Cite Another Site and Build Your Relevance
If you think that outbound links don't matter you're missing out on a big opportunity to increase your website's relevance.
Remember that Google's PageRank was originally called The PageRank Citation Ranking and was built on Co-citations.
Well it goes that if 2 authors cite a 3rd author when writing about the same subject then that 3rd author is considered relevant to the subject matter. It also goes that if 1 author cites two authors works in the same subject matter then those 2 authors being cited are considered relevant to the subject matter. Well, another way to look at it is that by citing those 2 authors, the author doing the citing makes himself relevant to the subject matter as well.
In my little visual representation below you'll see 3 scenarios.
In scenario A, Author 1 cites Authors 2 & 3 which makes Authors 2 & 3 related or relevant to each other.
In scenario B, Authors 1 & 2 cite the same work of Author 3 making themselves (Authors 1 & 2) related or relevant to each other.
In my opinion (scenario C) by linking to two author's works (Authors 2 & 3) I make them related and relevant to each other (The same situation as in scenario A) but I also make myself relevant to them and they to me. In essence my scenario C is the same as scenario A but I'm separating it based on a theoretical difference. As the joke goes - "There are two kinds of people in this world; those who can extrapolate from incomplete data". Many of you will see that scenario B can also be considered, according to my theory, as a scenario D where Authors 1 & 2 become relevant to Author 3 and vice versa.
Although Google's founders wrote openly about PageRank being based on inbound links (backlinks links or inedges) they also refer to outbound links (forward links or outedges). Since they definitely track each, they only refer to inedges or backlinks as being worthy of counting in terms of PageRank. Well since a lot of people over the years played with backlinking and Panda has really changed the way Google looks at and qualifies backlinks, it makes sense that forward links or outedges would be of value as well. What if I have a site that is a resource about a subject and I link to 1,000 different web pages all directly related to the subject matter of my site? Let's say that I don't have any backlinks to speak of. Now, my site would be considered a really relevant source of information on the subject as I have taken the time to link to 1,000 different resources that are specifically related and I would be of use to a surfer looking for information on that subject, especially if I have that site and those 1,000 links all nicely categorized and easy to navigate, with little excerpts of information (citations) and links to the exact source of information. Would I rank well for that subject matter? Would Google actually see my site as relevant?
This is how I got into SEO back in 1997, before Google became the wooly mammoth in the room of Search. I launched a website called DSLLinks with news and links to resources about the newly introduced broadband service called DSL.
I hadn't even completed the website when I got a call from a DSL ISP that asked to advertise on my website. I asked him how he'd heard of it and he asked me if I was joking. He then told me that I was number one on the top 5 search engines (of the day, most of which don't exist today) for keywords such as DSL, DSL ISP, etc.
Now, this is 15 years later and one may say that everything has changed but again, if you look at what Page and Brin wrote back in 1998, you'll see that it really hasn't changed.
My belief is that certain core aspects of Google don't change much, and haven't changed much, and that includes having quality content that is relevant, well categorized and natural. They believe still that good quality content will be cited by others and will cite others of the same subject matter.
So, here's a test. I'm going to launch a website and link to 1,000 different resources, all focused on a very specific subject and not seek a single backlink.
Keep checking in as I will, once launched, let you all know what the site is so you can track it on your own. I will however wait until it's been indexed and ranked as I won't want anyone to backlink to it or that would dilute the case test.
Here we go!
Thanks for reading and don't forget to cite!
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