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Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Is Google Saying Links Are Not Important?

Do links still work? Google publishes a Webmaster Guidelines document intended to give web site owners clues as to what they should do to rank well in its search engine. There has been some commotion in the online marketing industry about the removal of some copy that suggested submitting your web site to directories like Yahoo! and DMOZ. So...is this a sign that
links are no longer important?

Absolutely not. I think it is more a continuation of Google's attempt to eliminate paid links as a way of improving rankings.

For instance, Google is fully aware that Yahoo! charges a fee for inclusion in its directory. So how is this different from buying a link on any other web site?

What this means for you is that you just need to continue seeking links from lots of different locations. Add your web pages to social bookmarking sites. Set up pages on social networking sites. Post responses on blogs (preferably blogs that allow "dofollow" links. Keep writing and distributing articles. These are all still effective techniques for generating lots of links that do not fall into the category of paid links.

As for straight-up paid links, I still think the technique is valid, but it should be used in moderation. If you are going to buy links, buy a small package of links from very high quality sites. Avoid the temptation to buy thousands of low cost links on low quality sites.

Today's Squidoo lens is about running ads on MSN. MSN definitely has its own quirks, so this Squidoo lens discusses some of the things you need to watch out for, and features a number of videos on the subject of pay per click marketing.

Labels: google, internet marketing, link campaign, linking, paid links, scientific search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Link Building

Squidoo lens of the day: http://www.squidoo.com/linkbuildingseo

We are playing around with some software that may be of use to anyone looking to build their inbound link catalog. It's called Fast Blog Finder, and it's purpose is to locate blogs about particular subjects that allow "dofollow" links in their comments. Dofollow links are links that search engine spiders can follow. So these are the kinds of links that help to improve search engine rankings. All links, by default, are dofollow links. The Web exists today as we know it because of the ability of search engine spiders to follow links and build indexes of web sites.

The problem is that any time there is free and open ability to post material with dofollow links, there are some who try to exploit the situation. In my opinion, for ethical, legitimate Internet marketers, it is okay to post comments on others' blogs, with links back to your site, if they are posting something legitimate that relates to the subject of the blog post. But there are those who would post thousands of blatantly commercial messages on blog posts simply to get the links back to their site. And so most blogs today do not allow dofollow links in their comments. The few have ruined it for the many.

However, there are still blogs that allow dofollow links. Generally comments on these blogs are monitored closely, so that even if a blatantly non-relevant commercial message is posted it will not stay on the blog for long. So it is still necessary to make legitimate comments based on the subject of the blog post.

Fast Blog Finder looks for blog posts based on a seed keyword, and it examines the comments on the blog posts to see if they allow dofollow links. It then reports the results back to you and highlights the blogs that do allow the correct type of link. You can save blogs you like in particular into a favorites list. This is useful because there is a good chance that if there is one post in a blog relevant to your business, there are more. So if you have the blog saved, you can return to it in the future and make more comments on other posts in the blog.

If there are no existing comments, the software is unable to determine if the blog allows dofollow links. That is the major weakness of the software, because we have found that a very large percentage (probably around 40%) of the blog results brought back do not report the link type allowed. Despite this weakness, the software still saves you a ton of time, and at a cost of about $50, it's still a bargain.

Regardless of how you go about it, making periodic comments on blog posts that allow dofollow links back to your site is a very good technique to combine with your other link building strategies. You want to have links from as many different types of sites as possible, and one way links from relevant blogs can be quite valuable.

If you could use some help managing a linking building campaign for your site, call Work Media today at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, link building, linking campaign, paid links, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo

Monday, June 30, 2008

Just Say No to Paid Links

In the past, we have recommended using paid links (not paid search ads, but paid links) to boost a web site's external link count and improve its search engine rankings. Although much has been made the last couple of year's about Google's battle against paid search marketers who use paid links, the technique continued to work.

But that trend may have changed.

We recently noticed that a site for which we had been using paid links received a beatdown at the hands of Google in terms of its rankings. They plummeted. Around that same time, we noticed that Google had launched a new form where anyone can report a web site for using paid links. Then I guess the Google decency patrol will investigate and punish the site accordingly.

So...when it comes to something so important, so precious, as your search engine rankings, you can't take any chances. We think the environment for using paid links may have gotten too dangerous, now that Google has made it so easy and encourages narcing on other sites for using paid links.

If you are paying for links, our advice is to reallocate that money toward press release distribution. You will accomplish the result of generating new links, and you will be safe from punishment at the hands of Google. So protect your rankings and play it safe.

Stay away from paid links.

Call Work Media today at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net if you need some help with your search engine marketing.

Labels: internet marketing, linking, linking campaign, online press releases, paid links, pr, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search engine rankings, seo, web marketing

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