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9/11/2006
LinkMoses
Linking Commandments - part one
And I say unto you, as thee
provideth content in the name of usefulness, it will be linked...
9/11/2006
.edu
Link Fallacies Explained
One of the bigger link building
hot topics is the impact that IBL (inbound links) originating from .edu
locations can have on your link popularity and search rankings. What most
people don't fully grasp is that the quality of IBL's from within the .edu
domain varies significantly. Read
it all
Previous
Posts
Link
Penalty Anxiety?
Some of you live in a state
of constant fear that your site is just moments away from being banned
or penalized by Google for some linking tactic you have done. Read
it all
Where
Is The Mother of All Links?
A librarian at a school
in the middle of South Dakota might just hold the key to your Web site's
success.
Read
more
Link
Bait Kool-Aid?
People are getting so caught
up in their quest for viral, user-generated links that they will do anything.
Who cares if it has nothing to do with your long-term business success,
your site was on the Digg homepage yesterday! Read
more
Is
White Hat Linking a Myth?
At what point does a link-building
tactic make the leap from acceptable to not? When does white hat become
black hat? Or gray hat? Or pink? And who is to say what is acceptable and
what isn't? What works is what's acceptable, and vice-versa, right? Read
more
Are
You a Link Whore?
I received an RFP from a
company that ought to know better that wanted to know how much I'd charge
to get their site 500 one-way Pagerank 2 or better links. Another
company wanted to know how long it would take me to seed 1,000 blogs with
a link to their site in the blog comment field. And another wanted to know
how many links I could buy for their site for $25,000. Read
more
Power
to the People: Social Linking (at MarketingProfs.com)
Individual and group sharing
of bookmarks or cool sites is not a new thing, and has been around as long
as the Web has. Back then, I remember my excitement when more than a couple
new Web sites launched. Ahhh, back in the day...
For
the love of God please stop sending me link request emails...
One would think that since
my web site has been around forever, and since I'm a one-person shop and
my name is front and center on my homepage, and since I specialize in link
building, I shouldn't receive link request spam. One would think.
How
does Google collect and rank results?
Above is a quick primer
on how Google crawls and indexes the web, and then ranks search results,
from quality engineer Matt Cutts. Although designed for librarians, it's
worth a read by anyone who wants a good general overview.
The
Case for Topically Irrelevant High Pagerank Links
Sometime during the course
of building links to your site, you'll come across a site with a really
high Pagerank but which has absolutely nothing at all to do with your site.
No point in pursuing a link then, right? Yes, no, and maybe.
Linking's
Holy Grail: The Passively-Obtained Backlink
A passively-obtained
backlink is nothing more than a link to your site that you had nothing
to do with obtaining. You didn't know a thing about it. Didn't
ask for it, didn't pay for it, didn't swap for it. It just happened.
The search engines love passive links like this. Why? Because they
can trust them.
Looking
for Links In All The Wrong Places?
In their frenzy to build
links to curry favor with the engines, web site owners miss a far more
important audience using topical tools.
The
Yahoo Link That Can Make You A Star
Did you know there is another
link that Yahoo gives certain sites, at no cost, and sites that receive
this link receive tens of thousands of site visits.
Link
Popularity and Guestbook Links: Useful or Not?
The real question here is
do search engines know about this scam yet, or do they count guestbook
links as additional links for poplarity rankings?
What
Makes A Site Linkworthy?
What is the motivation for
one site owner to link to another site?
Build
A Free Link Clipping Alert Service (Parts I & 2)
you can build your own free
web link clipping service, which you can use to track anything from mentions
of your site in print, to spotting new links to your site.
Linking
Legalities...What You Need to Know
A
Technique For Selecting Sites For Link Requests
Potpourri
of Linking Facts and Fiction
Linkability
- Why Do Some Sites Have It While Others Don't?
Under
the Radar: Tracking Online Coverage
of
Your Site is Hit or Miss, But Mostly Miss
Using
Google to Identify High Quality Link Targets
Automated
Link Generators - Not Worth The Trouble
Linking
Mistakes To Avoid (Part 2): Removing Orphaned URLs
Linking
Mistakes To Avoid (Part 1): Link Optimization and Short URLs
http://www.ericward.com/articles/linkingmistakes1.html
How
to Make The Most Out Of Emailed Press Releases (update)
http://www.ericward.com/articles/072401.html
Taking
The Plunge in the Pay-Per-Click Link Pool
Now
Is The Time For A Portal Link Audit
Make
Friends With Competing Search Engine Links
Easy
Linkin'
Holistic
Link Potential: Beyond the Home Page
Linking
Stew
How
to Build a Free and Fast Link-Alert Service
A
Linking-Campaign Primer
Email
Links: The Good, the Bad, and the Gibberish
Linking
101: Back to Basics
The
Five Major Flaws of Link Popularity
Portal
Links: Where They Are and How to Get Them
Resuscitating
Dead Links
What
Makes A Site LinkWorthy? |
Links.
