Archive for the 'Link Building' Category

Sugarrae put together 11 SEO’s to get 12000 words on link development ideas.

Here’s the SEO’s who state their ideas on link building: Rae Hoffman - Rand Fishkin - Roger Montti - Todd Malicoat - Eric Ward - Justilien Gaspard - Aaron Wall - Debra Mastaler - Michael Gray - Andy Hagans - & Me.

I like how this interview was put together. All of us wrote 1 question, and they were put together anonymously and we each answered them all w/o knowing what the others thoughts were…like Rae says:

An important thing to remember about this group interview is that no one saw anyone else’s answers before writing their own. This isn’t about a single answer followed by four head nods. Any agreements come from true beliefs and any contrary opinions came from the same. We’re all good at what we do, but it doesn’t mean we always agree. I only saw the other answers as I put this post together and the others will see each other’s opinions on the questions that were posed for the first time when this is published.

Read our thoughts on link building over here. I’ve closed this thread to comments, feel free to comment under the link report on Sugarrae or at Sphinn here.

In Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, they say you should:

Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

I know a lot of webmasters have questioned what is the difference between paying Yahoo for a Directory link, and paying any other web entity for a link.

This issue has been brought up as far back as on December 11, 2005 when Josh asked on Matt’s blog:

Question: Generally doesn’t Yahoo’s directory require payment? Isn’t that pretty much the same as getting a paid link? I might be wrong on that, its been a while since I’ve looked at them, just curious.

Matt’s response was:

Josh, with Yahoo, you’re paying for the manual review of a site by an editor–it’s not automatically approved by any means.

A year later, on December 19th, 2006, in Rand’s post called "I Disagree with Danny & the Google Engineers About Link Buying Practices" , Matt commented

I think I’ve been straightforward on Google’s behalf: paid links should have a nofollow attribute. Other choices run the risk of losing trust with Google in various ways.

Which doesn’t seem to address paying Yahoo for a link. But later in the comments robertk asks,

If I paid money to Yahoo to review my site for listing in their directory, would that be considered a "paid link"? Money did change hands and without it, my site would not have been added to the directory. However, there is no guarantee the site will be listed.

So.. is it a bought link, one that Google would like me to ask Yahoo to add a "nofollow" to it, or am I okay to leave things as they are?

Gotta love grey areas

Rand then chips in with:

or paying Citysearch.com for profile listings or paying MSN Small Business directory for inclusion or buying an online newspaper classified and getting a link or paying local directories, industry niche directories for a link. Or buying a BBB membership and getting a link, or donating money to the local Elks club and getting a link… Oh how the list goes on.

The following day (Dec 20, 2006) I picked it up that question about the Yahoo directory being a paid link in my blog post about Paid Links and Loosing Trust. In my comments, Eric Enge from Stone Temple said

Regarding the Yahoo! directory question, there is a clear difference. As I posted in Rand’s blog on this topic, a Yahoo! directory link involves a human review by a trusted editor.

I believe that Matt has been clear that the problem that Google has with paid links is the lack of editorial judgement. It’s the editorial judgement that they are wanting to value when they see a link. A purchased link involving no editorial judgement is what they see as a no-no.

Whereas the Yahoo! directory reserves the right to reject your submission, even though you have paid. In addition, they will put your listing in a directory different than the one you picked, if they feel you recommended the wrong one. 

Later that same day, (Dec 20), Eric Enge at Stone Temple did his own post weighing in on link buying, where Matt commented

I think you put this pretty well, Eric. Search engines want links to be real: editorial votes based on quality and merit. 
With Yahoo, you’re paying for the reviewing service; Yahoo rejects plenty of submissions.

The following day, Dec 21, 2006, Graywolf made reference to Matt’s comment above and said:

So it seems it’s not ok to buy links, however it is ok to pay for an editorial review which may get you a link as long as it’s not guaranteed.

Where Matt replied:

Huh, it feels like I said something similar recently. Oh, I did:
http://www.stonetemple.com/blog/?p=100#comment-2259

(comment 2259 says "I think you put this pretty well, Eric. Search engines want links to be real: editorial votes based on quality and merit.
With Yahoo, you’re paying for the reviewing service; Yahoo rejects plenty of submissions.")

So I see a pretty clear consistant line that’s been drawn by Google over the years.

