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Search engine insiders talk about links

On a recent search engine conference, Tim Mayer from Yahoo, Matt Cutts from Google and Kaushal Kurapti from Ask Jeeves revealed information on how these three search engines analyze links to determine the ranking of web pages in a public discussion.

What did these insiders say about linking?

Basically, the old linking principle still applies: if page a links to page b then it is a recommendation from page a to page b. The more links point to your web site, the better your rankings.

The Ask Jeeves representative pointed out that text links can be understood by search engines but not image links. He also pointed out that you should avoid link farms, cloaked pages and invisible or hidden links. It seems that ethical search engine optimization is still important.

The Yahoo representative said that links had been very popular and that the link popularity on Yahoo would be moving to the social community aspect (without revealing further information). He also said that the links to your web site should look natural.

Google's representative agreed with Ask Jeeves' statements. In addition, he suggested to add one new page of content everyday and that the links to your web site should not all have the same text. He also confirmed that Google only returns a few of the backlinks they have in their index.

How can you improve the link popularity of your web site without upsetting search engines?

The discussion confirmed that it is important to focus on ethical search engine optimization. Don't try to cheat search engines and don't go for one shot quick fix solutions.

Get good links to your web site and use text links whenever possible. If the site navigation on your web site uses image links, add text links so that search engines can index your pages. Mix reciprocal links and one-way links to create a natural linking pattern. Don't forget to optimize your web page content for search engines.

It takes some time to prepare your web pages for high search engine rankings and to keep them there. If you want to get long-term results with your web site, you have to work with your web pages.

Be cautious when someone offers you quick solutions that require no work. These companies usually offer spam services that will harm your web site rankings.

Copyright Axandra.com - Web site promotion software tools   -  Published Oct. 2005

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Do too many links hurt your web site?

Many webmasters are unsure if too many links can hurt their web site rankings. Others think that links to a brand-new site might be a spam indicator. How many links are good for a web site? Should you wait before getting links to your site?

Too many links? What's the problem?

It's no secret that Google heavily relies on the number of links and their anchor texts to determine the ranking of a web site. However, Google's recently filed patent indicates that Google might also use historical information to determine the value of links.

Google reveals the details

The patent specification indicates that Google might record the discovery date of a link and its anchor text and the link changes over time. Google might also record the life span of a link and the speed at which a new web site gets links.

Google also seems to monitor the rate at which new links to a web page appear and disappear. They also monitor the growth rates of links as well as the link growth of similar documents.

What does this mean to you?

Google doesn't expect that new web sites have a large number of links. If a new web site gets many new links, this will be tolerated if some of the links are from authorative sites.

Google's patent specification indicates that it is better if link growth remains constant and slow. You should vary your anchor texts as much as possible to make sure that your links look natural. Burst link growth may be a strong indicator of search engine spam for Google.

How to build links to your web site without getting penalized

You shouldn't go for one-shot solutions when building links to your site. If you participate in quick link exchange schemes or buy links to your web site so that you get many links at once, changes are that Google will consider this spamming.

When you exchange links with other web sites, do it slowly and constantly.

Copyright Axandra.com - Web site promotion software tools   -  Published Aug. 2005

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How and why to Build a Linking Strategy for your Web Site

Why would you want a linking strategy for your site? The most important reason is to drive traffic to your site, which in turn would increase visitors that would either purchase from you, make your web site more popular, or reach a larger audience to inform for your cause. The second reason to develop a linking strategy for your site is to help increase your rankings in the search engine. With Google this is very important for achieving high web rankings, and I expect the other search engines to follow suit relatively soon.

There are many ways to develop a linking strategy where the links to your site will multiply without any effort from you. This is the most effective way to generate links to point to your site. In this article we will discuss how to do this, debunk myths, and how to do this without unintentionally harming your site's status.

Debunking myths:

Linking software

I personally don't approve of linking software that does the work for you. Why? Because the software does not do a good enough job where it can tell if the site it has the same theme or relative content that matches your site. Many errors slip through the process when this is done, that can cause damage to the reputation and rankings in the search engine. Also each site that you would like to link to you should have a decent PR ranking from Google to help your site's rankings. (PR ranking is a method that Google uses to put a value on the web site) If you have too many web sites pointing to you with a poor PR ranking it could actually make your site drop in the rankings. And in addition sites with excellent PR rankings would help your rankings a great deal.

Linking farms and automated link exchanges

Linking farms and automated link exchanges are not recommended for the same reasons as the linking software. Poor quality links and potentially harmful to your site. In addition these two methods carry another danger. If the site that links to has been put onto a black list for spam, and your site points to that site your web site will automatically get black listed and your rankings will go down as well. That is why I prefer one way links to your site instead of reciprocal links. It may sound hard to do, but it isn't and I will show you a way to do it below.

The more sites pointing to your site the better. Right?

