Question on improving Google standings

Factual Questions
1

I have read on many places on the internet, that to get a higher standing in Google, it is important that Google finds your webpages linked to on other websites, preferably high-traffic websites. If Google sees your webpages linked to or mentioned on other good websites, then Google takes this as a good sign.

How about if the webpages are listed or linked on a forum, board or blog? Does it matter what kind of website the links are posted on, or just that it is from a good traffic site?

For example - If I had a webpage that had information about Death Rays, I know it would be good if there were links or mentions on other websites in the Death Ray webring, but wouldn’t mentions on a board or forum with a fair amount of traffic, such as The Straight Dope, be just as good or better?

Also, does it matter if the spiders read DeathRay.com, the full URL, or if there is an actual hyperlink to the page?

2

[QUOTE=stanger]
I have read on many places on the internet, that to get a higher standing in Google, it is important that Google finds your webpages linked to on other websites, preferably high-traffic websites.
[/QUOTE]

This was their initial patent and the subject of an article in Scientific American.

Also, the text within the anchor determines the ranking. This is the reason for Google Bombs.

Google has another patent where, for example, the length of the sites domain license has a bearing on ranking. This is to deter spammers and scammers from opening a new, one year only site.

A church which I shaln’t name opened many web sites, each linking to the other. This improved the overall ranking of all. I do not know what Google did, if anything, to correct this. The last I read is that it became know that this same church volunteered for Google’s Directory and was omitting sites critical of it. I suspect, but have no emperical evidence that Google peeks at a domain’s owner to adjust the ranking. I say this because I tried it to no avail. That’s not to say that if one or two very high hit sites had your name on their index.html that you wouldn’t see a jump in your site’s ranking.

Now, as someone who, having a self employed business, being only granted an hour a day on public library computers, after almost a years work was able to rise my self written web site from obscurity to front page Google ranking on three key words (pinball, repair, orlando), I say if you want to increase the Google ranking of your web page – go to Google’s WebMaster page. Pretend you’re a Hacker and explore the many avenues of information. Correct any errors Google finds. Hide, with robot.txt, your Anti-Spammer Agents.

Also, I suspect, but again have no emperical evidence that Google watches other search engines. Searches for my web site were first discovered on Yahoo by customers. Then I was ‘discovered’ by Google.