implications of sharing

why the link power

Published on December 18, 2004 By woodsix In Internet

GRML Web Browsers for bar graphs
Web Browsers (GRML)
Web Browsers (GRML)
Web Browsers (GRML)

GRML Web Browsers for bar graphs
Web Browsers (GRML)
Web Browsers (GRML)
Web Browsers (GRML)

GRML Web Browsers for bar graphs
Web Browsers (GRML)
Web Browsers (GRML)
Web Browsers (GRML)

People embark on reciprocal linking campaigns with the idea that it will benefit both sites _in a PR sense_ .

Let us take Site A's links page. Let's say it has 10 internal links and 10 external links so that value passed on through each link is PR$A/20. It adds one more external link and the value of that link (and every other internal and external link) is now PR$A/21.

Site B's links page, on the other hand, has 5 internal links and 1 external link (link value = PR$B/6). An extra external link will be valued at PR$B/7 (and the value of other links will fall to that level).

(Note that PR$A and PR$B do not refer to the PR of that page but to the potential PR it forwards.)

So what happens if those sites decide to offer reciprocal links to one another?

Whereas we often see questions like:

Should I link to a site with less PR than me?
or
How do I get links from higher-PR sites?

the actual questions that should be asked are far more subtle, and relate to the number of links on each page and how the dilutory effect works on internal versus external links.

Certainly, there are mathematical winners and losers in the reciprocal link game - one side will give more than they receive. It is not the win-win equation as those linking emails that you receive like to portray it and, of course, the equation changes as the rank and the architecture of your site changes.

So, purely mathematically, and for the sake of argument:

Reasons Not To Link - when the reciprocal link requested would dilute the PageRank on my site.

Disclaimer. I believe in reciprocal linking for many other reasons - user value, authority status, link text, theming. But I wanted to raise this subject as I often see the implication a) that link-swapping should be done to game search engines and

that it will benefit both sides.

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