Link
Building: To Link, or Not to Link, That is the Question
Link Building: To Link, or Not to Link, That is the Question
Lately, there have been a lot of heated discussions regarding link
building. Is it ethical to create a link building campaign? Does
Google or any other search engine penalize for "link farms"
(a bunch of non-related links created for the SOLE purpose of increasing
search engine ratings)? Is the “link building era” over?
Link Farms
Many webmasters claim that Google penalizes websites for link
farms. If this is so, why are a link farm sites that have a page
rank of 5 on their link farm page? Let me give you an example, go
to Google.com, type in any popular keyword(s) and append the word
“links” to it. For example, “ABCD Links.”
Notice you’ll get tones of websites that are linking to unrelated
sites, but still have a great PR. I do not encourage link farming
in any way or form, but building valuable partnerships is something
I do encourage.
If you’re a jewelry site and you’re exchanging links
with an antiques site, I think this is a great thing. It’s
very possible that someone searching for jewelry may have an interest
in antiques. I own a few sites and the hits I receive from partially
related sites are phenomenal. Most of my websites are targeted towards
webmasters so I receive hits from all sorts of sites.
Remember, many webmasters claim to know the truth regarding search
engine algorithms, but no one knows the EXACT TRUTH except the programmers
at the search engines.
Webmasters may have been penalized in the past for link farms and
doorway pages (pages created around certain keywords for the sole
purpose of redirecting surfers to the main page), but who’s
to say why some HAVEN’T been penalized.
Who Should I Create Link Partnerships With?
1. Create link partnerships with sites related to your site.
2. Create link partnerships with sites that have an audience that
may be interested in your products
3. Exchange homepage links with websites that fit in your genre.
You’ll receive a link on a page with a good ranking and you’ll
get quality, targeted hits.
How Do You Find Link Partners?
1. Signup with an automated links management provider that organizes
your links and helps find link partners. Automated tools are the
best because they help you save time. Uploading and downloading
your pages for every link exchange can be a huge pain and very time
consuming. Automated tools are NOT link farms because they give
you complete control of who you exchange links with. If a member
exchanges links with every website, he/she might be abusing the
tool. If a member uses the tool responsibly, it can be very effective.
2. This is a great little exercise I would recommend to anyone.
a. Write down 20 search terms pertaining to your website
b. Go to http://www.google.com and type in a search term written
in step A
c. Contact as many websites as possible listed under that search
term and ask them to exchange inner page or homepage links with
you. If they're NOT interested, ask whether they would be interested
in selling advertising space. If your website is fairly new, you
may want to ask sites for advertising prices. Free hits are the
best hits but sometimes you might have to go the extra lap and pay
for service. I wouldn't recommend spending over $100 / month for
advertising UNLESS it's a high traffic site with your site audience.
The best deals are the ones that offer $10-25 / month. There are
sites out there that will sell SUPER cheap advertising, and others
that charge an arm and a leg.
EVERYONE gets rejected sometime or another so keep your head up
and keep moving along! The internet is comprised of Billions of
websites. If you're rejected 500 times, you still have MANY business
opportunities left! This is a continuous job so set aside time every
week to do this. If you don’t have time for this, then you
don’t have time to make money.
3. Hire a link building firm (this can be quite expensive but if
you have money, its minimal work for you)
PageRank
Pagerank is a great tool but don’t use it as your ONLY measurement
for success. I can’t explain everything about pagerank but
a good explanation is given at http://www.google-watch.org/pagerank.html.
Conclusion
In conclusion, link building is not only for increasing link partners
and search engine rankings, it’s also used to create partnerships
and establish profitable relationships with other webmasters. Link
building is a tedious process, but one of the best for getting free
(sometimes not), targeted hits from other websites.
About
the Author Vik Tailor is the owner of http://www.linkexchanged.com
and http://www.buyadvertisingonline.com. He has been in the online
advertising industry for over 4-5 years and has extensive online
marketing knowledge.
|
