Google is tweaking its PageRank algorithm with regards to link popularity. It is now going to be placing a higher priority or score on links that generate or refer clicks. So if you have a link on a pr5 site but it doesn’t generate any clicks Google may not “score” it as a pr5 site linking to you or not score it as highly as a pr4 page that does generate clicks.  

I try to ensure that my link purchasing efforts produce both PR and clicks but now they are going to be much more intertwined than previously as in clicks generated by links on other sites may well and truly be a large factor in gaining PR.  

It’s a natural move and it makes sense (which is probably why I’ve already been going that way). It’s a way of filtering out rubbish bought or swapped links in favour of links that are of genuine interest to a site’s users thereby giving a boost to sites that are choosy and dedicated to fulfilling their viewer’s desires rather than just stuffing a page full of crap links for the sake of SEO.

In light of this, and my own recent moves in this direction, I have done an analysis of the stats of a few sites I promote and the referrals from links (paid, free and reciprocal) to ascertain what type of sites/links are likely to generate clicks and therefore be worth pursuing more rigorously or paying more for than those less likely to refer visitors.

What works for one….
 
Interesting to note is that the best type of link to go for differs depending on the site’s subject matter. For instance one site may not get much traffic from small sites’ links pages but another will. The more niche and less “seo-ified” the topic is the more reciprocal links are worth provided the links page is small, tidy and is part of a cleanly designed very focused site. Those qualities appear to be more important in niche subjects than the site’s PR or levels of inbound traffic.

Another interesting comparison is that very niche sites may in fact get a lot of traffic from being listed in a general directory as the category they are in may only contain a handful of other sites. One such site I promote, a reference site, receives a lot of traffic from Splut and other general directories as there are usually only 1 or 2 other sites listed alongside it (rather than 30-100 as is the case with most commercial or SEO type categories) whereas another of my charges, a financial site, gets almost zero traffic from general directories.

What to do:

1)       Keep an eye out for potential site/domain buys – has to be old respected sites, ones that you view as “perfect” link givers. Sites you would LOVE to have a link from. But don’t, please don’t go ruining it all by making some stupid word cloud site out of them. Please, please, please leave the content intact. It’s the reason they got the links in the first place.

2)       Keep an eye out for article partners. Find real sites, not article databases, which will accept well written articles for free and include a link. I do NOT have anything to do with article banks. I look for niche or subject orinentated sites that feature guest articles and will include a link in the article or byline.

3)      Keep an eye out for link buy partners. Find old, respected sites or, better yet, site owners with a few old, respected sites that you can use as your preferred suppliers. If you have a decent list it will seriously cut down on research time.