 |
Session Summary: Need links? Of course you do! In order to rank well and successfully promote your online business, you need an effective link building program as part of your over-all SEO strategy. Link guru Debra O'Neil Mastaler, Owner of Alliance Link walks attendees through the world of links. Find out why search engines rely so heavily on links, where to find links and why a good link can send sales through the roof.
Click to continue reading »
Are you a search marketer that reports paid links? Patrick Altoft asked the same question in a post at Blogstorm and admitted that he had reported them in the past, but only when the site buying or selling them was a direct competitor and ranked higher than him. My first inclination is to say, "shame on you, Patrick." However, I guess it really depends on how you view paid links. There are those who view them as spam and would not hesitate for a minute to report a competitor. However, if you buy or sell paid links but also report them to Google all in the name of trying to curtail the efforts of a competitor, well then that kind of makes you a hypocrite.
Click to continue reading »
Anyone who is into link building knows that Google has declared a war of sorts on paid links, looking to punish both those who buy and sell them. Vanessa Fox has put together an excellent review of the "paid links war" as it unfolded in 2007. With that review, she wanted to learn how the other three major search engines felt about paid links. At the writing of her post, Yahoo and MSN failed to comment. Ask did and their response was quite refreshing.
Click to continue reading »
While I did not expect much in the way of news here in the U.S. due to the Thanksgiving holiday, it appears that Google took the opportunity to update their web master guidelines regarding paid links. The changes essentially reveal that buying or selling links that pass PageRank can penalize a site not only in its Google Toolbar PageRank status, but also in Google search results. What does this mean for those that consider themselves "white hat SEOs?" Better go shopping for a new hat - a nice black one.
Click to continue reading »
It is all over the blogosphere - sites known for selling text link ads or Google PageRank have been slapped with a PageRank reduction for their own sites by the almighty Google itself. Is this a worldwide PR update with a possible algorithm change or is it more along the line of a hand job? Seeing that a couple of sites we launched several months ago are still at a "0" PageRank, even though they have a good amount of links pointing to them, I'd have to say the latter. The question that remains to be answered is, "should publishers and those buying links be worried?"
Click to continue reading »
Loren Baker has put together some guidelines in using blog reviews as an effective link building tactic. What I like best about Loren's post is that he provides sound advice without revealing any specifics such as blogs that sell reviews or even companies that actually provide this as a service. With the war that Google has waged against paid links, it is comforting to see posts such as these that provide useful information without helping Google to identify those who are buying or selling the reviews. It fits right in with my previous plea for the entire paid links industry to go underground.
Click to continue reading »
If Danny Sullivan's report over the weekend that Google is in fact reducing the PageRank for sites that are suspected of selling paid links isn't enough to send the entire paid links industry underground, then I don't know what is. Add to this the storm of controversy that recently occurred over Rand Fishkin outing sites that sell paid links. Now I don't sell paid links for the sake of ranking better in the organic search results, however, as one who buys paid links for client sites, I have been a proponent for some time now of the entire industry, those who buy links, those who sell them and everyone in between, working to make it more difficult for Google and other search engines to identify paid link strategies. Currently we are making their job way to easy.
Click to continue reading »
We are having a discussion over at Small Business Ideas Forum where Dale King starts things of by questioning the effectiveness of reciprocal linking tactics. He basically says that once upon a time, reciprocal links were one of the number one ways webmasters acquired links from other sites. However, in current times, reciprocal links have been greatly devalued by the search engines, at least as far as helping a SEO effort. So are reciprocal links a thing of the past? Should webmasters avoid them like the plague? I would say that it really depends on the "type" of reciprocal link.
Click to continue reading »
Don't let the title fool you - I'm not against buying links. In fact I buy them quite often for clients. However I am frustrated time and time again when searching for good links. I find a great site in which there is an opportunity to buy a paid link but am scared off for one reason or another. Here is a rant of sorts as I list several things that bug me regarding those who sell links.
Click to continue reading »
Owning a few directories myself, this is a question that is of interest to me, especially after Matt Cutts recently stirred up some controversy when he invited people everywhere to report paid links as spam. With our directories, some listings are editorial while others are paid. In the beginning, every site added was editorial simply to populate the directory. Today we require payment for every submission simply to compensate for the time that is taken to review, edit and include the listing. Therefore the submitter is not necessarily paying for a link but rather paying for the editor's time to consider the submission for inclusion.
Click to continue reading »
Matt Cutts started a firestorm this last Saturday by inviting people to use Google's spam report form to report paid links. Many are interpreting this as a sign that Google is having difficulty detecting which links are paid and which are not. Others see it as Google taking another step to dictate how we should run our web sites and even our businesses. Although I can respect the fact that Google wants to protect its own search algorithm and ultimately their business model, I think they have gone a bit to far with this one.
Click to continue reading »
I conducted a test last April (almost 10 months ago) in which I added a phrase to our SearchRank MySpace profile that at the time produced no search results at any of the four major engines. I linked the phrase to Justin Timberlake's official web site to see if I could get the site to rank for that phrase even though it did not appear anywhere within his site - a Google bombing of sorts. After 4 months, it only worked for MSN. However, someone named Rebecca recently emailed me through MySpace and said that the link was in fact now ranking Justin's web site for that phrase on Google.
