Interlinking Hubs

1. 86

   Marisa Wrightposted 14 years ago

   This topic has been raised a couple of times in other threads, I thought it was worth posting as a separate topic to get more attention. 
   
   We all know how important backlinks are.  Current thinking is that simply exchanging links (site A links to site B and site B links to site A) is a waste of time because Google has gotten wise to that.  So what people try to do is arrange at least a three-way link (site A links to site B, site B links to site C, and site C links to site A).
   
   One or two Hubbers have said they don't believe link swaps are a waste of time, but let's leave that argument aside and assume the above theory is true.
   
   My question is, does the same apply to internal links within HubPages? 
   
   I've seen a few people talk about interlinking their Hubs and I'd be interested to know how far they go - do they link every Hub to every other Hub about the topic, do they avoid direct link swaps between Hubs, or what?

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   1. 65

      Daddy Paulposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Marisa thank you for bringing up this subject, I cannot wait to hear from other hubbers.
      I have more hub traffic since I have been linking relevant hub pages to the ones I have previously written. As an example my hub on selecting the best mutual fund now has links to other pages such as small cap and international funds.
      I think links from relevant sites do matter.

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2. 60

   chinweikeposted 14 years ago

   I want to believe that hubs are like pages in a normal website. if this holds, then i don't think there is anything wrong with interlinking of hubs THAT ARE RELATED (hubs that will add value to the online experience of surfers) with the proper anchor text (if you want to hyperlink anyway)
   
   I have a website where i only interlink and still rank well (though other off-page criteria must have contributed)

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3. 72

   Jeffrey Nealposted 14 years ago

   It's funny, but a couple of my hubs have only HubPages links showing up as backlinks in Google. Yahoo shows most of the ones I created, including the HubPages ones. Many of these are where my hub shows up on someone else's due to the similar tags.  Most of these have PR2 (see below).
   
   As for my own method, I don't try too hard to interlink them unless it's natural to follow the topic along.  My job interview hubs and lawn tips are examples.  Related topics as chinweike has mentioned.
   
   I have actually just finished looking at the rank of each hub a few minutes ago, and most are now PR2.  Not bad for only a couple of months age on them and few backlinks. I even have a couple less than 30 days old at PR1, but the highest ranked hub is a PR3.  The difference? It's a HubMob hub and, of course, includes the RSS feed.  That one shows the most backlinks pointing to it. I'm still amazed, though, at a PR3 on a hub written less than a month ago (12/18)!
   
   As I'm still very new with this, these are just my own observations coupled with the results I've seen with associates' hubs and sites, so it's worth exactly what it cost you.

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   1. 81

      Mekenzieposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      at the risk of sounding ignorant ... what is PR1 PR2 PR3?

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      1. 86

         Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         The Page Rank of your site.

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         1. 81

            Mekenzieposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            and where do I find it?  Or is he refering to the 90 that is displayed on the profile picture?

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            1. 86

               Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

               http://www.google.co.uk/corporate/tech.html

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               1. 81

                  Mekenzieposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                  Thank you Marissa!  I get it now

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            2. 72

               Jeffrey Nealposted 14 years agoin reply to this

               I have a plugin that I use for the Firefox browser that will show various page stats. It's called Quirk Search Status.
               
               There is also the Google toolbar which can be downloaded and is supported in other browsers as far as I know.

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4. STAFF

   pauldeedsposted 14 years ago

   It certainly can be beneficial, but the most important thing is to keep the interest of the reader in mind.  The most effective links will be from phrases in the text of your hub to relevant sources that augment your hub.  Don't link excessively or to useless or unrelated sites.
   
   With that in mind, I don't think reciprocal links are a problem if they happen naturally.  But it's probably best to avoid "exchanging" links or other schemes.  Instead when you are writing a hub you should come across phrases that would be good candidates for linking to other resources, be they your hubs, someone else's hub, or an external site.  Just link up some of those phrases where appropriate.  Ghost32 does a nice job of mixing useful links into his hubs, Install a Deep Fringe Antenna, for example.

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   1. 71

      WriteAngledposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      In what situation should the link capsule be used instead?

