Comments on: Google Drops One Link Signal

By: Dejan SEO

Dejan SEO — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 21:16:00 +0000

Here’s my pick after seeing Bill’s list of potential changes:
http://www.seobythesea.com/2012/03/12-google-link-analysis-methods/#comment-424410

By: Simon Dalley

Simon Dalley — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 10:20:00 +0000

Looks to me like Google have done something that make unnatural linking more detectable – or at least means they are more bothered about it. It could be that the thing that they turned off counter-balanced the effect of blog linking schemes and now it’s been turned off they’ve had to hit the blog link schemes to rebalance the algo. Something like that?

By: Anh Nguyễn

Anh Nguyễn — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 09:32:00 +0000

Yes, I think Google might remove it or they should.

By: Asadwahab

Asadwahab — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 06:01:00 +0000

I don’t think it could be something like nofollow, pagerank or even anchor… these are the larger factors that can literally change the whole shape of the web if altered even a bit.

You could have summarize the post at the end! btw is there any word from Matt Cutts on this?

By: Curtis

Curtis — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 23:01:00 +0000

I agree, turning off anchor text and using surrounding text would solve some link problems. Turning off anchor text would be a very BIG change I think. I think it’s already been turned off likely. Go over to most SEO forums and you’ll see people complaining of big ranking drops. Many say Google is even notifying them with a message in Webmaster Tools specifically mentioning backlink schemes. Doing this will reduce any remaining effectiveness that forum profile spamming may have had. Also, blog comment spam effectiveness could be mitigated as well by turning off the anchor text signal.

By: Joseph Chambers

Joseph Chambers — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 20:29:00 +0000

I think they are turning off page rank.

By: Neil Ferree

Neil Ferree — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 19:57:00 +0000

Regardless of which link signal Google has decided to demote or remove from its Algo :: it seems to me the growing impact “social shares” is having and the rendering of ones rel=author and rel=publisher along with the subsequent psychological “social proof” value this metric holds for triggering a CTR will likely minimize the impact “turning off this method of link analysis” in the long term.

By: Chad234

Chad234 — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:32:00 +0000

Being that they are testing with social linking it could involve social. I don’t see them listed here probably because they are under the social category. However, they are still links and should be evaluated as such.

In another thought, I would think it would be page rank because google has been trying to move away from that. I really don’t see how they can being that they rely so heavily on it though.

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By: Anh Nguyễn

Anh Nguyễn — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:09:00 +0000

From the list of link signals listed by +Dejan SEO , I think one of the following Google may remove:
1. Anchor text: You can see that links with anchor text when building offsite usually have been done by SEOs (people who link for SEO purpose). Naturally, when people share a link, they usually just copy/paste url without anchor text. And for determining the topic of linked page, I think Google can probably analyze from the content of the page.
2. So the same with Title attribute.
3. Target: this one have nothing for evaluate to me.

PS: Sorry for my English.

By: Dejan SEO

Dejan SEO — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 10:05:00 +0000

You make a very good point.