help appreciated.
Industry News | | TimHolmes0 -
Why Does OSE (Open Site Explorer) have such little backlink data on russian sites in the google.ru index?
OK this seems v strange, but google.ru are indexing far more BLs in their SERPS for a widget than OSE reports. Very little data is found in OSE for russian based sites. Is this the marketing intention? (I could send raw data if needed!) What is filtering this vast google.ru data list out? Is OSE only catered for US/UK?
Industry News | | Turkey0 -
Anyone know how to get into Google Advisor search?
Looking for information on how to get into Google Advisor (https://www.google.com/advisor/home). Google is rolling out their own meta search engines in select categories right now - finance and hotels to start - but i cant find any documentation, help or data on how to get yourself in that feed/search. Anyone have experience in with this yet?
Industry News | | rhutchings0 -
Googles' Anonymous data sharing "pool"
Is sharing this information good for my websites? And Is it Open information for anyone to hack into, and see my sites analytics? Bottom line, good or a bad thing?
Industry News | | smstv0 -
How to remove a Google algorithmic penalty
My site has a Google penalty. I seem to be stuck in the 64th position for a Google search for my sites name. All my keywords that I used to rank well for are now well above the 60th search place in Google. I have resolved the issue I recieved the penalty for and I have asked Google for reconsideration. That has been about 3 months ago. The penalty is still firmly in place. I was wondering if anyone else has had a Google algorithmic penalty removed and if so how did they accomplish this?
Industry News | | tadden0