Rand’s Questions Get More Difficult

A year or two back, Rand Fishkin over at SEOmoz posted a list of questions he still had not answered in the world of SEO. As a matter of sheer luck, we had just finished up a bit of experimentation that answered quite a few of them.

Well, Rand is at it again with 8 more questions, this time with far more difficult questions to answer – many of which may be unknowable without a leak from Google.

However, one question in particular, #8, Will Anchor Text Value Pass Through Terribly Low Quality Links?.

It is fairly understood that high quality links will boost the PageRank variable in the ranking equation, and low quality links will not. It is also understood that high quality links with good anchor text will boost the Relevancy variable in the ranking equation. But, do low quality links lose their role in the Relevancy calculation?

Low quality links, in all of our estimations and experience, continue to impact the relevancy of a site. While you still need to be careful about bringing penalties through such low quality links, we have seen time and time again reputable sites find rankings for terms simply by getting access to low quality links with high quality anchor text.
We have seen this technique work with directories and, surprisingly, site-wide links.

If you have a site that already has great authority (high PR, old age, trusted links, great content), you may be a few low-quality links away from great rankings.