Link Pages are Dead - Long Live Content Pages.
Posted Friday, October 14th, 2005. Filed under Internet Marketing Tips, Link Building.
I was reading Rand Fishkin's SEOmoz blog about what a links page should look like, and it got me thinking: link pages are dead, and have been for a while. I'm guilty of creating thousands of these crappy pages in the past, most now gone.
A bad links page example has a URL and title tag literally containing the word "links," with a repetitive format of link text, a line break, a few words of generic description, then another link, over and over. I bet search engines hate these pages because it's so obvious what their intent is — any page following that exact formatting pattern can be filtered out easily, even if a few real pages get thrown out with the bathwater.
A better resource page instead reads like a genuine "7 outdoor tips" article, weaving relevant links naturally into real content — a link to a greenhouse supplier in a tip about greenhouses, a .gov PDF about soil in a tip about planting, a Harvard study in a tip about health benefits of gardening. That sprinkles in good co-citation with .gov's, .edu's, and expert sites.
The main idea: focusing on relevance and links within good content is much better than the old way of making dedicated "links" pages. Link pages are dead. Long live content pages with links embedded within.
October 15th, 2005 at 9:05 am
I have been thinking about the same issue for a while. I operate in Norway and link real estate of quality is really hard to come by.
What I have ended up with as the best road forward is to pay bloggers setting up posts about websites I need links for in a optimal contextual way.
The issue is then really that this can really backfire, making it quite a bit of a risk to go about promoting an offer like this.
Got any suggestions on how to minimize risk here or to go another route?
October 15th, 2005 at 10:43 am
[...] Read Jim Boykin’s post about link pages. [...]
October 17th, 2005 at 11:40 pm
Great post. I believe it will take some time though before enough will feel comfortable to leave familiar ground. ( it’s been working well for so long)
On my site I give everybody the choice now how the want to link .
( the adventerous seem to be few and far in between)
November 1st, 2005 at 11:33 am
[...] I find many individuals who come to us who have been workin in obtaining links themselves, or by just purchasing links where their focus has been on numbers, and nowhere really on quality. Believe it or not, Link Style Pages are dead, and those are the types of pages that "monkeys" get you. [...]
November 23rd, 2005 at 9:33 am
[...] Link Pages are Dead – Long Live Content Pages *Tip: Add this blog to your feed reader – you won’t regret it [...]
March 12th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Just off Track.
Show Do you put the “Searchbox in your banner” ?
I just read a “new” adsense thingy, about a new strategy to include google search box and adsense in the Banner.
March 12th, 2006 at 10:23 am
sorry. typo. Let me rephrase it.
Jim, How do you put the “Searchbox in your Banner” ?
June 4th, 2007 at 8:47 am
I think this could be better method in comparison of other.
August 6th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
Great article and novel idea. The problem is getting your link partners to do this. Seems like a lot of work to beneft others who won’t be offering you the same courtesy.
August 12th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
This would mean that all directories (including DMOZ) are no more than links pages…
August 12th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Rado…ah, yes….you’ve caught on to something I believe google caught on to years ago.
August 13th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Ok Jim, links for Directories are of no use. But what about links from article directories? They are within content but now I’m experiencing no benefit from such links too.
August 13th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
MBill
here’s what I think about article directories:
http://www.jimboykin.com/article-submission-services/
….near worthless.
August 14th, 2007 at 3:29 am
Ah, Link pages are Dead, Article Directories are worthless. How about paid blog posts. I’m talking of blog posts that don’t have any direct links from other sites but those posts are nicely linked within in the blog structure of the hosting site. Are they worthy?
Your thoughts Jim
August 27th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
I believe that the DMOZ directory, being edited by hand, ranks well with Google and the other search engines. Wikipedia is also a good link, although it has a no follow policy.
Also, edu and gov links are good.
Sitening has a free program that lists page rank, google pages indexed, how many backlinks with google, whether the url has any edu or gov backlinks, and whether it is listed in DMOZ.
Also it says whether they suggest that you consider a link from that website.
September 28th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Thanks!
I was googling for more information about backlink trategies and found this advice. I wrote few artcles on presell pages and still come back to them and change my links (title, etc.;)
I think that it is great idea to have some gov or edu pages in the neighborhood
October 1st, 2007 at 7:52 am
I’m so glad people are getting out this links page business. The Internet is full of junk, spammy looking pages that are full of links. I like many others won’t put up with it, when browsing the net that is last thing I want to stumble across.
October 25th, 2007 at 11:12 am
We prefer second type of link in our every day business. Butt also need to have a lot of expierence and project. We are using third example.
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:15 am
Although these lists aren’t ideal some of them do still provide great benefit. They are especially useful in markets that aren’t competitive.
March 4th, 2008 at 1:16 am
a company i worked for as a web dev paid a chump SEO (who just happens to be speaking at the upcoming SMX Sydney……..) a lot of money for basically what is a link exchange program with a huge links page, deeplinked to from every page of the site (via CMS). the links page ended up outranking every other page on the site and is basically a linkjuice leak to the other sites.
no wonder SEO has such a bad name.