Monday, October 31, 2005
Link Building Software
Sunday, October 30, 2005
How to get directories to submit your site
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Directories to Improve Link Popularity
So, you can overcome this disadvantage by getting a few quality links. And a good way to start is to get listed in as many directories as you can. There are many directories out there, and the more you can get into, the better. If you have a business related website, and it can’t be accepted by non-for-profit directories, then you should try submitting it into business directories and should be prepared to pay a small fee for it. A good strategy is to contact a site that doesn’t offer advertising or paid listing and offer a small amount of money in return for a link. Chances are that few will be willing to accept your link. A few that you should try and get your site listed in, are Open Directory , Yahoo, LookSmart, Zeal, Joeant and Business.com , Discount-Search.com (http://www.discount-search.com) or any other business directory if you site doesn’t qualify for free submission.
But, if exchanges, for higher PageRank purposes are important to your site, then the Google directory is the answer to what you’re seeking. However, as a general rule, don't let PageRank determine your linking partners. It’s far more important to make your site helpful, for your visitors and customers.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Make or Buy
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Link Exchange - a Power Play
It is a truth universally acknowledged that webmasters seeking to build the prominence of their sites and their position in search engine results must of necessity engage in a dedicated link-building effort. All the search engines use the extent of inbound links to a web page as a means of assessing the value of that page, the logic being that if someone has bothered to provide a link to the page, there must be something worthwhile on it, and the more links there are, the more worthwhile it must be.
Quantity, of course, is not everything, and the quality of those links is also important, measured usually by the Google PageRank of the page on which the link is located. A number of different programmes exist which will search for web for sites offering high PageRank and keywords similar to yours that might make attractive link partners. All you have to do then, so the logic goes, is contact the webmaster and offer to exchange links.
However this process is not as straightforward as it seems. Brand new sites that need links the most, and for which the marginal value of an additional link is highest, are the hardest to build links for, since the value of the links which they can offer in exchange is lowest. So if you are seeking to play this game, you need to be aware of the power-play politics of link exchange.
You will soon find that the majority of well-established sites have a form on one of their web pages (see this Travel link exchange page as an example) which you can complete and submit for consideration. Invariably the form requires you to put your link in place first. This involves around 2-4 minutes work, depending on the efficiency of your own process for posting links on your own site. However, you have no guarantee that the other website will do anything other than say to themselves 'Yes, great, another inbound link for no expense', and not bother to reciprocate the link, reasoning that they will save themselves a few minutes work and the submitting party may not bother to follow up and go through the process of deleting the link they have put up, since this will be extra work for them.
Indeed it is probably true that the effort of establishing that a link has not been reciprocated, and then deleting your link to that site, is more than the cost of maintaining that link in place (after all, this cost is little or nothing).
Experience suggests that less than 10% of forms which you complete will ever result in a reciprocal link actually being established. This means that the 2-4 minutes work for a link submission has just become 20-40 minutes work per link that you actually get. Your link-building strategy has just become very expensive indeed.
How can you beat these odds and lower the cost of linking? Here are a few guidelines that have been learnt the hard way.
First, do not submit to the most easily accessible sites on the search engines. If you search for say 'free link exchange' and submit a form to the first 20 sites with form submission that come up, you can bet that many other people have done the same. This means that these sites will be swamped with link submissions and, human nature being what it is, are the most likely not to bother reciprocating the link - after all, they don't need to. Choose instead sites that are on page 20 or 30 of the search results: these people will be more eager to have links and are more likely to behave in an honorable way and reciprocate your link.
Secondly, look carefully at the language that introduces the form on their link submission page. Look for people who guarantee to reciprocate your link within a given (short) amount of time. Look for language which shows awareness of the risk you are taking with your time in completing their form. Of course, this could mean that they are particularly cynical about this process, but our experience suggests that this is a way to beat the odds.
Thirdly, look for an email address that looks like a real person. Shoot them an email asking how long they will take to reciprocate your link if you complete their form. This takes a few seconds only. Once you have heard back from a real person, the odds of them reciprocating your link are much higher.
