A change in the way Google Inc. recognizes the number of inbound links to a web site has caused many sites to drop in their Google natural search rankings, and re-building those rankings can take months, says search marketing expert Cindy Brown, CEO of search marketing firm Blue Moon Works.
“In the past, Google counted every link from other sites and credited them toward the receiving site’s natural search rankings, but it has honed down that number down,” Brown says. Google recently changed its strategy from counting every link after it realized diminishing returns in the relevancy of results—an outgrowth of the huge number of links that many sites were acquiring through link brokers and other means, she adds.
Google says the change, which is part of ongoing adjustments made to its algorithm, is intended to emphasize link quality and relevance over quantity. "Google regularly pushes minor algorithm changes,” a spokeswoman says. “Link quality and relevance continue to count more than link quantity. Because we're always refining the way we evaluate links and there are many variables in this area, we aren't able to provide specific numbers. Getting links naturally (as a ‘vote’ from one person or site to a specific site) is more likely to positively affect a linked-to site's position within Google.”
Many web sites that had acquired links in mass numbers have realized a significant drop in their Google natural search ranking, while sites that have built their number of links more gradually from a large number of related sites have faired better, Brown says. “Now you have to develop relationships with more webmasters and provide content they want to link to,” Brown says. “You have to earn your links instead of just buying them.”
Google says it does not view paid inbound links differently as a ‘vote’ from another site. “Buying or selling links to manipulate sites' rankings in Google is against our Webmaster Guidelines," the spokeswoman says. Google posts those guidelines in the Webmaster Central section of its web site at Google.com/webmasters.
Blue Moon Works is advising web site operators to take several steps to develop more valuable inbound links. For example: linking pages that display similar product details, rather than linking just to a site’s home page, and making sure that linked pages are designed with additional links to connect to with more pages offering related content, says Cindy Krum, search engine specialist at Blue Moon. “Sites need to provide relevant deep-linking,” she says.
Rebuilding rankings can take a long time, however. “If a site went from one to seven in rankings, it’s not going to go back to one overnight,” Brown says. “It can take three to six months to optimize a site.”
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