Comments on: The Link Bubble

By: Google Should Follow NoFollow Links (Long Live Elgoog!)

Google Should Follow NoFollow Links (Long Live Elgoog!) — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 15:12:30 +0000

[...] manipulated trust and authority or, at a minimum, trust and authority disinformation. As the link graph degrades, wouldn’t that be a valuable [...]

By: aj

aj — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 16:54:48 +0000

Thanks Matthew, very much appreciated!

By: aj

aj — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 16:53:58 +0000

Thanks for the kind words Jason. It’s always great to find others who think similarly.

I wish I had a good answer on what could replace the link graph, but I don’t. I have some inkling that the link graph can be preserved but that it must be computed in a different way. Links between business entities would need to be devalued.

You could also greatly increase the reverse time decay of a link – meaning that a link only passes a very small amount of trust and authority when it is first found and takes a long time to mature and pass its full share of trust and authority.

I think Caffeine did allow Google to expand the link graph and find ‘deeper’ links, but how they use those newly found links (are they tucked away sites of great content or a splog farm?) is unknown.

I agree that semantic signals are extremely difficult and social proof is a mixed bag with a potential for higher manipulation and herd mentality. Yet, I believe that Google is looking for ways to get human feedback into the algorithm. They haven’t figured it out yet, but I think that’s high on their list.

Finally, there is a lot more that could be done with natural language processing. While links are still a huge part of the algorithm, on-site optimization actually works quite well. I hear too many relegate on-site signals as the red-headed-step-child of the algorithm, but my experience indicates they are still important, perhaps even growing in importance. And HTML5 could make it even easier for Google to process just the real content of a page.

Lots of theories and ideas, but nothing concrete – but that’s one of the reasons I enjoy SEO.

By: Matthew Edward

Matthew Edward — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 07:56:16 +0000

This is a good analogy.

I’ll have to add you to my ‘original thinkers’ twitter list now ;]

By: Jason Lancaster

Jason Lancaster — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 23:32:43 +0000

Fascinating insight. I agree that links are an inherently flawed metric when it comes to determining search relevancy, a site’s trust and authority, etc., but what’s the alternative? I’m not arguing of course, just wondering.

Semantic signals are supposedly coming, but they seem so prone to manipulation as to be almost worthless. They will also take years to reach full implementation.

I don’t see links going away anytime soon, and I don’t see social proof replacing links until social networks go to great lengths to verify users as real people.

Still, a fascinating idea. I think you’re 100% correct that there’s a bubble, but I don’t think it’s going to pop any time soon.

By: How can Google combat content farms like Demand Media and Mahalo? - Quora

How can Google combat content farms like Demand Media and Mahalo? - Quora — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 23:17:37 +0000

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