Updated - Farewell LinkMoses, Hello Link Building Q&A

By Eric Ward

Regular readers know I've been building links since the launch of TheTitanicJustSank.com, or close to it. This wasn't by design. I just had the bad/good luck to lose my advertising job at the right time; Early nineties. I needed something new to do, I went to grad school, and the Internet fell into my lap. The full story of the early years of ericward.com is yet to be written, but I hope to get to it this Summer.

The whole LinkMoses shtick was also an accident. A few years ago someone at a conference made fun that I was still link building, like it was a disease. So I made lemonade out of the joke and turned it into a few thousand new inbound links. Don't mess with a link builder...

I've never intended to be an expert at anything, and the only reason I know so much about link building is that I had the sense or stupidity to stay focused on just that one skill as the web exploded around me. I could have done a thousand different things, but I stayed the link building course. I passed up a $1.5 million buyout offer from BCentral. I ignored Overtures from Overture. I didn't move to San Francisco, Seattle, or New York like everyone thought I should. I stayed right here in my garage office. I didn't write a book when the publishing houses called. Instead I kept doing what I liked. Studied web sites and links. Watched how content gets known, linked, found, by who, when, and where. I did a few industry shows back when just us geeks went. Back when real talent like Danny Sullivan was working his rear off at his kitchen table for just a couple hundred appreciative readers. Somehow my business strategy resulted in other authors writing about me in their books. Again, accidently successful. I was and remain to this day very happy doing what I do. I hope to continue being a content publicist/link builder for many more years.

For several reasons I'm a bit reflective right now. I'm also worn down a bit due to criticism, some deserved and some not, from folks who have have taken issue with my contributions to several link building expert articles. They say I don't give up any secrets. I don't provide worthwhile advice. My answers to link value factors questions are too vague.

Fair enough. This month I begin Link Building Best Practices - Q&A With Eric Ward.

I'll take questions from all comers and turn the best of them into posts where I provide my opinion on what the best practice should be for that particular topic. I don't pretend for one moment to believe that my best practices should be your best practices. I'm just using this avenue as a way to provide very specific advice and opinion developed over the course of building links for 1,000+ new and old sites from 1994 til today. Here's the link to the Link Building Best Practices RSS feed

Link well friends!

NOTE: To ask a link building related question, click the Comments link below, or the Post a Comment link at the bottom of any individual post.

Updated - More Anchor Text Best Practices

I've contributed to several Link Value Factors type articles, including SEOmoz's and Wiep's, and was glad to be included by Rae Hoffman in her awesome Link Development Experts Group Interview. I always have a tough time providing the kinds of answers that would be useful without being so long as to put people to sleep. I can't sum up my own best practices for something like link anchor text in a few words. But I can try to do so here. If it bores you then think of my words as a cure for insomnia.

Here are several anchor text BPs that I hope do a better job of explaining the challenge and nuance of link text.

1). The most trustworthy pages will NEVER let you control your own anchor text, and it is obnoxious to ask. Case in point. See the below site.



Here's how they link out...

The Queen of Trees
Website for a program that looks at the relationship between a Kenyan fig tree and the wasps that pollinate its flowers. Includes background about fig trees in general and about sycomore figs trees in Kenya, a photo essay on sycomore figs and fig wasps, video clips, and related essays and links. From the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) show Nature.
URL: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/queenoftrees/
Added to LII: 2006-06-08

This doesn't mean you cannot sometimes get the exact anchor text you want, because every person has their own fairly evident method for how they out link. But, asking someone who has put a lot of time and effort into finding and linking to great sites to change the protocol they use for outlinks, just for you and your site, is not very polite nor effective. Be happy you got a link at all.

2). As much as you might want to include html code in the email you send to the target site editor, don't. Don't you love it when you get email from someone you don't know telling you what to do?

"Dear webmaster, please add the below code to your website..."