It's about more than just links. It's the collision
of publicity and public relations and link building. It's blogs.
It's social bookmarking. Viral Linking. Link Baiting. Furling, Digging
and Shadowing. And more. All congealing into a set of skills and tactics
that can generate publicity for web content if you do it well and do it
right. And this is a niche I know, because
I
helped create it.
Everyone is suddenly crazy
for links. And mostly for the wrong reasons. For me it's not a craze, it's
an odyssey and a way of life. I've been building links and publicity for
web sites since 1994, long before
there was a link building industry, and before the search engines paid
attention to links.
I still build links and publicity
for selected clients, and also train and consult with SEO firms, ad agencies,
PR firms, site developers and individuals in the art of link building,
link development, and site publicity. I also run URLwire,
speak about linking at key
conferences, and my articles about linking and publicity appear all
over the web.
With so many newly minted
"linking experts" out there providing truly horrible advice and services,
you need to ask yourself some questions first. And if you can't be 100%
confident of your answers, don't be afraid to ask
for help.
Linking questions you
need to ask...
Is
the site ready to attract the right links? Why? Why not?
What
are realistic linking and publicity expectations for your site and why?
Which
links matter most for search engines, and which links matter most for click
traffic?
Do
it yourself or outsource? How can you evaluate (and trust) 3rd party
link building services?
If
you do it in-house, what's the best and most cost-effective approach?
What
are my competitors doing that's so different from what I'm doing?
Which
links to your site will get it banned from the search engines?
Which
links to your site will help you the most over the long haul?
How
do you get those links?
The reality is not every
site needs links, while some have to have them or they wont succeed. The
key is understanding where your site's content fits into the web's linking
landscape, and making sure you get there the right way.
Hopefully some of the articles
to the right and the resources below will help.
Selected
Linking Education and Tools
Some articles and links
are located off-site.
Link
Building Blog
Andy and Patrick's must-read
blog. Great stuff.
Link
Spiel
Link Marketing Tips, Talk
& Techniques w/ long time bud Debra Mastaler.
The
Linking Matters Report
By Ken
McGaffin
This truly outstanding
guide is one of a kind and Ken's generosity is remarkable. He could charge
whatever he wanted for it, but he gives it away free. Go get it.
Link
Hounds - gives away excellent link tools, link building information
and linking ideas.
Link
Building Knowledge Base
by Andy
Hagans
http://www.linkbuilding.info
Articles and discussions
on link building topics which are important in today's search engine optimization
environment. MUST READS:
Link
Building for Hilltop
LSI
and Link Popularity
Link
Building in Light of VIsion-based Page Segmentation
Linking101.com
from Larry Sullivan
Articles, reviews, resources,
plus their own unique, time saving link tools to give you a hand in getting
those links and improving your link popularity.
URLwire
Helps you obtain links
from highest quality editorial venues, like Yahoo Picks of the Week, USA
Today Hot Sites, FORBES Best of the Web, etc.
Private
Linking Strategy Session
from Eric Ward
Let me spend some time
examining your site, your current in-bound linking status, as well as your
competitors, and then spend 90 minutes on the phone with you discussing
the findings.
Should
Affiliate Links Point to the Merchant's Domain?
Extremely helpful article
by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson.
Technical, but vitally
important for merchants using affiliate programs to understand.
Link
Popularity Software and Checkers
- SearchOnline
Link Popularity Check
- Popularity
Checker Courtesy About.com
- Link
Popularity Checker - Courtesy LinkPopularity.com
- LinkPop
Courtesy
Marketleap.com
- More
link popularity tools
Deep
Linking Controversy and Legal Issues
Links
and Law
Fantastic site which
includes details on nearly every linking
related leagl case over the past six years. Created and maintained
by STEPHAN A. OTT.
Deep
Link Foes Get Another Win
A Danish company can
no longer link to content within the website of a Danish newspaper, in
the latest test on whether deep linking is legally permissible.
Deep
Linking
Links to articles and
commentary about deep linking, selected by the American Library Association.
Links
and Law
Commentary on Web Architecture
and links by the man who invented the web, Tim Berners-Lee.
Myths
about Links
More from Tim Berners-Lee
The
Link Controversy Page
Though somewhat dated,
this page offers a comprehensive set of links to the legal issues, precedent
and problems of using hyperlinks on the web.
Deep
linking faces clampdown?
By Lisa M. Bowman, ZDNet
via Yahoo |
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