Link Spam Detection Based on Mass Estimation
Not sure how many people believe TrustRank is in effect in the current Google algorithm, but I would be willing to bet it is. Recently another link quality research paper came out by the name of Link Spam Detection Based on Mass Estimation [PDF], authored by Zoltan Gyongyi, Pavel Berkhin, Hector Garcia-Molina, and Jan Pedersen.
The proposed method for determining Spam Mass works to detect spam, so it compliments nicely with TrustRank (TrustRank is primarily aimed to detect quality pages and demote spam).
The paper starts off by defining what spam mass is. Spam Mass – an estimate of how much PageRank a page accumulates by being linked to from spam pages.
I covered a bunch of the how it works in theory stuff in the extended area of this post, but the general takehome tips from the article are:
* .edu and .gov love is the real deal, and then some
* Don’t be scared of getting a few spammy links (everyone has some).
* TrustRank may deweight the effects of some spammy links, but since most spammy links have a low authority score they do not comprise a high percentage of your link popularity if you have some good quality links.
* If you can get a few well known trusted links you can get away with having a large number of spammy links.
* These types of algorithms work on a relative basis. If you can get more traditional media coverage than the competition you can get away with having a bunch more junk links as well.
* Following up on that last point, some sites may be doing well in spite of some of the things they are doing. If you aim to replicate the linkage profile of a competitor make sure you spend some time building up some serious quality linkage data before going after too many spammy or semi spammy links.
* Human review is here to stay in search algorithms. Humans are only going to get more important. Inside workers, remote quality raters, and user feedback and tagging gives search engines another layer to build upon beyond link analysis.
* Only a few quality links are needed to rank in Google in many fields.
* If you can get the right resources to be interested in linking your way (directly or indirectly) a quality on topic high PageRank .edu link can be worth some serious cash.
* Sometimes the cheapest way to get those kinds of links will be creating causes or linkbait, which may be external to your main site.
The complete review of “Link Spam Detection Based on Mass Estimation”
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Aaron Wall, Search Marketing / SEO Coverage and Rants – Aaron Wall is one of the most vocal search engine marketers in the business and he has channeled his thoughts and expertise into his widely popular eBook, SEObook.