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      1. 96

         viryaboposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         You took the words out of my 'mouth'.
         
         I realise using phrases as links is effective and i'm trying to include this in my hubs (now that i understand how!). But wont this almost make the link capsule redundant?

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   2. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks Paul, but this raises another question. I don't understand what benefit I obtain by linking to other people's sites/Hubs within the text of my Hub.  That just encourages the reader to leave my Hub by clicking on that link, instead of clicking on an ad! 
      
      I do know links out to authority sites help ranking, so I do include them - right at the end of my Hub, where Google will see them but my readers may not!

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      1. 96

         viryaboposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         

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      2. 66

         Appletreedealsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         I agree with you Marissa, I do the same thing. And use the same logic to justify it.
         
         But... there is still the question:
         
         Given that both links use the same anchor text, and both links are relevant to the subject - Does a link in a body of text carry more weight than the same link in a link capsule or text list?
         
         Would like to hear other opinions.
         
         Appletreedeals

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      3. STAFF

         pauldeedsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         You may or may not receive any obvious benefit by linking unselfishly, but that's not how I would think about it.  The point of a link is to provide a benefit your reader.   Sure, you might make a little less money in the short run, but in the long run the more value you provide to your readers the more traffic you are likely to get.
         
         Search engines aren't purely algorithmic, they all have large quality assurance teams that evaluate individual results.  If your work doesn't live up to it's position in the results it may be penalized.

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5. 60

   mel22posted 14 years ago

   Quality assurance teams - good point - thanks for the info, paul
   
   do those quality assurance teams happen to penalize within the hubpages scheme of things when they see only internal linking to an authors own hubs especially when not imparting other outward(forward)links to the web and pagerank search scheme of the net structure
   
   in other words using the backlink system only to ones own hubs benefit (self hub promting)and not contributing at least a few well correlated forward links outside of Hubpages?
   
   slightly off subject but how about (table of contents) links within a hub. will that impart rank to its own self ,doubling its score in a loop or does hubpages use a quality assurance team to add nofollow to thses types of inward module links
   
   using this hub by darkside as a reference to look at :
   http://hubpages.com/hub/tableofcontents
   
   and the hub with the actual table of contents :
   
   http://hubpages.com/hub/Hubscore

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6. STAFF

   Paul Edmondsonposted 14 years ago

   Another thing to keep in mind, links to high quality topical pages are a sign of quality of the referring page.  I'd go as far as to encourage linking of useful, relevant anchor text to other pages.  The pages that do this well are often rewarded with more traffic.
   
   I believe a series of related Hubs interlinked appropriately will significantly outperform the same pages not interlinked.  Just the same, interlinking unrelated pages can be damaging.  Take a look at Paul Deeds example above to see good interlinking.

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7. 60

   mel22posted 14 years ago

   while we're on the subject; does the group(ing) feature already impart a higher pr to the next hub in the series or is it merely for cross traffic only?

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8. 60

   mel22posted 14 years ago

   so it sounds like paul is saying that anchortext links are more weighted by the search engines than say , the links capsule in hubpages or the group feature in hubpages. so internal linking is LESS weighted than anchortexting outward. Correct me if i'm wrong please !

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   1. 48

      johnr54posted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Yes

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9. 80

   Grant's Worldposted 12 years ago

   Does this infomation still apply?
   
   It sounds like 2 years ago interlinking between relevant hubs was okay with Google. Is that the case today?
   
   Also it sounds like the link capsule is not as good as using text anchor links between relevant hubs.
   
   Thanks,
   Grant.

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10. 80

    Grant's Worldposted 12 years ago

    sorry one more.
    
    what about the grouping feature? If your already linking with anchor texts to relevant hubs does it make sense to have the same hubs in a group or does the grouping feature affect anything?

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    1. 95

       wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       A two year old thread, yet!  That's OK, I'll weigh in anyway.
       
       I find interlinking between hubs to be quite valuable, but only if they are relevant to each other.  A person reading about how to fix their car isn't likely to click a link on how to wash windows and if they do they aren't likely to stay long, resulting in a short time on page.  Google doesn't like that, so make links very relevant. 
       
