link building

[cathiejones]

what should be the optimum link building...? Is too much of link exchange bad from the search engine point of view?

[SEOWizard]

It may be...however, I have had success with link-exchange only so it's not something you'll get too penalised for.

I think a variety of link types is probably adviseable, but that's easier said than done - so link exchange isn't a bad 1st move.

[Chris Boggs]

Hi and welcome Cathie. Good point wiz: too much of anything is always bad, even money! (so I've been told :p)

I feel that reciprocal linking can be a good part of any link development program. You will naturally find people over the course of your site's existence that find your content relevant and feel that their's is relevant too. Don't just reciprocate to reciprocate, though. Take a look at this link building section (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/forumdisplay.php?f=44) of the forum and you'll find some great threads dealing with link development. Also, Nacho started a nice one called Link Building 101 (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=2616) that has a variety of good - you guessed it - links. :rolleyes:

Hey, one last quick tip I have learned: never underestimate the importance of internal linking.

[SEOWizard]

Probably a good start is

- get some links for free from friends etc.
- link exchange program to other websites

From there, you may find you'll get placed a little higher up on the search engines....then you might get some free links for nothing from directory websites on your topic.

Another way is to check out competitors that are well listed, then check out all their backlinks - if you link in the same place, you'll be in the same search engine position.

[Chris Boggs]

Hi SEOWizzard...if only it were that easy! :p

However, your quote...
if you link in the same place, you'll be in the same search engine position.
...is a drastic over-simplification. Linking alone will never determine your search engine positioning.

[SEOWizard]

True - maybe I over simplified. But I did do the exact strategy for one of my websites and my competitor and I are on the same Google page. :)

I would say linking is worth 60-70% of your 'score'.

Highly relevant HTML code will make the remaining 30% odd of your total search engine placement.

[thegypsy]

True - maybe I over simplified. But I did do the exact strategy for one of my websites and my competitor and I are on the same Google page. :)

I would say linking is worth 60-70% of your 'score'.

Highly relevant HTML code will make the remaining 30% odd of your total search engine placement.

Wow, I am getting freaked out here man…

“I would say linking is worth 60-70% of your 'score'. “ Based on what? I have data to the contrary… on terms in excess of 20 000 000 results…. Weird..we must talk.

”Highly relevant HTML code will make the remaining 30% odd of your total search engine placement.” Code? I am hoping you meant copy. Yes?

So we have it then.. the mighty Google algo?

Links:Relevant Code = SERP Nirvana?



Anyways, on the whole linking bit, Google (Matt Cutts) has been fairly clear on this. I posted it on another board,, but shall put it here as well (we need a post Big Daddy recip Linking STICKY);

Recip links are NOT dead, and it's absolutely NOT true that they will get you penalized. Anybody telling you that is spinning yarns about that which they don't know.

I am currently running some tests on reciprocal linking. I'm several months away from publishing any definitive findings but the results so far show that that recip links still carry weight with Google.

With that said, if you have nothing but reciprocal links then Google will see an unnatural linking pattern going on with your site and it may discount a lot of them. Reciprocal links are a excellent part of a balanced link diet... but they should not consist of the entire link diet!

[added] A poorly implemented reciprocal campaign CAN do you more harm than good (less frequency of spidering, etc) but I would not say that this constitutes a penalty.

THANK GOD

This is completely accurate… any other advice is uniformed. Merely go to Matt Cutts blog and search ‘reciprocal links’ he has discussed it many times.

I have researched, tested and written extensively about all things ‘Big Daddy’ (Google algorithm update) and I have read many, many comments and guidelines by the CUTTlefish on linking. As Goo is currently the toughest on linking strategies/patterns, it is a good indicator.

There is just so much, here are some tidbits;

The Q&A period at the recent; ‘Nov16-2005 - WMW Las Vegas Organic Site Reviews Panel’ - This panel, made up of representatives of the Big 3 and more, was giving general reviews of sites from the audience form an ‘organic’ SEO standpoint. Matt mentioned in a review of some sites for the attendees;

“TicketsToGo.com – “Matt Cutts said "tell me about your backlinks" ... uber spammy reciprocal linking campaign. said good news is no manual spam penalty, but few of the low quality links this site has are doing it any good.””

On his Blog as a follow up to the event;

“The main point I want to get across is that in 1-2 minutes, it was easy to tell whether a site was (over)doing reciprocal links or trying to buy links”

On his Blog in regards to Big Daddy and linking;

“The sites that fit “no pages in Bigdaddy” criteria were sites where our algorithms had very low trust in the inlinks or the outlinks of that site. Examples that might cause that include excessive reciprocal links, linking to spammy neighborhoods on the web, or link buying/selling.” - www.mattcutts.com/blog/indexing-timeline


My point is TRUST ME. Our friend here is very correct that advice to the contrary is simply misguided, (unless you don’t believe Matt).

It’s about linking responsibly. If you go out ‘willy-nilly’ buying links and trading with any irrelevant site you can find.. you can most likely expect to get devalued and see no measurable ROI on your link building investments.

It’s not dead… it just requires care.

[SEOWizard]

I have a new website which is recripocal linking only...it has about 4 or 5 on topic links and the rest are just link exchanges. It's on 1st page MSN, Lycos Pro and Hotbot.

[thegypsy]

I have a new website which is recripocal linking only...it has about 4 or 5 on topic links and the rest are just link exchanges. It's on 1st page MSN, Lycos Pro and Hotbot.

What's the competition on the term?
(and MSN? c'mon.. a 10% market share?)

[SEOWizard]

Well, it is a fairly easy one to tag....

506,929 results

3-keyword search term

Position 5

There are about 20+ competitors for these keywords.

I do agree that on-topic is (1) safer from a spam point of view (2) more relevant. I tend to avoid debt consolidation, gambling and porn websites for links.

[thegypsy]

yeah sounds like a walk in the park. Also, MSN isn't as hard on recips as Google either, so that helps.

"I tend to avoid debt consolidation, gambling and porn websites for "he he Good thing...

The trick to have a link counted as a vote, especially a recip, is to have relevance. Seems to be what mat refers to the most about Link Profiles since Big Daddy...