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Exactly. And so, would it not be greatly beneficial knowledge to all of us to know if and when a limit is reached where this strategy is no longer effective?

For example, there are many PR8 sites with literally hundreds of PR6 pages that allow dofollow commenting. We can alter anchor text and the deeplink to gain links from these PR6 pages. The question is when does this strategy become ineffective? Let's say our site has 100k pages. Should we spend our time getting a link from every available PR6 page from the same domain? Or is there a diminishing value?

Having some sort of a study that's tried and proven to show if a persistent benefit exists, and when it wears off, would be invaluable to practical SEO, and the results of a study such as this are highly unlikely to change within a year.

Surely you'd like to see something like this too?

I do understand the need to keep SEO in-line with Matt Cutt's objectives, however the reality is that Matt Cutts objectives and what works are two different things. There would be no such thing as off-site SEO at all if Google worked the way it meant to. The thing is, is that it doesn't, and that is why off-site SEO exists.

Instead of people giving hogwash answers, we should be demanding these sorts of useful studies. That is just my opinion anyway.

I wasn't asking to pin point anything to decimal places. I was only after peoples view on whether its "a little bit more" or "probably nothing" etc. That way I can see who here actually knows anything about SEO.

Hi Ryan,

You're quite right. The site does offer some useful tools and interviews. In fact for that reason alone I will be retaining my membership. I wasn't really after a secret handshake, but more sharing of analysis data.

Marcus,

I appreciate the good natured will of your post, and I thank you for that. However as I stated to Egol, I am not by any means new to SEO. Please don't let my small post count here deceive you.

The links you provided regarding "asking the experts" is what is known in science as an "appeal to authority", which has no relevance whatsoever to evidence. Just because some prominent scientists, or SEO's, give their opinion about something, even if it is in the vast majority, does not constitute evidence. Those, myself included, who know more than many of the names mentioned within those lists, care not for opinions, but replicatable tests. This is how any knowledge is truly understood.

I do very much respect the ideas presented here, and the community, and in fact have learned some non-technical SEO related things. I especially applaud the Whiteboard Friday section. However I'm not really after trends, or patterns, but rather a discussion regarding specific questions, such as the one brought up in a previous discussion I created.

Can you tell me the diminishing value of a sitewide link vs a single homepage link for example? And how is it you know the answer to this? That is what I want studies demonstrating, so we can analyze this in detail and work out finer points of the algorithm which, despite common theory, doesn't change as much as everyone believes.

Egol I agree with you wholeheartedly, though I'm not as much of a newbie as you seem to infer.

The information is indeed kept secret to maintain a competitive advantage, though I thought this site may have revealed some of its own studies. My primary reason for joining here wasn't to learn as much as it was to compare analysis of various SEO algorithms, and I cannot seem to do that here.

One thing I'm sure you're aware given the dynamic, changing nature of SEO is that an understanding of even some temporary aspect, be it for only a few months until it is changed, can bring in huge profits.

Not all fields of SEO are like this however. Some aspects of SEO which haven't changed for years are not even discussed, such as the topic raised in a previous discussion I created. We can study these aspects with near the same level of detail we can study the electron configuration of atoms, it simply requires observation and deduction. This is what I was hoping for.

Perhaps I've learned too much about the technical aspects of SEO, but nowhere have I found scientific studies backing up any claims made here, or a useful answer to a discussion I recently started.

Maybe it doesn't exist. I do enjoy Whiteboard Friday's. They're fantastic for new ideas. This site is great. But I take it there are no proper studies conducted that examine SEO, rather just the usual spin of "belief from authority".

No?

Obviously no one here knows much about SEO. Oh well.

It depends on the keyword you want to target. Check the local search volume in the Google Keyword Tool, and target that term. Make sure the site is set in Webmaster tools to be targeted locally. It is no different from any other keyword.

Interesting take on the matter. What are everyone elses thoughts?

Are the keyword terms this "SEO Company" is ranking you under receiving any actual searches?

Interesting analysis Jake.

Your response then opens another question, do inlinks from different domains on the same IP have the same value as inlinks from different subnets, and if they don't, then do the value of the links increase as the subnet becomes greater? (eg, a different class C subnet being better than just a different class D subnet etc).

If the IP address itself didn't matter, then would it be better to have two links from separate domains on the same IP, or two links from the same domain but on different subdomains with different IPs?

Look forward to your results too, as I haven't found a study where this has been properly analyzed to any great detail.

I've been partaking in an extensive trial study and will be releasing the results soon, however I do have quite a strong indication to the answer to this question but would like to see what everyone else thinks first, to see where the common industry mindset is at.

Let's say SiteA.com/page1.html is PR5 and links out to SiteB.com/page1.html

This of course would count as a valuable backlink.

Now, what would happen if SiteA.com/page2.html, which is also PR5, links out to SiteB.com/page2.html ?

The link from SiteA is coming from a different page, and is also pointing to a different deeplink on SiteB, however it will contain the same IP address.

What would the benefit be for having multiple deeplinks in this way (as outlined above, please read it carefully before responding) as opposed to having just a single deeplink from the domain?

If a benefit does exist, then does the benefit start to become trivial?

This has nothing to do with sitewide links. Serious answers only please.

I think he means that by masking the link it makes hoplink theft more difficult, and also savy users would be less aware that the links are in fact affiliate links.

"I personally think that Google's got this kind of spam figured out."

Really?

Candida,

We will need more details from Google analytics in order to determine a more likely cause for the problem. As Daniel suggested, it could be the Farmer Update if these changes occurred over the past month, but it could be something else.

What I suggest you do is view the entrance sources for the actual pages that received the drop in traffic. What keywords specifically received this hit? What keywords didn't? What sort of optimization did you do for the keywords that received the hit?

You should be using redirects as a means of masking your affiliation from the site visitor, not from search engines. I can't see anything wrong with using PHP redirects, but do them to prevent hoplink theft, as there's no actual SEO advantage since Google can see through redirects.

I find the analysis tools I use now are pretty much limited to Powersuite and seomoz. I don't use auditing software that much, and therefore haven't explored Website Audit to its full potential, so won't be able to give any feedback there.

I strongly suggest you download the software and try the trial. They also have great support. I've made many suggestions and reported bugs and have always received timely responses.

I've used tonnes of SEO tools, and powersuite pretty much has a permanent presence in my "necessities" collection. SEO Spyglass is far more powerful and useful than any other tool I've used (and I've tried many). Ranktracker and LinkAssistant are handy little tools I use every day too. Don't use Website Auditor much.

In short, it beats the other SEO junk software out there.