Any site that will do that for another site based on receiving that type of instruction is doomed.

3). The fastest way to create a suspicious looking inbound anchor text profile is to pay too much attention to it. There are some sites that rotate the anchor text using random generation tools in hopes of approximating a natural looking anchor profile. Yes, and Burt Reynold's plastic surgeon is approximating the way Burt looked when he was thirty. No he really is. I swear. Have a look. Perfectly natural Mr. Reynolds, you don't look a day over 70!

4). Start with your own on-site anchor text first. By that I mean the anchor text YOU use to link to YOUR OWN PAGES from your own pages. This is especially true for sites that are already ranking fairly well. Here's an example that illustrates the power of on site anchor text.

Do this Google allinanchor search: allinanchor: link bait strategy

Of Google's 27,300 results, the first page listed is mine. See below.

Results 1 - 10 of about 27,300 for allinanchor: link bait strategy.

Expert Link Bait Consulting and Link Bait Content Strategy Plan...
Eric Ward . com - Increase link popularity by using appropriate Web promotion techniques including submissions to Web guides and edited directories. www.ericward.com/linkbait-services.html- 21k -Cached - Similar pages

Here's the kicker. That page from my site ranks first out of 27,300 pages, but there is only one (that's 1) page linking to that page, and it's from my own site's homepage. Let that sink in. No other sites or pages are linking to my page using that anchor text, except my own, and Google has plenty of other pages they could rank ahead of me, but they don't. The primary conclusion I draw from this is Google has a great deal of trust for the anchor text I use to point to my own pages. It's true that the trust I speak of comes from the overall collection of inbound links I've earned over the years in the first place, but the point lost in this is once you have such trust, don't ignore it as a driver of rankings for...yourself.

Over a year ago I wrote a related piece for Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land called Are You In The Circle Of Link Trust? The point of that column?

"In the course of seeking new links and publicity for new content on an existing site, don't ignore your already trustworthy content as a driver of reputation for the new content. If you are in the enviable position of already having high rankings, if you're in the circle of link trust, leverage it"

5). There is no perfect percentage for keyword anchored vs. non-keyword anchored backlinks. People want to hear me say something definitive like you should try to keep your off site inbound keyword anchored backlink profile to no more than 20% of your overall IBLP. If that makes you happy, go for it.

I wonder what percentage of Adobe Acrobat's backlinks say "click here" in the anchor text? Looks like more than 20%

NOTE: To ask a link building related question, click the Comments link below, or the Post a Comment link at the bottom of any individual post, and ask me anything you want about link building or content publicity. You can post anonymously. I'll answer several questions each week.

What are the best practices for submitting to directories?

It will depend on whether you mean directories like Yahoo or directories like the hundreds listed around the web that nobody ever heard of and nobody ever uses? Seriously, when was the last time someone looking for a new bicycle started their search at link-a-pa-looza.biz? How about never?

The best practices for directory link building depend on several factors all driven by the site you are seeking links for. If you are seeking links for a brand new site at a brand new domain launching for the very first time, then you have nothing to lose and a few decent links to gain by submitting to the many non-descript directories available. Just don't expect much. Now, if the site you are seeking links for is CNN.com, then there is zero value in submitting to directories. So, what I tell clients is to think of their web site as existing on a continuum. On the far right are sites that are well known already, that have many good links, that rank well. On the far left are new sites with no links at all. Where does your site reside on such a continuum? The more your site falls to the left side, the more those directory links might be worth chasing. The more your site is falls to the right side, meaning it's already established and pretty well linked, the less likely it is that directory links -even Yahoo- will help you, and the best practice would be to ignore general directories altogether. I have a site that ranks 1st, 2nd, or 3rd for my most important search terms, and I am not listed in any directories other than Yahoo and DMOZ. You will never convince me that all that stands in the way of bumping my 14 year old well linked site up to position one is a few new links from marginal non-subject-specific directories.

-Eric