Comments on: Where on the page are your links from?

By: Ahmet KIRTOK

Ahmet KIRTOK — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 23:10:41 +0000

Hey Tim

I always believe in the saying; “Success is in the details”. I’ve been playing with the locations of the backlinks on a website, and did several tests myself.

My initial test results have shown me that the location of the backlink on the page is an important variable when the overall value is calculated by search engines (especially google).

But when you get a backlink, overall, the goal is to have a pure organic backlink (at least in google’s eyes). What is the main goal of this backlink? To have a higher CTR, OR a higher backlink value for search engines.

For me the business is all about ROI, and in most cases backlinks with less search engine backlink values have brought me higher ROI.

So, the value of a backlink should be divided into 2 categories; SEO value, and the business value. Of course we are talking about initial values here. ‘Cause we all know, a higher SEO value will also increase the ROI in the long term through organic search results.

I don’t want to change the topic here. Just wanted to say, how great of you to share this valuable study with us.

Thanks again.

Ahmet KIRTOK

By: Tim Nash

Tim Nash — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:52:09 +0000

hmmm wouldn’t it
Which is why the 24×24 grid was used to allow overlaying of known click heat maps we have, while I’m not planning on releasing the whole study (clients have to get something) basically very few of the SEO sites we tested had inbound links in areas that drew the most clicks.

By: Gregor

Gregor — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:10:34 +0000

Great work Tim.

This seems really valuable.

I wonder how those blue areas correlate with where people look? If, when we’re trying to read content, we sub-consciously filter out distractions such as links etc then perhaps a link placed in one of the blue areas is more likely to get attention than those in the red areas that we’re used to filtering out?

Interesting stuff.

Cheers,
Gregor

By: Tim Nash

Tim Nash — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:52:37 +0000

The time comes from playing around with things like this, rather then sorting out the membership site so people can pay for even more interesting stuff

Actually in this case the tool was developed for a client to see where links to their site were coming from and to identify best advertising locations.

Really all I did was put in a list of 100 URLs in and make a pretty Picasso-esque picture from the results this has been one of the least worked on posts in ages

By: Jansie

Jansie — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:37:48 +0000

Wow. not sure if i should be impressed, or ask ‘where do you get the time to do stuff like this?’

careful tim, if you continue doing all this testing you’ll end up being called one of the top SEO’s on the net, and soon us normal will have to pay for valuable info

i’m a left-sidebar man myself. dunno where all this right sidebar madness came from.