Chapter 22 — Exercises

Work these in order; they climb from recall to real link diagnosis. You will need a web browser and, ideally, access to Google Search Console for a site you control (the Links report is free and is the only Google-sourced link data you get). Items marked with a dagger (†) have full worked solutions in Appendix — Answers to Selected Exercises; odd-numbered items are worked there too. Attempt every item before you look.

A reminder in the spirit of the chapter: the goal is never to accumulate links. It is to understand whose vote a link is, how much it is worth, and whether it was earned — and to refuse the shortcuts that turn an asset into a liability.

A. Recall and vocabulary

Exercise 22.1 — In one sentence each, define backlink and referring domain, then explain why "we have 40,000 backlinks" is a weaker claim than "we have 300 referring domains."

Exercise 22.2 † — State the core idea of PageRank in plain English (no formula), including both halves of the insight: what a link represents, and why not all links count equally.

Exercise 22.3 — In the PageRank formula, what does the divisor $C(T_i)$ represent, and what does dividing by it model about how a page "votes"?

Exercise 22.4 — Define anchor text and give one reason it is a useful signal for Google and one reason it became a manipulation target.

Exercise 22.5 — Name the four rel situations discussed in §22.4 (the ordinary case plus the three attributes) and say, in a few words, what each one signals.

Exercise 22.6 † — What is an editorial link, and why is it the only kind that is durably safe? Contrast it with a self-placed or acquired link.

Exercise 22.7 — What is the damping factor in PageRank, and what does the "random surfer" story say it represents?

Exercise 22.8 — Define the link graph. What are its nodes and its edges, and what does Google compute over it?

B. Applied reasoning

Exercise 22.9 † — A page with a high PageRank links out to 200 pages; a modest page links out to 3. Using only the intuition from §22.1 (not a calculation), explain which of those pages' outbound links is likely to pass more authority, and why. Then name the one factor this comparison ignores that could flip your practical decision about which link to want.

Exercise 22.10 — Explain, to a non-technical business owner, why they cannot raise their own site's authority simply by adding more pages and links within their own site. Use the idea that PageRank is "conferred by others."

Exercise 22.11 † — The chapter says relevance matters more since Penguin. Give a concrete example of two links to an HVAC company where the lower-authority link is nonetheless the better link, and say why.

Exercise 22.12 — Distinguish, in your own words, the two flows of authority in §22.5: what external links do and what internal links do. Why does the chapter say architecture "cannot manufacture" authority?

Exercise 22.13 — Explain why Google moved nofollow from a directive to a hint in 2020. What problem was it trying to solve, and why does the practical advice to publishers barely change?

Exercise 22.14 † — Why is a link profile that is 100% follow links itself a potential manipulation signal? What does a natural profile look like instead?

Exercise 22.15 — "PageRank is dead." Identify the grain of truth and the falsehood bundled in this claim, and restate it accurately.

For each scenario, name the most likely issue and the first thing you would check or do. Some have more than one defensible answer — say why.

Exercise 22.16 † — After Chapters 3, 9, and 15, Rivertown's water-heater page has a matching title, is comprehensive, and receives internal links from the plumbing hub — yet it still sits near the top of page two for the competitive head term. Using this chapter, name the remaining lever and the chapter that supplies it.

Exercise 22.17 — A site's rankings rose sharply three months ago and have just collapsed. Its backlink tool shows a spike of ~400 new referring domains around the time of the rise, most from unrelated overseas sites with the same commercial anchor text. Diagnose what most likely happened and why the collapse came later than the rise.

Exercise 22.18 † — A competitor outranks you for a valuable term. Your page is more comprehensive and faster. What off-page factor should you investigate, and what free Google tool shows you their — and your — linking picture at the level Google actually sees?

Exercise 22.19 — A blogger offers to add your link to twelve of their old posts for \$50 each, all with the exact anchor you want to rank for. List three separate red flags in that single sentence, using §22.3 and §22.6.

Exercise 22.20 — A page earns a burst of links from a viral news story, then the story fades. Should you expect the rankings that burst produced to hold, fade, or something in between? Reason from how authority and relevance work — and note what the chapter honestly cannot tell you.

