LinkedIn Traffic Power

LinkedIn traffic is more valuable than traffic from other social networks and sites. This is due to the professional nature of LinkedIn itself. LinkedIn has the highest average household income per user over any other social networking site (even NYTimes.com and BusinessWeek.com readers). Users of this service are business decision makers currently numbering 60 million professionals. For me it is always one of the top 3 referring sites that drives traffic to my blog.

link velocity - Google's need for freshness

Link velocity refers to the speed at which new links to a webpage are formed. Historically, great bursts of new links to a specific page has been considered a red flag, the quickest way to identify a spammer trying to manipulate the results. With information suddenly so viral and speedy, bursts of links to content are key indicators of freshness and what is at the top of mind for searchers. Take for example, Wikipedia’s content is continually updated by its editors, giving it the appearance of constant freshness. Combined with continual linking, it gives it a live Web relevance and therefore placement. Age of content and websites are then devalued in favor of freshness, and link bursts regain value so long as link bursts appear naturally viral. How does a search engine differentiate between spam bursts and natural viral bursts?