I am beginning to suspect it that the number of links to your site matter less and less... to google this is.  Can anyone confirm or have an current wisdom on this?

Thanks

I'll ask my SEO buddy tomorrow at work. He's one of the top five SEO guys in the world.

(his office is right next to mine and he's my building neighbor too. can hardly get away from the man. :)

Thanks, neva.

I'm not sure if this still matters. When I used to work on an eCommerce website, you get on top of the Google list when you have a lot of people linking to you. I do know that keywords/content is still King (and Queen) and standards-compliant code greatly helps with that.

I always heard it was the PR rank of the site that linked to you. For instance, if I start a new site which has zero links coming in to MY site, and then link to ElsaElsa, it's going to mean less than if my site is 5 years old and has 1000 inbound links to IT and I then link it to yours.

In other words: Google rank is a popularity contest and if the cheerleaders and football players are linking to you, you just got cooler.

Also... the keywords in the links matter. Links to your site that say http://elsaelsa.com are okay, but links that do this: Astrology Website are better.

Also: I think sites like EzineArticles.com actually have nofollow code under their article pages?? So the link at the bottom doesn't actually get Google indexed - it doesn't "count?"? At least that's what I thought a couple of years ago. I haven't checked lately.

Links still and does matter, Elsa.  According to a friend who manages the website of a government agency in London.  It's the presentation of these links and how it's strategically placed elsewhere in the webpages that does the trick.  I'll seek more of his professional input on this one.

Thanks, everyone. I really do want to know this stuff... I need to find out if at all possible.

Your site gets indexed fast and comes up high on Google because of the way your blog and forums use live links in the titles of your posts. So a post that's titled "Scorpio Jealousy" is better than one that's titled "The Green Eyed Monster" although that might get hits too, just not from astrology seekers.

Completely agree Bananas.  I think we have to determine the demographics and the level of techno lingo that the users of a particular generic site would look and like to be identified with.  So there, strength or impact of the subject captions is an essential.  A theme or sub-theme if you may should also be strongly identified to that site like a particular signature or reputation in the community that the site belongs to.

As the site owner, what would be the one thing that you wouldn't want me to forget that would make me keep coming back for more?  How would I be reminded of it if I'm out there "shopping" for the same thing?  How soon can you reel my attention back to your site if I wander long enough or too far?

What I am trying to determine... I am trying to find justification for continuing to maintain the Astro Dispatch.  I need something beyond the fact I am in the habit because it is a terrible drain on me and on this blog and the only thing returned is the links I have to force people to put up who no one ever clicks anyway.

 I send out roughly 50 clicks for everyone 1 I get back. I need to justify this and am having trouble doing so.

People don't realize the whopping burden I shoulder for them, at least this is my assumption because I get bitched out or bothered about that site on a daily basis and frankly I am becoming fed up.

I don't have time to do an unpaid, thankless job anymore. Who does?

Nobody does anymore Elsa.  Kick the habit.

(is that too harsh?)

Well, I am guarding against the throwing the baby out with the bathwater thing...

There is a huge investment (like 4+ years of my time for starters) and it is a service to "astrology" but then again so is this blog.

ElsaElsa is the baby....unless I got it all mixed up?  Oh hell, and here I am thinking I'm good at giving bath to my babies.

The bathwater could be stale now.

But then again what's the point of hanging on to something that no longer works for us? How about cutting our losses earlier than when we ought to?  Same bottomline, we still cut the loss at some point.  It's your productive time that gets tied up and who knows a portion of your creative spunk as well.  

the links I have to force people to put up who no one ever clicks anyway.

You can stop if you want to, but then check to see if your ElsaElsa site drops in popularity at all for terms that people have used on the blog and forum.

If you do drop, start linking again. The search engines count the number of inbound keyword links from other sites and then boost you up accordingly.

Remember that if you rest for a bit and experience negative repercussions, you can always pick it back up again.

At some point, we take stock, determine how much it is, then walk away in peace.  Life is like that and it happens to the best of us.

i've read google doesn't pay attention to the nofollow anymore and also that they're messing with how they figurue "linkjuice" - i.e. how much weight to give outbound links. it used to be that they'd take the reputation of the originating page, divide the weight it has to pass evenly between the number of outbound links on a page and they are not doing it the same now (but I don't know the specifics).

backlinks still matter, but probably not the same way. it's hard to keep up because they change it a lot and are rather secretive. from your dispatch bloggers, the pages that get more traffic and have a higher pagerank do help you more than the smaller sites linking back but it should all help somewhat.

stuff like the link text matters - if they just link to "ElsaElsa" that helps you score for the term ElsaElsa but it would be more helpful if the linked text had the word astrology in it specifically.

Links in bold text used to matter more, but not so much now as i understand it. 

i do follow this stuff and will keep you in mind when i find something that may help in making an informed decision or get some inspiration.

I'd like to know if RSS feed subscribers are a player in Google's ranking algorithm now.

Jilly, if so I am getting killed by the Dispatch.

It should be a paid service.  You get enough traffic you should charge other professionals for advertising space on this blog.  No reason to give it away free.  

Lupa, when I consider considering that, 2 problems. First the accounting nightmare for the small amount of money that could be charged, plus if people paid I'd not be able to edit. I would have less discretion with what I let go through and believe me there is a percentage of stuff that may as well be spam.

Part of the reason the dispatch is the dispatch is because it is edited, see?  But I get your idea and have not rejected it. I just don't know - am trying to figure this out.

First the accounting nightmare for the small amount of money that could be charged, plus if people paid I'd not be able to edit.

How complex the accounting would be for this? Have you heard of paid editorial service?  Well an obvious problem would be if there's a situation where I would pay you for "whittling" my article from the log that it was into a small toothpick.  Fast solution would be to charge everybody a flat rate as a site and professional service maintainance fee.  That may not be the best or all-encompassing solution but that would at least lighten up the burden and that actually adds value both to your time and that of the contributors.