I’d say the message is pretty clear "Links that have been humanly reviewed, where they are not guaranteed a listing, are OK".

On a side note….the Yahoo directory has a description for We Build Pages of "Designs business web sites and offers search engine optimization, link building, and pay per click services."….We don’t design business web sites, we don’t do design at all. When I sent my suggestion for a description, I never said anything about design. Their editor never really reviewed our site or he would have seen no where on our site anything about "design services". They are no better, no worse than webmaster…maybe worse if anything…a webmaster will probably review "submissions" for thier own site better than an editor hired by Yahoo.

So if one were to write to a website with: "Hey, I’d like to pay you to review this "listing", "ad", "site", "page", paragraph", etc. and that webmaster applies his editorial judgement and does not trip any "trust" filter, because the listing is relevant, …the links should be fine….right?

…..feel free to sphinn this to drum up the talk.

Sometimes I ask myself, "Shouldn’t I just stop blogging about link building, and just go as far under the radar as I can?"

People can debate all day long over what works, and what doesn’t (when it comes to search engine rankings). People can debate what is Good, and what is evil, what is white hat, and what is black hat, and what is a paid link, and what can be "caught/filtered", and what those  Filters/penalties are and how thay can be applied (to whom, and how, and why, and where and when, Google might play a role in these things…..should I be trying to convince or inform, or even state what I think when it comes to these matters?

Why bother? I’ve already written my views. My favorites are listed on the bottom of all my pages under "Jim’s Favorite Posts" (last updated in April)….

I’ve been blogging since September of 2005, and I can say this, I still believe, and act upon almost everything I’ve ever said as far as link building. Even that stuff I wrote back in 2005, I still feel is relevant in today’s ever changing world.

Jim goes into 2005 time machine for a minute here…..

In September of 2005 I laid out the ground work for how I envision search engines rank sites (or at least how they are trying to). I still believe in this.  October of 2005 I also laid out more of my SEO framework in my thoughts on what google likes to rank in the top 10 for many search results.  We’ve been lucky to compete with sites like these by keeping a regular flow of quality links coming in to sites we work with…it works.

October of 2005 I wrote about Changes and Paranoia in the SEO World. This advice is so useful even today, 2 years later, where FUD and Link Blue Cool Aid is being served to the masses, to those who think the sky is falling every day. SEO goes on, always will. Check your beliefs with facts and observations, and do what you think is right, and then measure.

In November of 2005 I spoke of the difference between what a link ninja does vs a link monkey. (before Stuntdubl helped us to coin "link ninja"). At that time we had about 12 employees that included 4 link ninjas. Today we have 28 employees which includes 17 link ninjas.

In September of 2005 I wrote about how I liked old websites. I still believe this to this day, but Oatmeal recently proved there’s at least one exception. Maybe with a lot linkbait, and few bait home runs, it can be done….but I’m not the one to try it….I’ll stick with what I know I’m good at working on…and that’s old sites. I like old websites so much, that since 2005 we very rarely have work with sites that are newer than 2 years online.

In October of 2005 I also taked about screwing the sandbox, and buying old websites. That one post haunts me to this day, 2 years later. I swear, Every Week, I get at least 1 or 2 emails asking me about buying old sites. They’re either seeking consulting, or the service of finding old sites. I no longer wish to mention any more than I already have on buying old sites.

In October of 2005 I also wrote on how link pages are dead. Back in the day I considered myself the link trade king. No other trader had as many PR8’s and 7’s as we did…and man it worked great….but shit, that was back in 2003. I can’t believe I still get crap link trade requests every day in my email, My responses to what to do with link trade requests are the same as it was in Oct 2005.

In December of 2005 I wrote about buying links under the radar. The closing paragraphs still hold true to my heart today.

So my new years resolution is to  get better at what we do which would include moving even more under the radar with our link buys - grab a link from a virgin site (a site that’s not openly selling “ads”) and move on.

Bottom line - As an SEO you’ve got to distance yourself from other fellow SEO’s in your link building.

Jim steps back out of time machine now in October 2007….

SEO hasn’t changed much since 2005 - really….there’s always been fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Links still work just as good as they ever did. The whole game is to stay under the radar, and don’t piss of Google.