Wrong! In the past search engines would rank you higher in the search engines by judging the value of your site to the number of links pointing to it. But because people have abused and try to cheat this system, the rules have changed. Now they actually penalize you for too many sites pointing to yours if they are deemed suspicious. For instance many other sites pointing to you with the same IP address (caused by you putting up mirror sites to build links), links that point to that do not have the same content as you ("once I saw a web design site having a reciprocal link with a lingerie site"), and links that have low PR rankings pointing to your site (in this case the more the merrier does not work).

"I've seen a site with only 10 links pointing to it (links from government sites) do better with searches than a site that had over 10,000 links pointing to it."

Another thing to consider: Google has just bought rights to register domain names. So, here is a theory of mine that may show up later. Google may update their algorithm to check links to see if the domain name those links are registered under contain the same registration information. This way it could penalize sites that register a bunch of domain names to point to their site and try to cheat the system.

"The only time you would like a lot of links pointing to your site is if they are from respectable sites, have a high PR ranking, and have relative content."

Who links to your site now?

An easy way to find this out is to type in link:www.yoursite.com into a search engine and you will receive a list of web sites currently pointing to you.

Are they quality links?

You can use Google toolbar located at their site to read the PR ranking, an add-on extension for Firefox, or visit a web site that will tell you the PR rankings of sites that you type in. If you type in page ranking tool in the search engines you'll find plenty of resources for this.

Who links to your competitors that are high in the search engines?

Examine and study the links to and from your competitors web site to learn more. And request links from the same people for your site.

How do I build links pointing to my site?

These are a list of ways to build links to your site that are one way links instead of reciprocal links. I highly recommend these ways to build a solid link foundation:

1) Content and more content. Content will increase your rankings in the search engine and people are more likely to link to you if you have valuable content. One time I had a large college link to one of the articles at my site for a research paper. The college had a high PR ranking and the link is in their archives. (This is a way to have your links multiply without the effort)

2) Add a link to us page to your web site. Where you can give the visitors to your site to apply a text link or banner. I recommend a text link to your site that contains keywords for your site. For example, web development contractor would point to my site via hyperlink. (This is a way to have your links multiply without the effort)

3) Start a blog on your site that people can go to and bookmark for the latest information in a category that relates to your site. (This is a way to have your links multiply without the effort)

4) Offer a fr^ee helpful 'how to' e-book to give away that has links inside of it that point to your site. (This is a way to have your links multiply without the effort)

5) Submit to online directories. Online directories usually have high PR rankings and get picked up by other directories and web sites to include on their sites.

6) Write a testimonial for a site you like that has the same relative content as yours. Chances are that if you praise their site and sign it with a link (to your site) of who praised them they will post it on their site giving you a fr^ee one way link.

7) Create a fr^ee article directory asking people to submit articles to your site, and in exchange for posting their articles on your site have them post a link on their web site stating where their article can be found. (your site) I've seen people put a list of where there article can be found to impress the visitors on how popular they are. (This is a way to have your links multiply without the effort)

8) Lastly, and most importantly write articles yourself! When I wrote my first article I submitted it to 25 places. (places with higher traffic views) and the next day over 180 sites were pointing to my web site, because I had a nice keyword enriched link pointing to my site in the article. The next day the total was over 300. How do you find out if they are pointing to your site? Type in your article title in quotes into the search engines and then you'll find out how many sites are posting your article on their site. (This is a way to have your links multiply without the effort)

One thing to do for sure is monitor your results. Who is driving the most traffic to me? Which ways of linking are producing multiplying links without any effort on my part? Which links are actually harmful to me? Do these links compliment my site? Do these things and I guarantee you that the links to your site will increase ten fold.

Copyright © Michael Rock - http://www.TheInternetPresence.com-  Published Apr. 2005

The owner of this registered company has over twenty years experience with DOS, windows business applications, numerous programming languages, artistic development, and web design. Other areas of interest include web marketing, web promoting, and business marketing and development. After the persuasion of those praising his work, he decided to go into business himself and highly suggests everyone else to do the same.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Submitting to Search Engines

Q. I submitted my site [manually] [automatically] [last week] [last month] [3 days ago] and it's not showing up in any of the search engines.  Have I been penalized/banned?

Jill:  If the site you submitted doesn't have any deceptive qualities, then no, you're not banned or penalized.  However, all the submissions in the world won't get your site listed or bring search engine traffic if there aren't links pointing to it from other sites -- and if it's not optimized for specific keyword phrases.  As I've mentioned elsewhere <http://www.highrankings.com/issue127.htm#seo>, submitting to search engines is not necessary nor even helpful.  The search engines automatically find new pages on their own.

As with everything SEO related, the keys here are patience and time. If you don't have both of those, you might as well get out of the SEO game right now and simply buy your way into the search engines through PPC ads.

Can I Automate Link Building?

Q. Link building is hard and I don't like it.  I send out tons of emails requesting reciprocal links, but barely get any responses.  How can I automate the process?