Click to continue reading »
Loren Baker has an excellent post on why the nofollow tag sucks. In fact he provides thirteen reasons why it has failed to deliver on its original purpose. I couldn't agree more. Loren reminds us that the NoFollow link attribute (rel="nofollow") was originally created to block search engines from following links in blog comments, due to the amount of blog comment spamming. However this has not dealt with the real problem and that is stopping people from spamming blog comments in the first place. Things like asking a question or requiring authentication works much better in combating comment spam.
Click to continue reading »
Andy Hagan, who refers to himself as the laziest SEO in the world, has done it again. He has given away his entire link baiting game plan in "The Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and Social Media Marketing." It is actually a quality piece that no truly lazy person could accomplish. At least it would require some time away from sandy beaches and sipping Mai Tais. Read on for a few juicy tidbits as well as link to the guide itself.
Click to continue reading »
Chris Logan in conjunction with Small Business Brief has launched a new site called Free Links which offers a venue for individuals to share their experiences with free advertising and marketing opportunities. Free Links provides ways to advertise and promote a website or business. Currently there are over a hundred opportunities listed including gaining inclusion in web directories to promoting podcasts.
Click to continue reading »
First there was PayPerPost which was followed by ReviewMe, both of which are relatively new services that pay bloggers to write about web sites, products, services, and even companies. Now Text Link Brokers will soon launch SponsoredReviews.com to compete with the other two. How will this new service differentiate themselves from the other two? For starters they claim to offer lower transaction fees and a bidding system. Read on for a list of key points the service will offer.
Click to continue reading »
A Search Engine Watch thread reveals that Microsoft is banning sites for participating in spammy link exchanges at MSN and Live.com. This type of reciprocal linking is usually conducted with the attempt to artificially inflate the link popularity of a site and as such, assist in improving its rankings in the organic search results. While this is not the first time a search engine has taken action against link exchange schemes, it is the first that I have seen where the engine clearly explains why the site was banned.
Click to continue reading »
Real estate agents face some of the toughest competition in the search space. Thousands of agents all competing for the same of near-identical key phrases and trying to capture one of ten spots when shooting for the first page of search results. How can they gain an edge over the competition? What will it take to set their site apart from the masses? Elise Wright from Famous Agents.com writes an excellent article entitled "21 keys To Link Bait Success" with the focus on what real estate agents can do to increase their search engine visibility as well as drive quality traffic to their sites. read on for link to article as well as a few excerpts.
Click to continue reading »
Can a link from the MySpace.com domain help your site rank well for a particular phrase if you use that phrase as anchor text in the link? I conducted a little experiment a while back to answer that very question. Read on to discover my results.
Click to continue reading »
I've written a new article that has been published at SearchDay entitled "Generating Buzz With Link Baiting and Viral Campaigns". It provides detailed coverage of the Link Baiting & Viral Search Success session recently held at Search Engine Strategies, San Jose and dives into the topic of how to employ successful link baiting and viral campaigns. Featured speakers were Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz, Cameron Olthuis of Advantage Consulting Services, Jennifer Laycock from Search Engine Guide and Chris Boggs from Avenue A | Razorfish.
Click to continue reading »
Andy Hagans and Aaron Wall have authored a new article available at SEOBook.com entitled ""101 Ways to Build Link Popularity in 2006." It is only fitting that their first tip is "Build a 101 list. These get Dugg all the time, and often become "authority documents". People can't resist linking to these (hint, hint)."
Click to continue reading »
Is the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) selling PR9 links or just graciously thanking those who have chosen to support them? Via Barry Swartz at Search Engine Watch Blog comes the news that you can get a PR9 link at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) web site in which they will also list you on an additional page that has a PR7 all for the extremely affordable price of $1000 per year!
Click to continue reading »
Link building expert, Eric Ward has an interesting article that lays out some tactics of link whores. What is a link whore anyway? Typically it is a person who goes about link building using less then ethical tactics. It is a person who litters the web experience of others. Are you a link whore? read on to find out.
Click to continue reading »
In a continuation of response to what Matt Cutts had to say about links yesterday on his blog, what about paid links? How does Google view these, how good are they getting at spotting them and what actions do they take when they do find them?
Click to continue reading »
Because Google focuses more heavily on links then any other search engine, people monitoring link popularity typically pay close attention to how Goolge views and treats links. Yesterday Google's Matt Cutts dropped a bomb on some when he wrote up a lengthy post on the indexing timeline of Bigdaddy. Read on to see some of what he had to say.
Click to continue reading »
You have no doubt seen the commercials from credit card company Capital One where they use the phrase, "What's in your wallet?" A recent post of almost the same title by Debra Mastaler has her talking about paid links, link bait, tagging and article writing.
Click to continue reading »
|
|
SearchRank | 39506 N. Daisy Mountain Dr., Suite 122-433 | Phoenix, Arizona 85086 | 623-551-3742
Copyright © 1997-2008 SearchRank. All rights reserved. |
|
