For several years now, we have all understood, known, guessed, postulated, assumed that Google was assigning various levels of “weight” – or importance – to links on a page, partially depending upon the placement locations of those links. While they are hush about exactly how they assign link value, the company was recently issued a patent for a methodology, filed in 2004, that the value a link passes on to a targeted page is based on the probability that users will click on it.
Google calls this methodology its “Reasonable Surfer” model. Specifically, it states the value of a link on a page – its “weight,” or influence — varies from link to link, and depends primarily on its position on the page, the link color, the anchor text used, among other factors. Links that appear above the fold, particularly near the top of the page, are considered the most prime, or weightiest, locations.
The Reasonable Surfer officially replaces Google’s initial way of thinking about search behavior, called the “Random Surfer.” In 1998, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page described the random surfer as someone “who is given a web page at random and keeps clicking on links, never hitting ‘back’ but eventually gets bored and starts on another random page.” People became much more sophisticated by 2004, which led to the new ranking methodology. In other words, people dont just click “Randomly” on links on a page, there are specific “behavioral patterns” that can be detected and used to determine which links are more likely to be clicked.
While the announcement that Google had received the patent for the Reasonable Surfer methodology made all of the SEO news sites, it really wasn’t stunning news. The industry has presumed – although Google has never officially confirmed (To our knowledge) – that it has been following this model since they filed the patent request. Our own experience shows that this methodology has been in place for many years, although the amount of weight given to certain link locations etc.. has likely changed with time. Footer links are a great example of this. Over time we have noticed a steady decline in the effectiveness of footer links.
Overall, the methodology makes sense. Give more value to links that appear to be built to attract human clicks, versus links placed purely for seo link value.
So what does this mean for your link building campaigns? Try to get links that users will click on. The more likely that the link will be clicked the more weight Google is likely giving that link. With that being said, we can tell you that even links in sub-prime locations still have value. It isn’t necessary for every link you build to be in-content, above the fold etc.. and in most cases it would be financially restrictive to do so, but it sure is worth aiming for.
TextLinkBrokers offers many link services specifically geared towards acquiring these types of links. Ask us about our Custom Link Acquisition program. You can experience the power of properly placed links yourself!