Hi there -
I’ve heard that site linkage helps raise site listings in search engines.
In which case, my question is:
If a site has 500 pages, each containing a link to a single external site, would that count to raise the rank of that external site? Or would it simply be classed as one site linking to one site?
I’m thinking as to whether advertising banners on sites, and whether they helped increase site listing in this manner. A curious question, erally.
the only way to improve your rating in search engines (assuming you’ve already designed the page well for search engines) is to PAY
No it isn’t. Please don’t reply if you can’t make an intelligent answer.
Well, see, what search engine do you want to use? I went to google.com and they said they had over 100 different qualifications for page ranking (most private, to prevent abuse) and linking was only a tiny part of it. Could you not go to a webpage that has banners and find out their policy?
I’m not feeling very helpful in this thread, sorry 
/Shadez
Whilst you are correct that the answer given is wrong, we’ll be the ones around here who determine who can and cannot post, thanks. Being wrong is part of the process of learning things.
There was a flap a few months back about some search engines pushing links to the top according to how much they paid, with no indication that those were sponsored links and not necessarily the ones that best matched the query. IIRC, several were convinced by user complaints to change their layout to make the distinction clearer. Google says they never did mix paid links with others, although their ranking criteria are secret.
I assume most search engines that consider linking as one of their criteria would watch for multiple links from one site to another (or even within a site!), and adjust their count accordingly. That might be harder than it looks; a hosting company could have many independent sites under the same top-level URL.
Hm…sounds like not many people know - I actually thought there were some hard and public rules people could use, aside from the usual ones.
Btw - I don’t run any commerical sites, just info ones.
My understanding is that an engine like google ranks sites according to the importance of the links to any individual site … iow, important sites (heavily linked to by other important sites) that, in turn, link to your site will improve your rating. I don’t think one 500 page site with links to an external site will help much unless that 500 page site is linked to by many other sites.
I have no good cite, site, sight, or insight.
I’ll just point out that web searching and prioritizing algorithms are valuable assets to search engine developers. You can’t expect them to publish detailed descriptions - not only will they be giving away valuable technology, but it will allow web site developers to manipulate the search results.
For whatever it is worth, my two bits
I found that the best results were achieved when I put the search terms I wanted in the title of a page by themselves. The keyword density seemed to play a vital role here though.
Try searching google for
“Lalita Srinivasan”
“Suchitra Kumar”
“G V Krishnan”
“Subroto Mukerji”
and you’ll see what I mean.
My apologies if I’m merely repeating what is common knowledge - I’m not a technical person, but this worked for me
my point was if you don’t design your page well, you won’t get anywhere no matter how you work your links
quarrossimo just mentioned, putting keywords in your page title helps… as well as putting keywords near the beggining (within the text, don’t try and hide them) will also do a good deal to get your page a better ranking for relevant topics.
AND - as I stated earlier, if you want a good ranking… you can always pay for it… personally, I never have and never will, but then I don’t need to because i design my sites well enough to get a good search engine rating anyway
Sorry Tal, you’re second reply was much better. 
Yes, I’ve done the meta-tag thang. And all links in order. The only significant engine I’ve heard of paying for is MSN, but really I’m focussed on Google.
I guess it’s back to swapping banner/links…
don’t just focus on meta tags… think about other content on your page, the higher up the page the better…eg, in your title…and the first line of text…if the first thing on your page is a pic, make good use of the “alt” tags - this works well for google