Henry Schlee is the owner and operator of several travel websites which actively engage in link exchange with legitimate, high-traffic travel-related websites. If you want a link from a high PR URL, go to on of these sites: Travel link exchange, or Free travel links.Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Linking Your Way to #1 in Google
That was it, it was so simple!
Then things changed a little the competition figured it out too, everybody knew just put your keyword in your links and presto good rankings. The reciprocal link exchange boom was on. Services sprung up to help get more links faster with less work, automated link software was released etc etc. I needed another edge so I started buying links, mostly run of site links. I would have the same exact link on 500 or more pages. I would do this with one or two sites and presto I would be right back in the top three. It was great! I could put almost any site I wanted in a top position on Google for a paltry investment of $50 - $100 a month, life was good, especially when you consider that a lot of my competitors were spending that much per day with AdWords for a fraction of the traffic I was getting.
And again the masses found out and the rush was on, site owners would look at their competitors back links and then buy enough run of site links to outdo them. It is inevitable that when that many people find out about something so powerful there's going to be abuse, which attracts attention, especially that of the search engines and when that happens the party is usually over.
So I looked at top ranking site's for terms like shoes, clothes, gifts etc. And I found they all had one thing in common, non-reciprocal link's from content pages. Now I am really excited because all I have to do is get one way links to my site's from relevant content pages. But how am I going to get lots of people to give me a one-way link from a relevant content page?
Then it hit me, create a triangle of sites linking to each other, A would link to B, B would link to C and C would link to A, of course this will solve all my problems. How hard could it be?
VERY HARD!
What a joke. First problem after sending hundreds of e-mails and finally lining up two other relevant sites they wanted to put my link on an overcrowded links page four levels deep. Second problem site owners who insisted that two of their site's be in the triangle but both sites have same IP, what's the point it's just going to look reciprocal to the engines. And then there are the webmasters who have their main domain and a second domain that they have set up just for the purpose of triangle linking, usually the second domain is a "junk domain" meaning they have given it just enough links to show some page rank so that you think your getting a quality exchange.
Man what a headache just trying to get one link for one site no way I could do this for all my site's. Just shoot me now and put me out of misery. After feeling sorry for myself I started looking for either software or a service that could help. After a lot of searching forums, Googling and talking to SEO's I have found there are a handful of services out there involved in one way or three way linking, some good, some bad and some very bad. If your going use a service to help you build one way inbound links use the check list below to weed out the bad ones
It should be able to
* Bring relevant sites together for a 3-way link exchange
* Make sure all sites are on different IP's and that each page linking to you is unique
* Check daily to make sure everyone's links are still up and working
* Check all links regularly for trickery like Java, css or nofollow tags and ban any offenders
* Make sure everyone has 10 or less outbound links per page
* Make the links pages look like content pages
* Not leave any footprints, complete stealth is a must
* Do all this for a fair and reasonable price
Follow these guidelines and you should be able to find a service that can help you get quality inbound links that will boost your search engine rankings.
Mark Dietzel is founder of Natural Linking at http://www.naturallinking.com a service that helps get one way links.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
A Successful Link Exchange
The practice of effective link exchanges has nearly been extinguished by the extensive amount of spam email. I plan to help webmasters who are interested in real effective and professional link exchanges reach there goal.
What is going to make you the most amount of sales if you are trying to sell fishing equipment? A link from an outdoor hobby website or a link from a bubble gum corporation? I think the answer is straightforward, the outdoor hobby website. The trick is to know your market and understand your customer. What age group would your customers be, and what other type of website would they look at if they were interested in your product?
Now, put yourself in your customer’s feet, what would you search for if you were interested in your product? Type that search phrase into a search engine now and look at what results come up. Disregard the competition and look at the other websites.
I suggest you rate these websites in your head on the following criteria:
relevance, design, content, and navigation. I ordered them by how heavily you should consider them. I already discussed relevancy; because of course you want to bring customers to your website instead of click-happy people.
