According to the Google blog (the posting has subsequently been taken down), Google will be adopting a new strategy to reduce the PageRank of sites making use of linking from social bookmarking sites such as Digg and del.icio.us.
This could have some serious implications for certain sites. But what does this mean? I am going to look at this from a basic point of view and try to make a little sense of it all below. Why? Well to be honest, I'm no SEO guru and I need to break it down to the essentials for myself. So here goes.
First of all what is PageRank? It is a statistical assessment that Google uses to determine a page's popularity or importance. The ranking is on a scale from 1-10, with 10 being the highest. How do they determine the ranking? Well, as most of us know, a very important aspect of achieving a high ranking is through the external links to your site.
As Google puts it:
"PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B."
So Google looks at a link as a vote of confidence from another site, but the ranking of the site that is casting the 'vote' also plays a role. Essentially, the higher the PageRank of the site casting the vote, the more influence that link will have on improving the PageRank of your page. The more votes, the higher the PageRank and so on and so forth.
Now that we have that out of the way, where does social bookmarking come in? As already mentioned, you need quality inbound links and social bookmarking is the way to do just that. In promoting one's site, there are few methods more effective than social bookmarking.
Social bookmarking is an Internet-based platform that allows people to create list of links to Web pages they like. Basically links are listed on a network, then an individual signed into that network can find links pertaining to the keywords they are searching for.
I think of them as search engine result ranked by users' votes, so those with the most votes (and those that should be informative and interesting) will rise to the top. These pages are then referred to by other users in the network with the posting of the links multiplying and a consequent boost in the page ranking. In short, if you have a start-up and manage to be successful with social bookmarking you will go long way in ensuring good PageRank and help the success of your business.
With Google looking to change this, those sites that rely heavily on bookmarking (often themselves) will need to start shifting strategy or face a dramatic drop in PageRank later this year. This will specifically target those sites embracing deceptive, unnatural linking strategies such as creating multiple accounts and bookmarking their own pages repeatedly.
For those relying on traditional, natural search traffic and using these social bookmarking platforms responsibly, Google claim they have nothing to worry about. I tend to agree and have faith that Google will consider all factors with the end-user in mind before implementing such a change.
How this would actually effect the average Internet user such as myself is yet to be seen, so should you click on one of those little pictures down below? I think we'll be okay for now :-)
Social Bookmarking could lose you PageRank... Que?
by Garrick Jones
2008/03/20
Muti
Comments
someone does not like google
This is outrageous IMHO. I can understand if they say they will be disregarding links from those sites so that it basically is just like the links have been marked with rel="nofollow". However, to say that being linked to from one of those sites will lower the Pagerank... It opens up a whole new way of internet extortion. "Pay me so much, or I'll digg you!!"
Actually the orignal story was NEVER confirmed and Matt Cutts has even said it is erroneus. This is simply poor reporting as NONE of it is verifyable.
With such a strong statement, we should be able to back it up - not make wild supositions.
Most likely all have been HAD by the original poster.
Sorry to say... but there is no smoke, never mind FIRE here...
Here's what Matt Said; http://sphinn.com/story/35232
"I call fake story. I subscribe to the Google Research blog and never saw that story appear in my Reader feeds. Plus the Google Research blog talks about research, not webspam. There's not even a Googler named Jeff Waltz as far as I can tell.
I think "Startup Earth" has some 'splaining to do. :)"
So really, this is just silly to be telling people 'Google is doing this' - there is no evidence what so ever.
Pretty effective link bait...
I have to agree with you Dave. It does appear to be a little fishy, but an interesting point for discussion nonetheless I think.
Yep, this definitely sounds fishy, if it's bait, well done.
If not, the funny is thing is that I had exactly the same thought last night.
With Google penalizing people for paid links by using a dampening filter, people are moving to social media for link building, seo and networking – and with some people abusing it I wonderd how long it would take Google to decide that this also can be considered manipulation of results and as a result impose some kind of filter to reduce the page rank passed by authority social media sites.
Even though I see their point, I have to say that it just feels to me like they are being pedantic. Don’t buy links they say, then they sell you Google Adwords. Don’t link build using social networks to influence your rankings, but write good content for Google news and your blog which is inherently social.
This will be a sad day indeed if they decide to do this.
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Charl Norman better watch out :-P
Posted by rafiq on 2008/03/20