D. On your own site (use a free tool)

Exercise 22.21 † — Open Google Search Console → Links for a site you control. Record three numbers: your total external links, your number of top linking sites (referring domains), and your most common anchor text. Write one sentence interpreting each as a symptom (healthy? thin? suspicious?). Do not act yet.

Exercise 22.22 — From the same Links report, list your top five linking sites and sort them into legitimate/relevant, legitimate/irrelevant, and questionable. If you cannot tell which bucket a site belongs in, what would you check about that site?

Exercise 22.23 — Look at your top linked page in Search Console. Is it the page you would want to be your most-linked (usually the homepage or a flagship resource)? If a trivial page is your most-linked, what might that tell you?

Exercise 22.24 — Pick one page you wish ranked better. Do any external sites link to it directly, or does it depend entirely on internal links for its authority? Connect your answer to the two flows in §22.5.

Exercise 22.25 † — Grade this pair of link opportunities.

FIGURE E.1 — "Which link would you rather earn?"             [constructed teaching example]
  OPPORTUNITY A   A guest slot on a low-quality "general business tips" site (DR 55 per a tool) that
                  publishes 6 sponsored posts a day, links in an author bio, exact-match anchor allowed.
  OPPORTUNITY B   A mention and in-content link from your regional newspaper's home-improvement columnist
                  (DR 48 per a tool), inside a real article, anchor chosen by the writer.

Which is the better link, and why? Name at least three dimensions from §22.3 on which they differ, and explain why the higher tool-metric (DR 55) does not settle the question.

Exercise 22.26 — Interpret this Search Console excerpt.

FIGURE E.2 — "A small business's Links report"              [constructed teaching example]
  Top linking sites:  spam-directory-list.example (1,900 links) · forum-signatures.example (700 links)
                      localchamber.example (2 links) · regionalpaper.example (1 link)
  Top linking text:   "cheap hvac repair townname" (2,100) · "Rivertown Home Services" (14)

Which rows are the healthy signal and which are the liability? What does the anchor text distribution alone suggest, and which chapter handles the decision about the bad links?

F. Myths, ethics, and judgment

Exercise 22.27 † — Spot the myth. A consultant's proposal says: "Our first deliverable is to raise your Domain Authority from 22 to 40, which will move you onto page one." Identify the myth, explain what DA actually is, and name the risky behavior this goal tends to encourage.

Exercise 22.28 — Spot the myth. "Nofollow links are a waste of time; only chase dofollow." Give two reasons this is wrong and one situation where a nofollow link is genuinely worth pursuing.

Exercise 22.29 — Ethics/risk judgment. Rivertown's owner asks, "A service promises 100 links next month for \$500 and says it's totally safe. Why not?" Answer in four sentences using the mechanism (why buying breaks the signal), detectability (fingerprints), the two remedies Google applies, and the retroactive-risk point.

Exercise 22.30 — A colleague wants to disavow every low-quality link in the profile today, "just to be safe." Give the chapter's reason to wait, and name where that decision properly belongs.

G. The Strategy File (Rivertown Home Services)

Exercise 22.31 † — Build Rivertown's link-profile baseline as a table with two columns — Legitimate (keep/build on) and Inherited liability (flag, decide in Ch 26) — and place at least three items in each, drawn from the chapter's Strategy File. For each liability item, name the specific §22.6 fingerprint it shows.

Exercise 22.32 — Marisa Delgado says, "Let's just buy a few strong links to get the water-heater page onto page one fast, then stop." Write the three-sentence reply you would give her, grounded in this chapter, that declines the shortcut and points her at the durable alternative (name the chapters).

Exercise 22.33 — Do Rivertown's Chapter 22 task on your own (or a client's) site: from Search Console, produce a one-page baseline — referring-domain count, a legitimate-vs-questionable split, and your top anchor text — and write a single sentence stating what your baseline implies about why your priority page ranks where it does. Disavow nothing.

Where these go next. Keep your answers to 22.21, 22.31, and 22.33 — they are the authority page of your running Strategy File (Appendix C's worksheet). The baseline you build today is what the link-earning plan (Chapter 23), the tactic plan (Chapter 24), and the disavow decision (Chapter 26) will all stand on.