You may be asking yourself what a website’s design has to do with a link exchange. Well over the years I have noticed one trend, which is that websites with a very nice design tend to prevail faster than others. Know one wants to visit a website and have to wince to read the text. Content on the other hand is what brings the readers. Content can substantially improve the quality of your website because the internet is about information and if you have what people are looking for they will find you! Not the other way around.
Content is king, how many times has that been said? And it still holds true, content is what get websites links back to them, which in turn raise a websites presence on the internet. So why not have a link from a content website, in opposition to just another website trying to sell something?
And of course a websites navigation must be search engine friendly, because you will prefer to have the location of your link to be indexed by search engines.
Basically you should try to pick your link partners by first eliminating the irrelevant links, and then choose a website that is search engine friendly and has the potential to grow! And remember look for quality websites not high PR websites.
One of the first signs of maturity in a person’s life is to be able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. For example you hit a car in the parking lot and don’t leave insurance information, you later feel bad because you know if that was your car that got hit you would be angry about it. Get the point? Good now apply that to writing emails; put yourself in your reader’s shoes.
Do you want to open another email that is titled “link exchange” or would you perhaps prefer to read something a bit more refreshing and alluring entitled “our partnership” or “link opportunity” be creative but don’t stick with the old link exchange title that is highly overused.
The content of this email, however you entitled it should be very professional and businesslike. Use proper punctuation and complete sentences, also remember to compliment part of there website that is distinguishable so they identify that you actually visited it instead of simply finding there email address in cyberspace.
Don’t trust what mom says “it’s what’s on the inside that counts.” True content does help a website grow, but rarely do I trust a websites content if its design is pitiful. Remember be picky when choosing a link partner, personalize your letter, and be professional. As a final point do not partake in spam email!
Monday, October 24, 2005
Quest For Links
Thomas Jenkins - http://www.jkomp.com/
Friday, October 21, 2005
Increasing Link Popularity
You're probably wondering what the blazes is popular about a link! Well, in a word - plenty! Link popularity refers to the ranking assigned to your website by the search engines, and it determines the ranking your page gets when keywords are entered into a search engine. So, you're probably wondering, how do I make my link popular?
Search engines are discretionary, giving status and ranking to sites that have links to their pages from related, quality sites. It's a simple formula, but a very important one. Google created the system, and now virtually all the most popular search engines employ it to rank your web pages in their indexes.
The more commonly used your keyword is, the harder it will be to achieve link popularity, but without achieving this step, it is almost certain your site will never rank highly on any search engine. But don't be discouraged; there are tried and true ways of achieving link popularity using the most competitive keywords.
There are a few things you should be aware of. The first is that just linking up with a large number of other websites will not achieve link popularity. In fact, it may have quite the opposite effect. This is particularly true when pertaining to websites that are nothing more than "link farms" - pages containing line after line of indiscriminate links. Search engines may aggressively discriminate against your website if you are associated with a link farm, so steer clear of them!
The next thing to bear in mind is the quality of the site you are linking to. Never link to a page you have reservations about your visitors seeing. The last thing you want your website to appear as is indiscriminate and cheap. Linking to sites of poor quality will only lessen your link popularity, if not completely destroy it.
So let's get to what you need to do to achieve supreme link popularity and improve your rankings to stellar status on all the popular search engines.
The first step, and the fastest way to get your foot in the door, is to get a listing in a popular directory, such as Open Directory Project and Yahoo. If your site is business-related, you will want to be listed on Yahoo, and despite the fact that it will cost you around $300 a year, it will be money well spent. If your site is non-commercial, the listing will be free, but it will take time and follow-up to actually get it listed. Open Directory is gives you a free listing whether you are business-related or non-commercial, but be prepared to make a lot of follow-up inquiries before you see your site listed.
You are aiming to get listed in the highest level of appropriate category, and this just takes some common sense. For example, if your company ships Alpaca wool from an Alpaca farm located in the middle of Nowhere, Tiny State, do NOT submit your listing to "Retailers from Nowhere, Tiny State." BIG MISTAKE! All you have to do is look a little deeper - and submit your listing to the "Fine Alpaca Wool" category. You will not only associate yourself with culture and quality, but you will be listed in a national category.
