Page Rank is Less Important than Relevancy

Relevancy outranks Page Rank

When you consider a candidate website on which to place a paid link, ask yourself whether the site has content that is congruent with your own. I believe that relevancy trumps Page Rank when it comes to boosting your search ranking. Don’t get me wrong, PR is very important and useful. It’s just that it won’t necessarily help you if the backlink appears to be coming “out of left field”. Put another way, you can get to Page One of search engine results pages (SERPs) without having a high PR.

A link is relevant if it has a reasonable possibility of reaching your target audience. It can generate traffic directly via click-through links, and indirectly through link juice. For example, if you sell used cars, you may want to advertise (through backlinks) on insurance and lending sites that prospective car buyers might visit. A relevant link is likely to maintain its value over time, even as search algorithms evolve. Google has implemented post-PR algorithms that rank website according to the relevancy of the backlinks. It is looking for, in its own words, “a good match for your query.”

If Google detects that a website is selling non-relevant links, it could deprive it of its PR and you of any benefit from the link. They may also come after you if they figure out you are buying off-topic links. So to minimize risk and maximize value, you want your paid backlinks to be relevant AND to emanate mostly from high PR sites.

A Presell Page is one that has been custom-written to your specifications and contains a natural text link to your site. It has value in two ways:

1)      You can ensure that the content is relevant to your website.

2)      You can be the sole link on the page.

The second point needs elaboration. When multiple links exist on the same page, they tend to dilute each other’s effectiveness. Not only will a Presell Page present your link in a natural context, it will confer the full amount of boost available from the linking page.

In general, it is recommended buying links only on pages that will limit the maximum number of links to 15 or fewer. More than 15 links on a page results in thinned-out link juice and also raises your risk profile. Internal links are also dilutive, so they should be counted within the 15 maximum. With a Presell Page, the issue is moot.

Finally, make sure that the writing quality of a Presell Page is up to snuff. Many a professional writer makes a living doing work like this, so the quality can vary. Ask to see samples of existing Presell Pages before ordering up one of your own.

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Copyright 2011 Eric Bank, Freelance Writer

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