Maybe I’ll just take a year off from blogging…or maybe I just won’t blog about link building anymore….who knows…maybe I’ve already said all I want/need/can say. I’ve thought of tons of other posts, but always axe them when I think "stay under the radar"….which means there’s often not much more to say beyond what I’ve already said publically.

I don’t know…what do you think?

In any case, I’ll be in NYC next week for SMX, and the following week I’ll be in Ireland…and between now and then I’ve got a few very important meetings. Never a dull moment….but I’m still feeling really Lucky today and everyday.

I thought I’d try naming a new acronym for a new type of site I’ve been seeing a lot of recently.

MFRB - Made For Reviews Blog.

I’m seeing them everywhere…..not a 1 natural backlink to these sites….just a bunch of backlinks are from other MFRB’s.

That’s all I’ve got to say.

What do you think?

Learn how to Achieve Higher Rankings and Stay out of Google Hell Via Optimized Internal Linking.

I’ve recently had some clients ask me how to increase rankings on specific subpages when seeking to target long tail phrases. I’ve also been asked about reasons why pages get tossed in Google Hell (supplemental results). Often the answer to both of these is that a site has tens or hundreds of thousands page pages, and many of the pages are burried deep within the site. In order to reach these deep pages one has to click several times from the homepage to reach a destination page that only has 1 internal backlink to it. Pages like this often don’t rank high, and often even get tossed in Google’s Hell.

To analyze ones deep pages popularity I’ll:

1. I’ll start by looking at how many pages the site has indexed in google by going to google and typing in (for example):
Site:mysite.com which will show me how many pages the website consists of in the eyes of google.

2. Next I’ll go to Yahoo to check how many internal pages link to that specific phrase. In Yahoo type (for example):
link:http://www.mysite.com/widgets/blue/bright/small/id=373 site:mysite.com This will show how many internal pages link to that specific page. Also note if the homepage (the page with the most power to give) links to the page in question, and how many clicks off the homepage does it take to reach that page (what is the pagerank of that page?) (did I just say pagerank??).

3. Next I’ll see if any other sites are directly linking to the page in question. To do this, go to yahoo and search using the link command and you give the full url (for example): link:http://www.mysite.com/widgets/blue/bright/small/id=373 -site:mysite.com This will show how many other pages from other sites link to that specific page. If you get results, then this means that there are other sites that link to that specific page in question….but…note that you should click on each of these pages to check if they those pages have a google cache. Just a few days ago I was looking at 2 links we had gotten. 1 had 92 backlinks from other sites linking to that specific page…. but when I checked the backlink pages they were all MFA and scrapers where none of those pages had a google cache. The other site has 52 backlinks and the first ~10 were real, the others were all MFA and scrapers (but it has at least 10 real votes from other real pages)..

So for example, if a site has 10,000 pages indexed, and if a specific page (like the one above) only has 10 internal links, and doesn’t have any external links to it, it basically tells the search engines that there’s not much importance to that page. (little ranking power).

Having external backlinks from other sites probably count for a lot more than all the internal links combined…. but if you’ve got 10,000 pages it makes it really hard to get each individual pages a backlink from another site. In which case, all you’ve got is your internal link structure, so maximizing it to it’s best is essential.

How to maximize your internal link structure:
To start with you need a basic understanding of how Pagerank works (gasp, did I just say Pagerank again?)
Here’s an oldie but a goodie page that gives a great long and complicated story of how pagerank works written in relatively simple English).
For you math geeks, here’s the equation for Pagerank:

PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + … + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))
PR= PageRank
d= dampening factor (~0.85)
c = number of links on the page
PR(T1)/C(T1) = PageRank of page 1 divided by the total number of links on page 1, (transferred PageRank)

Here’s a simple way to look at this:
If you have 1000 external websites linking to your homepage, then you’ve got a certain amount of power residing on your homepage.
Each link off of your homepage is given a percentage of that power equally divided between the number of pages you link to off of your homepage. So for example, if your homepage links out to 100 pages, each of those pages only get a little bit of power passed to them(1/100), but if your homepage only has 10 links on it, then those 10 pages will get much more power passed to them (1/10).

So if you’ve got a page that can only be reached by (via starting at the homepage), going to the list of widget page, then going to the list of blue widgets page, then going to the bright blue widgets page, then going the the specific widget page….well, there’s not much juice (Pagerank) reaching your specific widget page by the time all that pagerank has been distributed down the line to that specific page, and thus, the chance of having good rankings for that page is low.

