Value of Blogroll Links?

I run a website that has been ranked at #7 on the first page of google results for it's keyword. I've maintained a #7 rank with minimal fluctuation for about two years.

Since the last index, a friend who runs an extremely large blog added me to his blogroll. I gave him the anchortext which contains the two keywords I most want to place on. A yahoo search of the pages on his blog shows that his blog has 44,000 pages which now contain this blogroll link. This was added about a week or two after google published it's last results.

Since he added that I've been bouncing all over the results. For a couple hours I was at number 3, and since then I've bounced all over between #5 and #7, but for now I've been back at place #7, which I usually am.

In addition, I've asked several friends who run other blogs to add me to their blogrolls.

The total links I've gained are:
44,000 pages linking to mine - Blog 1
500 pages linking to mine - Blog 2
200 pages linking to mine - Blog 3
50 pages linking to mine - Blog 4
20 pages linking to mine - Blog 5

I'm still waiting for the next index to see what the result of this is. At the same time I've also added about 50 links from real web pages, but in the past that hasn't budged my ranking at all.

Can anyone speak to the value of a large number of blogroll links?

Are lots of blogroll links of much value for Google or Yahoo ranking?

It's not realy about the type of link you have, It's about the quality of the site on which the links appear.

Would a sitewide link on slashdot be good? Of course
Would a homepage link on a casino affiliate blog be good? probably not.

Of the blogroll links added, all are from real content sites, though some are not directly connected to the topic my site is on. The PR values of all sites are high. You would think that the sheer number of links added would raise my site much higher in the results, but it hasn't happened yet.

The total links I've gained are:
44,000 pages linking to mine - Blog 1 Pagerank 6
500 pages linking to mine - Blog 2 Pagerank 5
200 pages linking to mine - Blog 3 Pagerank 5
50 pages linking to mine - Blog 4 Pagerank 4
20 pages linking to mine - Blog 5 Pagerank 4

Having 1000 links on one site isn't going to be as good as 1 link on 1000 sites.
I wouldn't expect to see a huge increase in your position as a result of these links, Especially if the site they are on is unrelated.

Even with such a large number of links. There have been at least 44,770 links added with keywords that I am looking to place higher on. Each of the sites has linked using different anchor text, but including at least one of the keywords I want, and most linking to two.

Especially with a large number of links. Backlinks are all about quality and nothing about quantity.

Would you say that links from blogs that are on the topic of a site are as valuable as links from non-blogs?

Is pursuing links from relevant blogs as valuable as gaining links from relevant stationary websites?

They are the same. Google doesn't see a difference between blogs, websites or forums, they are just names we have given them. Google just sees them all as webpages.

Hi,
There will be no real distinction between a blogroll link and any other link for G. Whether a blogroll link is of value will depend on all the usual factors that determine the value of a link.

Yes - links from a high PR site with relevant content will be king. Wouldn't it also be more helpful to vary the text on the links back to your page? (i.e. - Instead of every link saying the exact same thing, word it differently as many ways and times as possible?)

Also a related but different question - doesn't Google discount the links if several of the sites are on the same IP address?

Thanks, and good luck.

Hi,

Suppose a blog like BoingBoing or DailyKos with 50bazillion pages and a high pagerank adds a link to you from their blogroll. That's a huge number of links and they can't be varried.

Also suppose that with a blog like BoingBoing for example, they cover so many topics that the text is not likely to be super-relevant. What then?

Also, regarding sites with the same ip address, what about sites like blogger.com and wordpress.com, which each host a large number of blogs.

BoingBoing is seen by google as being a quality site. So the links from it will be quality links.

Right, but if the site is a quality site (PR 6 with quality links of it's own, etc.) and the topic isn't identified as being connected will it still help.

Since these 44,000 PR 6 links were added I've been jumping up and down on the rankings, both above and below where I've ranked before, which is strange. On average, I've been higher by a couple placements, and the links have been there for less than a month...

PR is not a reflection of quality, Authority or trustrank.
If the site gets good SE traffic then thats more of a reflection of quality than it's PR.

If the site or blog is a trusted/quality site then google will say "well this is a good site, So who they link to must be good". Google will be able to spot links for the sake of links from poor quality sites, so they wont give them much weight, Regardless of PR.

I would predict that a sitewide link on a PR6 unrelated site will initially mean you drop in the SERPS while google decide if this is spam or tactical linking, or if the site linking to you are doing so because they think you have a good site.