Number of Links: Link Analysis for Shopping Sites
The importance of links can never be underestimated when it comes to link and content optimization. Link-ranking algorithms have controlled Web search in the first decade of this century. There are positive indicators that it may change in the second decade or at least degrade a little at the expense of content ranking factors.
The data tables show the frequency of links on two samples of general merchandise shopping sites.
| Number of Links: Average Frequency | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Observed Element | General Merchandise | General Merchandise SE | Average |
| Links Internal Total | 86.4 | 86.6 | 86.5 |
| Links Unique Internal | 54.4 | 63.6 | 59.0 |
| Links External Total | 11.9 | 22.1 | 17.0 |
| Links Unique External | 9.8 | 18.2 | 14.0 |
| Links Total | 96.1 | 106.5 | 101.3 |
| Links Total Unique | 62.6 | 80.0 | 71.3 |
| Nofollow Links | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
The first data table shows some very interesting differences in link frequency between the samples. The sample of shopping sites with a prominent position with major search engines has more unique internal and external links than the other sample of shopping sites retrieved from shopping link resources. This pattern is also visible on the first chart.
| Number of Links: Maximum Frequency | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Observed Element | General Merchandise | General Merchandise SE | Average |
| Links Internal Total | 2898.0 | 523.0 | 1710.5 |
| Links Unique Internal | 620.0 | 438.0 | 529.0 |
| Links External Total | 258.0 | 989.0 | 623.5 |
| Links Unique External | 255.0 | 989.0 | 622.0 |
| Links Total | 2901.0 | 1103.0 | 2002.0 |
| Links Total Unique | 620.0 | 1093.0 | 856.5 |
| Nofollow Links | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
The second data table and chart shows outliers from the same samples. The search engine sample has more external and total links than the non-search engine sample. What is interesting with this data is the volume of links found on some sites and that it may not harm a site's search engine performance.
Looking at the data above might support the conclusion that having volume of links on a shopping site will not affect search engine positioning if the links are unique.
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