How does the location of a link in the structure of a website affect its quality in Google?

Google Patent: US9165040B1

Status: Active

The present invention relates to a method for producing a ranking for pages on the web by computing shortest distances from a set of seed pages to each of the pages to be ranked.

Patent US9165040B1 describes a method and system for ranking web pages based on computing shortest distances in a link graph.

The model in this patent analyzes

1. Reference graph: Web pages are represented as nodes in a graph, and the links between them are represented as directed edges.
2. Start pages: A set of «start» pages are selected for ranking, which serve as a starting point for calculating distances.
3. Distance calculation: For each page, the shortest distances from the starting pages are computed to estimate its «remoteness» from reliable sources.
4. Assigning weight to links: The weight of each link is determined based on the properties of the source page and the link itself.
5. Ranking: The pages are ranked based on calculated distances, allowing both the quantity and quality of incoming links to be taken into account.

In the context of the US9165040B1 patent, a start page (or «seed page») is not necessarily a home page referring site (home). The patent describes a home page as any page that is used as a starting point for calculating the shortest distances in a link graph.

This patent deals with linking between pages within the same site and between different sites on the Internet. Thus, the starting page can be any page from which the calculations in the column for ranking other pages start.

✍️ Conclusions:

1. To convey more weight to your site, focus on having key pages on your site (such as the home page or high traffic pages) serve as launching points for other pages on your site.
2. You should structure the site so that important pages (e.g., key product or service pages) are closer to the main entry points (home page, high-traffic pages).
3. Links from internal pages of your site that get a lot of traffic can pass more weight.

For effective re-linking, here's where to help you out GSC - Search Results - Pages (filter by display: from larger to smaller. Next, load the list of pages into frog and analyze suitable anchors for internal links. But before that insert the anchors themselves in Custom Search - they can be taken from the same GSC analyzing these URLs - tab «Queries» or from your core)

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