Jill: You can create something so great and wonderfully unique that people naturally link to it. This won't happen overnight, and of course there will be lots of hard work to get to that point and to keep it up, but at least you won't have to worry about link building. (See my site for an example of this at work.  I've never once asked for a link, nor do I ever plan to.)

I would highly suggest some means of constantly adding information to your site, such as through a weekly or monthly newsletter, a frequently updated blog, or articles that relate to the products/services you provide.  Because even if you do have a completely unique and great site, you still need a means of letting others know this.


Multiple Keyword-rich Domains

Q.  The guy who fixed my roof told me to purchase a minimum of 10 keyword-rich domains for various aspects of my business.  What's the best use of these for search engine optimization purposes?

Jill:  Unfortunately, there's no good use for those when it comes to the search engines.  If you try to gain an unfair advantage in the engines by blanketing them with lots of different sites, you will then be into that "deceptive" territory I'm always talking about.

In my opinion, your best bet is to simply park them all at one domain, and then forward the whole lot via a permanent 301- edirect to your main site, while telling your roofer to stick to roofing. ;-) (See "How To Redirect Multiple Parked Domains" <http://www.highrankings.com/issue060.htm#seo>.)

The only other viable option for the domains would be to truly build completely different sites at some of the domains.  There's nothing wrong with having a few sites, but they really should each provide different info in order for them to be effective.  Just remember that keeping and maintaining many sites is a lot more work than just having one site that is the best it can be!


(P.S. If anyone would like to republish the above Q&A article, please email me your request and where it will reside, and I'll send you a short bio you can use with it for your site.)

Jill Whalen of High Rankings is an internationally recognized search engine optimization consultant and editor of the free weekly High Rankings Advisor search engine marketing newsletter.

Article by Jill Whalen,   www.searchengineguide.com  -    Published Mar. 2005

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RSS means Really Simply Syndication. It is a simple XML format that allows you to share your news headlines and other web content with other sites. Basically, RSS allows you to distribute your "What's new" section to other web sites quickly and easily.

RSS is used by many popular web sites such as CNN, Forbes, Motley Fool and the BBC. Yahoo allows its users to quickly add RSS feeds to their MyYahoo service.

When another web site uses your RSS feed to display your news items it will automatically place a link to your site. The more web sites use your news feed, the more web sites will link to your site.

For every news item you publish in your RSS feed, you'll get another link from all web sites that publish your RSS feed.

RSS feed only makes sense for your web site if you regularly posts news items that are interesting to other web sites. If you don't regularly update your news, RSS feeds won't work for you.

A listing in an Internet directory means a permanent text link to your web site. Search engines will find your web site through these links so that your web site is more often indexed.

In addition, the more incoming links you have, the better your link popularity number. As you know, links from related pages increase the ranking of your web site on search engines and consequently they also increase number of visitors you get.

That's not the only way in which Internet directories can help you to increase the link popularity of your site.

Internet directories are the ideal place to find potential link partners. For example, DMOZ.org has a detailed classification system with categories and sub-categories that allows you to quickly find web sites that are related to yours.

All of the listed sites that are in the same category as your site in an Internet directory are theme and topic related to yours. Special interest directories often contain even better potential link partners.

Go to the category in which your own web site fits and you'll find many sites that are related to yours.

A list of all important Internet directories can be found in IBP. Download the free demo version and click the "Supported Search Engines" button in the main window.

IBP also allows you to quickly submit your web site to Internet directories by filling out most of the forms for you. IBP helps you to submit your web site to search engines, Internet directories and even special interest sites.

Of course, you can manually search for links partners within an Internet directory, contact these web sites and keep track of the sites you've already contacted.

If you use a tool like ARELIS, the link exchange campaign will be managed much easier. ARELIS allows you to quickly import all links of an Internet directory category, it allows you to contact the web site owners, it keeps track of the web sites you've already contacted, it allows you to quickly create a links page with the newly imported links and more.

To import a directory page in ARELIS, select "Import Manager..." from the Project menu. The Import Manager window opens. Now select the option "Import links from web page".

Further information about writing successful link exchange messages, contact us below..

Improving the link popularity of your web site helps you to get higher search engine rankings. (Not sure what "link popularity" is? Read our link popularity course.)

A good way to increase the link popularity of your web site is to contact other webmasters. Nowadays, webmasters get many link exchange email messages so it's more difficult to get noticed.

Do the following things to make sure that webmasters reply to your link exchange request:

1. Don't require too much action from the other webmaster.

3. Keep your email message short.

4. Don't ask for a link if the other web site is totally unrelated to your site.

5. Link to the other web site first.

7. Make sure that your web site has a professional design.

8. Be polite and humble

9. Don't use free email addresses.

In short, really do visit the potential link partner's web site and write a short and personal letter. You can find many more tips and tricks in the free "Increase your link popularity" eBook.

Further information about writing successful link exchange messages, contact us below..