Link to Competitors... Ok? or absolutely stupid?

fer_a79 · Jan 13, 2011

Hi, I read in a couple of places than trying to avoid the pagerank going out of a website could be a cause for google to frown at that website and lower its position, well, straight to the point:

I have some pages that are not ranking frontpage of google, and part of the information include references to other sites (some of them are in the frontpage for my Keywords, I mean, my competitors), so, I see the next options:

Mention the source without linking, making people figure out how to find the place.
Mention the source linking them in "no follow", so I "might retain" some juice, avoiding to give it to my competitors. But maybe google don't like that.
Link to them, "follow", so google will see I'm linking to a page relevant, and no matter I link to them I can outrank them in the future.

I would like to know the thoughts of some people that have had experience with this.

Thanks and nice day!

nikoman · Jan 13, 2011

First, your website pagerank is not going to go away from your site when your link to another site. You may lose it only if a site that is passing pagerank to yours remove the backlink, in other words you may lose pagerank if your site loses backlinks. Do not visualize it as if it were a water pipe. Pagerank does not work like that. I recommend linking to many sites that you believe may help your readers.

Regarding about linking to your competitors. I do not recommend it unless you have to. I recommend linking to those sites that complements the information you are showing in your site and I recommend leaving them as d0follow. Again, linking to other sites is not a factor for losing pagerank nor authority. I even noticed some benefit of doing this. Leave the nofollow tag if your are selling contextual advertising or non javascript links OR if you know that the source is not reliable. The internet is about information interconnected altogether so linking is natural. Your site would look really unnatural if you do not link to another sources.

fer_a79 · Jan 13, 2011

Thanks, I guess I got my answer, I know I have to link to something usefull, but my doubt here was if I should link to a website that is ranking in first page of google for the same keyword I'm not ranking yet, so, I'm not afraid of loosing PR, I'm afraid of pasing that site PR so it still gets stronger than me and I never outrak it, for those cases I will just mention them without link them or even not mention them at all.

Thanks for taking the time to answer

nikoman · Jan 13, 2011

fer_a79 said:
Thanks, I guess I got my answer, I know I have to link to something usefull, but my doubt here was if I should link to a website that is ranking in first page of google for the same keyword I'm not ranking yet, so, I'm not afraid of loosing PR, I'm afraid of pasing that site PR so it still gets stronger than me and I never outrak it, for those cases I will just mention them without link them or even not mention them at all.

Thanks for taking the time to answer

There is no need to link to a page on #1 on google. Just link to pages with useful information. If you want to mention a page without mention it as link you can use javascript links from separated links.

Here is a way to setup a javascript link

Code:

function SetLink(linkurl,anchortext)
{
    document.write("<a href='" + linkurl +  "' rel='nofollow'>" + anchortext + "</a>");
}

Save this in a file : yourfile.js
Add this code between the <head> tags of your page or template

Code:

<script language="text/javascript" src="yourfile.js"></script>

Refence a link in this way
Put this code where you want to show the refence.

Code:

<script language="text/javascript">SetLink("http://competitorurl.com","Competitor Anchor Text");</script>

In this way Google won't find the link as they won't crawl yourfile.js

There are other ways to use javascript links this what I use.

sammy12 · Jan 13, 2011

It is good to outlink to authority sites, also, so could you do something like that instead of linking to your competitors, while still giving your visitors useful information?

-Jericho- · Jan 13, 2011

Page Rank =/= SERPs

Stop wasting your time with page rank. It's truly an irrelevant piece of data these days. Your focus needs to solely be on your search rankings.

You don't need to link to any other sites if you don't want to. If you do you should link to big authority sites like wikipedia, cnn, etc. Some people are of the belief that it can provide some beneficial SEO but I have not found that to be the case. With that said I can't disprove it either so I still do it on occasion.

And never link to your competitor.

Gandalf-White · Jan 14, 2011

I sometimes link to wikipedia or other big authority website of that kind, but mostly with my web 2.0 properties, but I see is not good to link competitors (normal competitors), better I don't mention them.

:beerchug:

webmast · Jan 14, 2011

SEO-wise it's a good idea to link to related authority sites. When linking to authority sites use generic anchor text.
There is no reason to link your direct competitors though. They might begin to rank higher if you link them.

albaniax · Jan 14, 2011

I saw a few improvements in serps after adding links to high authority / relevant sites.
Gougel want's you to provide good links to authority sites.

Of course I was not linking to my direct competition, only as already mentioned to relevant Wikipedia site's, was enough.

Link to Competitors... Ok? or absolutely stupid?

fer_a79

Newbie

nikoman

Regular Member

fer_a79

Newbie

nikoman

Regular Member

sammy12

Newbie

-Jericho-

Elite Member

Gandalf-White

Newbie

webmast

Regular Member

albaniax

Elite Member

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