Google Loves Peer References For Determining Website Authority

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Google is a big fan of “quality signals”. Their spokesmen use the term often. They’re always looking for new signs of quality, etc. And what is one of the most powerful signs of quality in this world? A reference from a peer is considered to be incredibly powerful, because it mimics how products or services are actually bought in the real world.

Let’s use a simple real world example to make our point:

Dr. Jim is a general practitioner who you’ve seen for years. He can’t help you with your new nosejob, so your ask Dr. Jim for a recommendation of what cosmetic surgeon to see. He says “You go see Dr. Karl, he’s one of my friends from undergraduate studies and is the best damn plastic surgeon money can buy”.

This is a powerful recommendation, because it leverages one person’s expertise to help choose another.

The strength of this recommendation is powerful. If Dr. Jim wasn’t a doctor, but instead was your bartender, the recommendation holds less weight. Peer references need to be “on-topic” in order to have the most effect. Say your cousin Phil is a complete moron. Would you ask him for, and more importantly use, advice from him? No. So if Phil isn’t considered an authorative peer, then his recommendation means little.

The less authoritative the reference, the less value it has.

Now this isn’t a hard or fast rule, and of course I’m simplifying to get my point across. But the idea is valid, and makes complete sense. Ask.com is one search engine that has made its’ studies about peer references available publicly, and Google has dropped a number of references to the concept.

There’s some value in all references, but they’re weighted differently.

A link is a link. Getting another backlink is rarely a bad thing. That said, all links are not created equal because of the neighborhood of the recommender. If the website is completely unrelated to yours, it’s not hard to think of this type of “peer reference” as being somewhat less worthy than a completely related one. If the number one website in your category refers to your website as an excellent website, it’s almost as if they’ve conferred some of their status on you.

It works this way in the real world, and Google would seemingly place some weight on modeling the behavior in Cyberspace.

A rule of thumb when looking for links:

1) Look for the most authorative link in your category
2) Failing that, look for the most authorative link closely related to your category
3) Failing that, find a link from the most powerful domain you can find
4) Failing that, take what you can get

What do you think of peer references?

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