Sitewide VS Editorial page, wich one is worth the most?

[G-Force]

Hello fellow SEOMozzers,

For a long time I've been wondering what would give the most SEO benefits for a keyword based query between these :

1. A sitewide footer link on SiteA with keyword anchor text to SiteB homepage

2. A sitewide footer link on SiteA with brand name to SiteB homepage

3. A single link on SiteA homepage to SiteB homepage

4. An editorial page on SiteA about SiteB with links to homepage and deep pages

Did someone ever did that kind of experiments?  Is anyone having better results with one kind of link strategy?

Best regards,
Guillaume Voyer.

[TellThemEverything]

#3 or #4. Think of about.com - getting a link or two from an article on there is great, and makes sense to google. Getting a link from the front page (content area) is a great endorsement too. #1 and #2 are easily discounted by bots and users alike as being lower quality.

[HiveDigitalInc]

It really depends on the site's needs. Let's say that you already have acquired enough anchor text specific links but need to water down your links with greater brand and/or anchor text diversity. A sitewide link with your brand may be just what your site needs (plus it makes it look like you have a ton of links, discouraging potential competitors).

If you haven't yet acquired enough exact match anchor text, I would go with ane ditorial page with a single link to the single page that you are trying to promote. The 3 links-per-page thing is beginning to become an easy footprint for blog-review style link building.

That being said, in terms of pure PageRank / mozRank passed, a sitewide link would pass the most. Whether that correlates with rankings is a totally different question.

[elephantseo]

Guillame,

There are a lot of factors that go into this including the authority of the site you are getting the link from. If I had to pick just one then I would go with #3 most of the time.