       I also think grouping helps - it provides that little window at the bottom of the hub with a "round robin" to the rest of those in the same group.  Again, set up and assign groups as carefully as possible to maintain relevancy. 
       
       The reason I say this is because I get nearly 10% of my views coming from my own sub-domain.  Without the interlinking, whether from textual links, link capsules or grouping, I don't think I would see that kind of traffic.  Now, a 10% increase isn't going to make or break anything, but it certainly helps and I'll do what I can to achieve it.  A little effort to provide a link for an interested reader, a moment to assign a group, whatever, it's worth it.

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11. 74

    sandrabusbyposted 12 years ago

    I've just been reading all the comments, old and new, about linking to other hubs on hubpages.  And I must admit I'm a bit confused.  The question was asked two years ago about how to find PR1, PR2 and PR3 page rankings.  I clicked on the link suggested, but Google couldn't find it.  Is that became it was in the UK?  Where do I find this information?  Thanks  Sandra Busby

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12. 80

    Grant's Worldposted 12 years ago

    wilderness thanks for the response.
    I was curious if HubPages (or google)has any self imposed penalty for looping links between hubs whether relative to each other or not.
    
    From what your saying it sounds like it is probably okay as long as you are on the same domain, it's just the looping between domains that will affect you negatively especially with google. sound right?
    
    thanks,
    Grant.

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    1. 54

       janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

       'Two Bobs' Worth
       => Internal links have very low value compared with external links, but some juice is generated
       => The link capsule causes duplicate text on your page which could be penalised - just use a list of links instead, without the text
       => The automatic links (related hubs) created down the right side of the page are often not relevant, and I would like them removed (there is no benefit to the original author, just a a penalty - mother hubpages loves it as it generates income for them). Of course you benefit from being listed as 'related hubs' by other authors - but relevance is the question.
       => The main benefit of the links to your other pages is that you get a flow-on benefit from 'impressions' and 'clicks' on the other pages. The customer may get more satisfaction from your linked page and may be more likely to make clicks there.
       => The actual clicking of links to your pages, including the internal ones, is very beneficial. It helps get your page indexed and re-indexed to upgrade your PR and other metrics. The more clicks you can get from multiple sources the better. There is a difference between inactive and active links. Its the clicked ones that really count.
       => The potential negative is that these links compete with the Hub ads and the Amazon and Ebay affiliate ads, and so it is worth placing the links down the page.
       => I rarely link to other hubbers unless the hub is an obvious follow-on from a previous topic. You don't know the quality of the hubs. There is no benefit to the author unless it is reciprocated. This is already covered by the dubious 'Related Hubs'. 
       => Developing 'I'll link to you if you link to me' relationships may have some benefit but Google does not like reciprocal links anymore. Three-way links raises the issue of relevance.
       
       Cheers,

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    2. 86

       Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Why is everybody suddenly convinced that Google penalizes people for linking?
       
       They don't.  Period.
       
       The only time Google will penalize you for links is if you've been using a paid service to create them.
       
       I think what people are confused about is that Google values some links more than others.  External links are more valuable than internal ones.  One-way links have more value than reciprocal links.  But there's nothing wrong with any of them.

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       1. 54

          janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Google says it penalises unnatural linking and links to build PR. Its criteria for detecting use of link farms etc.may be fairly blunt.
          
          To quote:  http://support.google.com/webmasters/bi … swer=66356
          
          "However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact your site's ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:
          
              Links intended to manipulate PageRank
              Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
              Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging ("Link to me and I'll link to you.")
              Buying or selling links that pass PageRank
          
          The best way to get other sites to create relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community. The more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it. Before making any single decision, you should ask yourself the question: Is this going to be beneficial for my page's visitors?
          
          It is not only the number of links you have pointing to your site that matters, but also the quality and relevance of those links. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the buzzing blogger community can be an excellent place to generate interest."
          
          So there it is!

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13. 80

    Grant's Worldposted 12 years ago

    Marisa thanks that is exactly what I was looking for.
    
    Cheers

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