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Is This The Easy Way To An Authority Site?
Want to know the secret to making Google think you have an authority site?
You’ll may have noticed that in the last Google PageRank update that Daily Blog Tips, Dosh Dosh and even Cash Quests did alright and received decent PageRanks for their homepage.
What do the sites have in common? Post excerpts on the front page.
The newspaper theory
Google always sees newspapers as being authority sites and always gives them an appropriately high PageRank. One main difference between newspapers and blogs is that newspapers always an incredibly large number of inbound links while the number of outbound links that they have is tiny in comparison.
It makes logical sense that this would happen to an authority site.
When you use post excerpts on a blog, you’re effectively limiting the number of outbound links on your front page. For example, if you have two outbound links per post and have 10 full posts displayed on your front page, you have an extra 20 outbound links on your front page. By displaying post excerpts, you can eliminate most of these and the only outbound links remaining will be those in your sidebar.
Just like newspapers, if you have an outbound link in your sidebar - you should be getting paid for it!
Live example
CashQuests is currently using post excerpts and has approximately 20 outbound links on the homepage. The site also displays 11 post excerpts on the front page and if each of them averaged two outbound links, displaying full posts would push the number of outbound links up to around 40.
This would double the ratio of outbound links to inbound links!
It’s really nothing new - but it’s easier.
In simple terms, the theory is just the old advice of have “more inbound links than outgoing links” and displaying post excerpts seems to be a great way to achieve this easily on your homepage.
The other alternative is simply to build a site so popular that you always receive huge amounts of inbound links. That’s probably how Shoemoney got his PR6!
If you’d like to use post excerpts on your site, you can download a plugin to help you here.
Rich people subscribe to Cash Quests
Hi, it’s very interesting opinion. I already do something like that on my blog, but I use a php redirect script for that which make “G” think that the outgoing link leads to a subdomain of my blog.
by Vitaliy
I find that interesting also. I guess if your post is interesting enough, readers will click thru to see the rest of the post…then again, maybe you’ll lose some readers this way because because they’re either too lazy to click to read the rest, or don’t find your first paragraph interesting.
by jblu
If your first paragraph isn’t interesting, people will stop reading regardless of whether you display full posts or excerpts.
by Cash Quests
[...] over at CashQuests wrote a tip article today about, among other things, being very conscious as to how many outbound links there are on each page of your blog … especially the main or home page. There are some [...]
by To Make Links Count, Count Those Links » Retired Pay World
Interesting theory - I never would have thought of that. I don’t really worry about links too much personally
However, posting excerpts on the front page rather than full posts can also reduce any potential duplicate content penalties that may be hurting you. I’m considering switching to excerpts simply because most of my posts are just so long!
by Caroline Middlebrook
Interesting view there. I’ll be considering this once my blog is somewhat established. And thanks for pointing to the plugin!
by Ruchir
While I still advocate for always using excerpts, I am not sure if they affect the PR calculation.
For sure they can help serps if you have duplicate content issues, but PR should be based on other factors.
Good theory though.
by Daniel Scocco
This post creates a conflict within myself. If we are posting excerpts of our posts, we will be not offering a full feed any more right or do the plugin allows us to display excerpts and at the same time display full RSS feeds for our subscribers?
by Wayne Liew
When you subscribe to CashQuests, you’ll notice that there is still a full feed RSS.
by Cash Quests
I use a plugin that adds nofollow to every link on my home page. I wonder if you get more or less click throughs using excerpts instead of posting the entire article on the home page?
by Desty
That’s quite an interesting conclusion, … naturally this would support the theory that no page should have too many outbound links, anyway…
Also, perhaps those magazine type themes are where we should be headed.
Kenneth
by InvestorBlogger
Hi Kumiko!
I’m feeling very evil today.. 
i have some evil plans which I don’t know whether will work or not.. let me know thanks 
by Michael Woo
First time viewers are so lazy that they just scan. That extra click to get the full post might be too much of an effort for them sometimes.
by david
newspaper theory…i like that. interview POV about ur site and doshdosh
by bloggernoob
I think dosh dosh and cash quests getting high PR has a lot more to do with the quality in bound links coming in, rather than the lack of out going links.
I know they both count, but at the end of the day if search doesn’t account for a large portion of your user base you are making your site non user friendly in favour of page views and page rank.
You are better off just no following all the useless content in the sidebar/footer etc than limiting your content on the front page.
by Funny exam answers
@CashQuests:
If you’re referring to the optional excerpt in WP, I’ve not had success with that. Is there something I need to do to the code if I want to use it? Or is it just a simple matter of putting content in that field and it will automatically override the post content?
I’ve only recently started using the “more” tag in my posts mainly because I’m trying to avoid duplicating content in the eyes of G. But you provide an excellent point about moving the links in such a way to have them seen on the full post page.
by Mark
I’m not referring to the optional excerpt. The plugin that I linked to lets you specify how many words are extracted and published. For example, I have the first 55 words of a post as an excerpt. By using the plugin, it’s easy to switch back to full posts if you change your mind later.
by Cash Quests
Hehe…looks like I must have read right over that link. Thanks for the link.
by Mark
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