Princess Zelda: Link Building for Legends

Recently, Matt Cutts released a new blog entry on PageRank sculpting and the nofollow attribute that was loudly received by the general public, although the actual effects of this information on the SEO world may remain minimal. I say “remain” because apparently the changes announced had already been in place for more than a year, and no one had noticed.

I’ve seen a lot of really great pictures and graphs about this subject since the outbreak. I especially like the pagerank flow blog entry from The Google Cache. It’s a really great interpretation for people who think visually.

Unfortunately, I am one of those people who think in math terms. (Here’s lookin’ at you, Randall Munroe!) That being said, here’s my interpretation, through basic algebraic terms, of the “new” PageRank flow, with step-by-step explanations.

Before the Nofollow Attribute:

PR ÷ L = LJ

This is pretty straightforward. Your pagerank divided by the number of links you have is the amount of “link juice” being passed through your links. For example, if you have a page with a pagerank of 6 and you have 3 links, you’ll give 2 points of link juice to each page that you linked to. (Compare: 6 ÷ 3 = 2)

(PR ÷ L) X L = TLJ OR LJ X L = TLJ, PR = TLJ

This equation is just looking at the total link juice being passed by the page. You’ll see why I’m looking at this in a moment. Without nofollow or any other stipulations, you can simply multiply the individual link juice by the number of links on the page to find the total link juice, and it should equal the pagerank. Please keep in mind with all of this that there are other factors that effect pagerank (such as placement of a link in the content of a page), but my basic algebra can only portray so much¹. (Compare: (6 ÷ 3) X 3 = 6 OR 2 X 3 = 6)

With Nofollow Attribute:

PR ÷ (L – NF) = LJ

And this is why the nofollow attribute was such a boon to optimizers. Here, you can increase your link juice going to each link by nofollowing links that aren’t as important (such as your contact page). In our example, let’s say you nofollowed one of three links on a page with a pagerank of 6. In this case, you would be giving 3 points of link juice to two links (your more important ones) instead of two points of link juice to three (including your contact page, which you may think doesn’t need juice). (Compare: 6 ÷ (3 – 1) = 3)

[PR ÷ (L – NF)] X (L – NF) = TLJ, PR = TLJ

Here we can see that there’s a very different mechanism for discerning the total link juice of a page – but the total link juice is still the same as the pagerank. This is the essence of pagerank sculpting, in that you’re working with the total amount of link juice available but moving it to the pages you want. (Compare: [6 ÷ (3 – 1)] X (3 – 1) = 6)

With “New” Regulations:

PR ÷ L = LJ

Look familiar? It’s the same as before the nofollow attribute. Each link gets a set amount of link juice based on the number of links on the page (and various other factors), regardless of the nofollow attribute. The nofollow attribute still blocks link juice from flowing through pages, but it doesn’t factor into how much link juice is being passed by individual links. This is the main peeve of optimizers with the “new” rules – imagine you have a lot of policy pages, about us pages and contact pages linked to in your content (after all, many companies really want people to navigate to that contact us page) that were all nofollowed, but now those links are taking away link juice from other links to more quality pages. What optimizers need to remember is that this change has been in place for over a year, and nobody noticed – not even the good ‘ol folks at Search Engine Watch. (Compare: 6 ÷ 3 = 2)

(PR ÷ L) X L – (LJ X NF) = TLJ

You might notice that the front end of this equation, (PR ÷ L) X L, is the same as the equation before nofollow for the total link juice. This is basically your total link juice, minus the link juice that would have gone to nofollow links.

This is actually very important to my ideas about pagerank sculpting. I believe that because of this kind of idea, there’s a false fear in SEO about ‘lost link juice’ (because in this equation, PR ≤ TLJ, or pagerank is less than or equal to total link juice). There are a lot of metaphors out right now about juice being spilled on the floor (we could get into other, more biblical connotations, but we won’t) but I think the point is that we need to make quality content to really spread some good link juice. If you start with a PR of 2, it doesn’t really matter if you’re able to sculpt with nofollow, because frankly, your links weren’t worth much anyway. Which brings me to my next point.

Remember: Google’s Job is to Get the Best Results

We have to remember that Google’s job is to get every search engine user the best results for their search. They don’t want your crappy website to outrank quality resources just because you know how to sculpt some pagerank. If you really want your website to outrank competitors for your keyword, you’ll have to make a better website than your competitors. Yeah, it makes life harder for SEOs, but I really don’t want pictures of a nude Paris Hilton when I’m trying to plan my Parisian honeymoon.

¹“Please excuse the crudity of this model, I didn’t have time to build it to scale or to paint it.” Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future