Linking Strategies
Dr. Ralph Wilson, better known to the world as "Dr. E-Biz" makes a great point in his latest newsletter.
Everyone wants a better ranking in Google and Yahoo, and some Web sites will link to anybody, including the notorious link farms, just to increase their "link popularity," and thus their ranking with the search engines. "I'm convinced that Internet marketers must exercise restraint in linking," Wilson says.
He writes:
The problem is that many so-called marketers believe that any in- or outbound link a good link. They're wrong. Increasingly, search engines are defining sites by the context and hyperlink text of webpages that link to them and that they link to. Linking indiscriminately will diffuse your site's focus and thus your search engine ranking. Be very selective. Exchange links only with sites that have commonalties with and complement your site. Don't link to a site you wouldn't want your visitors to go to.
Ken Evoy has just released a free e-book Make Your Links WORK! The 80-20 Keep-It-Real Guide to Linking (February 2005). The book contains excellence advice on linking. Chapter 3, "The Best Ways to Build Incoming Links Now," explains the importance of links from directories, both primary and second tier directories. Then, instead of the term "reciprocal links" or "link-exchanging," he advocates the term "value-exchange," because quality, focused links add value to both sites -- and their visitors.
"Bottom line? Keep it real," says Evoy. "Do not do it for the engines. Do it for your visitors." Finally, he explains how to find good linking partners and promotes the use of SiteSell's free Value Exchange to find other willing partners. http://sales.sitesell.com/value-exchange/
I agree completely. Quality links are what is needed to achieve strong search engine placements. Links from directories are generally good. But, links from oddball directories which require you to place the reciprical link HTML on your site are somewhat risky and can actually decrease a sites PageRank. Getting listed on the open directory project is of course a good step as well. And, of course, recognizing that links alone do not comprise a SEO strategy is the most important statement one can make with respect to this topic. There is much more to SEO than simply links.
It's also part of blog etiquette. You need to support your posts' background with good related links. It's a way to add information to your message, it's a way to build relationship with other bloggers(in the case of a blog), and it's a way to upgrade your search engine ranking.
I personally think that more and more, the biggest sites will be them with good relationship with their peers. It's how they will bring people to their web site, by being refereed by many, independent web sites. Why will this append? Because they will have a good relationship with them.
Salutations,
Fred
This is so true! It's important to stick to your guns and only link to blogs which pretty much reflect one's own views.
"The book contains excellence advice on linking."
"excellent"
And the book doesn't contain much excellent advice...it's just another pitch for linking services without offering any evidence that it actually works.