Comments on: Unexpected SEO Results? Check On Page

By: John at Website Building biz

John at Website Building biz — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:06:16 +0000

When I changed the link by fixing the URL, it bounced quickly from 61 to 11 and back down into the high 60s. This was about a week ago so I expect that the change is probably propagating throughout the data-centers. I also made a PDF to attach to that page and Google itself is always making changes – so I guess it is impossible to know exactly which one factor is causing the rapid 50 point fluctuations. I do think that the broken link was holding me down a bit, though. Linking to 404s is bad form regardless of how the SEs interpret it, and I still feel silly for leaving that issue live for so long 🙂

I don’t think having the link for “green banana widgets” is as much of a boost as having a dead link was weighing the site down.

By: Steve | Trade Show Guru

Steve | Trade Show Guru — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 01:15:01 +0000

hi John,
Are you saying that the page you were trying to link for, let’s say, “green banana widgets” had that phrase (green banana widgets) as a link on it and it was supposed to link back to the page, but it linked instead to a non-existent page (because of your typo)? If I understand this correctly, you think that instead of google ignoring the broken link, it is penalizing the page for it? That could be. I’m not sure though that google counts a link on a page that goes to the same page. I’ll be curious if you can update this post if your page’s ranking improves. I do agree that broken links are a no-no, and it’s a bit embarassing to find them (I’ve found several on my site).
Steve, aka the some what slow trade show guru