Link Building in
Light of Vision-based Page Segmentation
The days of basing a successful link building strategy on
link quantity and anchor text alone may be numbered. The link
popularity theories behind PageRank and Hilltop remain important,
but major search engines are continually adding new elements
to their link algorithms to improve search relevance. One
of these new elements is the concept of visual page segmentation
which was recently proposed in a paper entitled "Block-level
Link Analysis," by Deng Cai, Xaiofei He, Ji-Rong Wen and Wei-Ying,
available online at http://research.microsoft.com/research/pubs/view.aspx?tr_id=690.
How VIPS Works
The paper introduces VIsion-based Page Segmentation (VIPS),
which begins with the premise that current link popularity
algorithms are faulty in that they consider each page on the
World Wide Web as a single node. Different "blocks" on a page
however often have different semantics; for instance, a block
on the left side of the page might contain a general navigational
menu or text link advertisements, whereas the block on the
right side of the page might contain an informational article
or links to other Web sites about a certain topic. When VIPS
is applied, these blocks can be separated by a computer with
a vision-based program. Each block can then be considered
as the fundamental unit of analysis, rather than the entire
page. When a link is scored in terms of its block, the link"s
contextual relevance can be interpreted more intelligently
by search engines.
What VIPS Means for Search Engine Optimization
In the near future major search engines such as Google, Yahoo!
Web Search and MSN Search will likely integrate some form
of visual page segmentation into their search algorithms.
A successful search engine optimization strategy should incorporate
knowledge of block-level analysis to ensure that the effects
of a link building campaign will be maximized. But how exactly
does a concept like VIPS affect search engine optimization?
Two consequences in particular should make every SEO take
pause.
Devaluation of Links from Certain Blocks
VIPS will allow search engines to differentiate between links
from the content block and links from other blocks such as
text advertisement blocks or footer blocks. As such, algorithms
could easily weight links from each block differently.
A link from the content block could be considered as more
likely to be a true recommendation than a link from a text
link advertisement block. Search engines may therefore give
extra weight to in-content links while devaluing links that
appear to be advertisements. Sites that rent links through
link networks usually do place them in a block above, below
or to the side of the content block. When VIPS is implemented,
there is a risk that many rented advertisement links could
be devalued.
Improved Contextual Analysis
The theme in which your link is placed also will be more
important than ever before. Many search engine optimizers
have voiced their opinion that "anchor text is everything";
that is, the theme of a page linking to a Web site does not
parse link relevance, but only the anchor text of the link
does.
With block-level analysis, search engines will be able to
recognize the theme of any given block more easily. This should
have the effect of boosting the link relevance for links from
tightly-themed content blocks, while devaluing links that
are in a block with no apparent theme.
Links That Will Always Soar
A search engine optimizer need not fear the effects of VIsion-based
Page Segmentation. Although VIPS will probably devalue certain
types of links that are favored by many SEOs, it will concurrently
increase the value of themed, in-context links.
I have always stressed the value of legitimate links from
directories, articles and press releases. These types of links
are placed in a content block and are also tightly themed
(that is, your target keywords will be near your link).Webmasters
who actively build these types of links will benefit from
long term rankings even when new twists such as VIPS are added
into the algorithmic mix. In fact, these algorithmic improvements
should improve search relevance and neutralize some of the
spammier link building methods. And that's something we should
all be happy about.
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