MOZ Tool Bar Query

[jennie.evans]

Hi there,

I have a quick question about how pages are ranked on the MOZ tool bar.

If you view this page (with the MOZ tool bar showing on your browzer), it has strong metrics:

http://www.bristol.gov.uk/page/leisure-and-culture/bristol-collection-venue-hire-0

However, when you click the 'Weddings' link a go one page further into the site, is has no metrics:

http://www.bristol.gov.uk/page/leisure-and-culture/wedding-venue-hire

Is this because the page hasn't been crawled? Getting a link here is still good?

[crackingmedia]

Hi Jennie

Both URLs you listed do display metrics in the Moz toolbar for me.

In terms of the value of getting a link from there yes, there could be, the most value would be a link from it is going to a page displaying a wedding venue for hire.

I hope that helps,
Peter

[jennie.evans]

Thanks Peter,

We have a link going through to our wedding planning website, so also relevant.

I was under the impression that a link form a .gov website was a really great link to get - is it so in this scenario?

[crackingmedia]

Hi Jennie

Yes, the consensus used to be that a link from trusted sites like .gov (that's if we can trust government websites but then that's maybe for another discussion!) increase the trust of the page it linked to. The Moz SEO guide says the same in its summary on TrustRank: Earning links from highly trusted domains can result in a significant boost to this scoring metric. Universities, government websites and non-profit organizations represent examples of high-trust domains.

That said, there was a video posted about 3 years ago by Google's Matt Cutts that suggested that links from .gov sites carry no more trust than, for example, from a .com.

I think to a larger extent the question is how relevant is the linking site? By that I mean, is the linking site an authority on the subject for the link being given?

The most important thing really is relevance. In the context of the linking web page on the Bristol City Council website, whilst that page has some authority, the Bristol City Council website is not really an authority on wedding venues and as such the value of that link is probably the same or perhaps only a little more than a similar link from another site. If you had a link from a trusted authoritative site all about weddings then because the site is more relevant, then you may find that carries more weight.

I hope that helps,
Peter

PS. This is the Matt Cutts video I referred to above: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxTmZulcQZ0 - listen to the clip around 1:45 into the video.

[jennie.evans]

Thanks Peter, that's very useful advice:)

Does anyone else have any thoughts?