Backlink Q&A: A link to a BIG site

December 8, 2007

This is conversation was taken from webmasterworld forum

With all these things about pagerank, and how to get higher ranks in search engines…I found a good questions and someone explained well about it.

I am new to SEs, I have a new site (PR=0). I may be able to get a link to my site from one of the BIG sites (highly rated in Alexa), but, I have some questions:

1- The big site is non-English, mine and my link will be in English. Is that a problem for Google?

2- The big site is PHP, I guess this shouldn’t be a problem since the site is highly recognized, right?

3- The site homepage PR is 5, however, I am considering advertising on the internal pages (HUGE amount of pages, however, all have PR = 1). Is that a good startegy?

4- The site is not ralated to my keywords. Any evidence that Google would be affected by that?

5- Considering my low PR, will Google still look for a broad range of sites linking to mine to assign a good PR OR simply this site would help me to get a decent PR.

6- Should the link be a text one. Generally speaking, does Google consider a banner/image as a link.

I look for your kind help.

Thanks.

It looks like you are still starting so I’ll try to help my best. But please note this is only a personal opinion, maybe some members will give you much better advise.

1- The big site is non-English, mine and my link will be in English. Is that a problem for Google?

Not really, depending on where your link is. If it is on the text of an article it could be really good. On the sidebar/blog roll maybe OK but not good as the other.

2- The big site is PHP, I guess this shouldn’t be a problem since the site is highly recognized, right?

The programming language doesn’t matter at all.

3- The site homepage PR is 5, however, I am considering advertising on the internal pages (HUGE amount of pages, however, all have PR = 1). Is that a good strategy?

Please see reply below.

4- The site is not related to my keywords. Any evidence that Google would be affected by that?

A link from inside an article in this website won’t hurt you. But if it is not related many links from there maybe won’t help you. Basically, if you have not many links this can help you getting indexed, but won’t help you to get good ranks, and in the long term can make you look bad (I’m supposing you’re buying). Keep in mind: if it’s a one time link can be OK, but if you do this all time is a long time trouble.

5- Considering my low PR, will Google still look for a broad range of sites linking to mine to assign a good PR OR simply this site would help me to get a decent PR.

So you still worry about PR…? FORGET IT NOW!. Get links from trusted sources related to your “widget”. If you get some unrelated it doesn’t matter, but the majority should be.

In the long term this is like your personal background: one unrelated link is fine, many not. And it doesn’t matter if it’s your first one, what really matters is: percentage of good & bad links, what old sites in your niche had, the speed their links grow and if yours grow quick who linked to you (many untrusted sites maybe?)

6- Should the link be a text one. Generally speaking, does Google consider a banner/image as a link.

Right now text links are good, but image ones with the right alt text help as well, don’t worry about this. Google has been bombed with text links for SEO so having some images links with the right alt text can help you. In fact, having many different texts words/phrases linking to you instead of always the same one is much better.

What I will look for? Links from sites that have good rankings for the keywords I’m looking for.

Now I’ll try to summarize for you.

If you think “short term” (months, maybe one year), go buy links and do whatever. It will work for a limited amount of time.

If you go medium/long term… then go for content that users will like, buy/get links from trusted sources in your niche and keep updating your site. And buy doesn’t mean simply “buy”, but if you find a related niche site or directory -and established- offering listings for x amount go and pay it, it won’t hurt you.

It’s pretty easy: it looks you can have a cheap link from a trusted but unrelated source. Go and get it, but take care to get links from trusted and related sources at the same time (I repeat… at the same time). And if you can do the last… then avoid the unrelated one!