Solutions for optimizing your internal link structure:

1. The first step always rests on the keyword research. Return to wordtracker or keyword discovery, or better yet, your PPC or ROI stats. Define your targeted keyword goals.

2. I’d then start by making a list of the phrases that are important to you based on search volume and ROI opportunities. The most important pages should have links from as many pages as possible (site-wide is as good as you can get). If you have 20 really important pages, and those page have links from every page, including the homepage, then those pages will have the most power of any subpages you have.  (I’ve also seen some people go as far as nofollowing thier copyright pages or other non-important pages.)

3. Get more internal links via cross linking related pages. Look at my example url http://www.mysite.com/widgets/blue/bright/small/id=373,. If that page only has 1 internal backlink  (Widgets ->Blue –>Bright –> small page) then it would be incredibly lucky to have that page show up for any search.

But if all your individual product pages linked to each other, then at least each individual page would have some internal links. For example, even if you added to the bottom of your Widget-Blue-Bright-Small-Model 373 page, you linked to all the other Widget-Blue-small model pages, then each page would at least have a handful of internal backlinks.  You could even expand that by adding even more related cross internal linking by also adding links to all bright widget pages, and all bright widget pages….there, now at least these individual pages can at least have hundreds or thousands of internal links….this can increase the Pagerank of the individual pages as opposed the the old way of just having 1 link to that page (if done on specific focused sections (not all of them)). This can also give value by now having hundreds or thousands of internal links going to that end product page. A page with backlinks like this usually will beat a page that only 1 or a few other internal pages links to it.

4. According to Pagerank, you’re only as powerful as a sum of the value of who links to you….so find where your power resides in your site and make sure it flows best from there.

A great tool to check what pages of your site has power is by using the powerful subpage tool. Look at the pages that have lots of internal links, and make sure to link out to many important pages from your pages that have people linking to them (your most powerful pages based on the number of other sites that link to your individual pages).

5. Identify internal category sitemap main pages and try to get links to those "nodes" so that your end pages are closer to the pages that have backlinks to them. For example, if your sell widgets, and you’ve got 5 main category pages, then those category pages should have lots of internal links, and link building could be focused on those areas as well (to help spread pagerank to pages at a closer level to the end pages).

In the end you just might have to "sacrifice" pages to Google’s Hell, or to accept the a page is so buried that there’ll not be much power sent to that page….but if you choose wisely what pages you want power to, and adjust your internal linking structure correctly, your important pages, and even a good amount of your long tail can have maximum power (and thus maximum ranking potential).

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We had our second son Nate on Oct 29th and I told my wife I wouldn’t travel the 3 months before or the 3 months after…but now the busy traveling season is about to come my way.

Tomorrow I’ve got a meeting with the Internet Marketers of New York.

The last week of March I’ll be going to Arizona to do some training, then in April it’s SES NYC 2007.

It doesn’t look like I’ll be presenting this year in NYC. There’s no more "My SEM Toolbox" panel and I wasn’t asked to speak on any of the link building panels. Perhaps some of my past performances haven’t been too hot at SES’s and that’s why they didn’t invite me…..and from that I’ve learned never to offer to speak on panels I know little about - I’d like to stick to the topic of tools, links, or running a SEO business.

Though some of my past performances at SES haven’t been spectular,  I’ve been speaking at Webmasterworld on "Link Building campaigns" for a few years now. The last time I spoke I got some nice reviews:

SEODisco Pubcon Feedback
Peter Davis - Thanks Jim Boykin
Mike Grehan - Webmasterworld wrap up. 

Guess I’m in NYC to see my friends….at least I can hang out late and I wont have to worry about getting up at 8am any morning. I think there’s also still a few more pictures that I need for my collection.

Are you going to SES NYC 2007?

I will be playing in the SEO Poker Tournament on March 24th at 4:00 pm EST.

as SEO Black Hat states:

It Costs Nothing to Join!

The SEO poker tournament is basically free to enter. You don’t need any money in your full tilt poker account. There are no hidden costs. All you have to do is agree to link to the winner for year from your page rank 4 or higher site. If you have a Page Rank 6 site, that link can be one off the homepage like in your “about”, “contact”, or “fun stuff” page.

Extra $5000 thrown in for Free!

Find our more and how to join in right here.

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