Building a Hub Site: Thinking About Linking - To be a Hub you Have to Think Links
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Becoming a hub site is first and foremost about linking. That link thought must extend beyond the ordinary thoughts of simply collecting inbound links. The hub site mode of thought extends much farther. It includes linking out to a huge number of theme related sites as well. Those outbound links may even include your own business competitors.
For many webmasters, the idea of linking out to large numbers of sites is often the opposite of their ingrained ways of thinking about links. When most people think in terms of linking, they have visions of an unlimited number of incoming one way links, pouring traffic and Google PageRank into their sites.
A hub site is designated by having numerous outbound links to other related sites. In that sense, developing a hub site runs counter to conventional thinking. A hub site webmaster thinks outside that box.
A major problem facing a webmaster seeking to create a hub site is to find and attract incoming theme related links. To achieve that goal, a website owner must provide high quality content that is both interesting and informative to attract unsolicited inbound links. Incoming links are required to build up PageRank, and to gain link popularity to move up the search engine rankings.
The incoming links difficulty can be solved the old fashioned way. The solution is always to add as much informative and useful content as possible. In fact, to gain authority status, along with hub status, abundant content is absolutely essential. For seekers of the hub site level, content is required to attract incoming links.
Hubs are distinguished by their willingness to link out to other sites whose contents are based on similar themes. Google appears to have already given its blessing to hub sites. That endorsement by Google can be readily seen with blogs.
For blogs, linking out has not proven to be the drain on PageRank, that many people would ordinarily expect. In fact, for many blogs, linking out has helped to enhance their search engine rankings. Linking out may have turned a number of leading blogs into hub sites for their theme area.
The reason for that blog linking out success in the search engines is similar to the power of the hub site. It's based on linking out to other blogs that are written on similar topics and themes. All website owners can use that empirical data to their own benefit. There are enough blogs linking out, while maintaining strong PageRanks and search rankings to back up that concept.
If you link out to other sites and web pages that are similar in topic to yours, you will not be held down by Google. Any drain on PageRank will be minimal at worst. It's thought as well that Google is not kind to sites that attempt to hoard PageRank. If that is true, then seeking hub site status is a wise goal. In any case, even if there is a minute loss of PageRank, the overall rise in the search engine results pages (SERPs) makes that more than a fair trade off.
Next: Don't Worry about Becoming the Dreaded Link Farm >>
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