The next step after you have attained directory listings is to locate other quality sites that will increase your link popularity. Try to find sites that are in some way related to yours, so not only will your link popularity increase, but your customer base may also be expanded. You want to avoid your competitors and look for sites that are useful to your site's visitors. Let's look at the Alpaca Wool site example. Linking up to a site that sells knitting supplies would be helpful to your visitors, and the chances of the knitting supply site wanting to link up to your site are also greater. By linking to a related site that will be relevant to your website's traffic, you are increasing both of your site's business prospects - and both of your sites' link popularity.
Not all sites want to link to other sites, so you will have to do some research when you are looking for possible linking partners. Google is an excellent starting place for your search. Make sure you enter keywords that you think quality customers will also enter to find your own site. Remember, your criteria are quality, highly ranked, non-competing websites that have a links or resources page. Go to these sites and objectively assess them. Look at the quality of the product, the graphics, and the ease of use. Then check out the other sites they are linked to, and determine if your own site would fit in with the crowd.
When you decide you have found a good prospect, you must set out to woo them. The first thing to do is to add a link on your own links page to their site. This is an essential first step; it shows good faith, and ups your chances significantly of their reciprocity. After you have added their link, you must contact the webmaster of their site. Since this is almost always done by email, you want to make sure it is immediately clear that your message is not junk mail. This requires that you tell them right off the bat that you have added a link to their page on your site. A hook like this almost always insures the reader will read on.
Next, be sure to be flattering and let them know how much you appreciate their website. Make sure you emphasize that you have actually visited their site, and that their site is not just a random pick. Give them the address of your links page, and ask them to check out the link for themselves. It's a good idea to mention that they will not only benefit from the increased traffic your website will direct their way, but you will also increase their link popularity. Briefly, explain why link popularity is so essential, but do this in a sentence or two so you don't sound like a professor! Finally, tell them you would greatly appreciate if they would reciprocally add a link on their own links page to your website.
Go through this process with as many appropriate sites as you can find, bearing in mind the criteria of quality and non-competitiveness. After you have emailed all relevant sites, be sure to check these website frequently to see if they have added a link to your page. Give it about a month, and if no link appears, try another charming email. Then give it another month, and if your site is still absent from their links page, it's time to remove their link from your own links page. The only time you want to pursue a link further than this is if you believe a site is crucial to your link popularity and your business needs. Just remember to keep all your communications complimentary and cordial.
Then set up a schedule to check your ranking in search engines frequently to see if your link popularity has improved. This is not achievable in the blink of an eye. It will take some time and a good deal of work. There is no way around the labor-intensive quality of improving your link popularity, which is why search engines regard it with such importance.
By the way - make sure you have a beautiful, streamlined site or you will never persuade anyone to link up to you. Be prepared to keep plugging away at this process, as long as it takes, until you achieve link popularity stardom!
Paul Buckley The Profit Eye http://www.theprofiteye.com Published by ArticleTime.com
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
15 Commandments To Submitting Articles
People don't like to be yelled at. USING CAPITALS is the same as yelling and looks awful. There aren't many article submission sites that accept ALL capitals in your title.
2) Only use HTML when asked:
There is nothing worse for an editor when he/she has to strip out HTML because you failed to follow the guidelines. If the website asks for NO HTML then don't add any.
3) Only use simple HTML:
If you are allowed to use HTML, just use the basics. Ex. (P)aragraph, (B)old, (I)talicized, (LI)st bullets, (A)link, etc. These HTML codes are considered basic and are usually accepted when submitting your article in HTML format.
4) Don't use articles to advertise your services within the content:
There is nothing worse than reviewing an article and seeing 5/10 links that are owned by the author embedded within the content of the article. Granted, sometimes you have something unique to help others with and you need to get the word out, I like to see such promotion but ONLY if it is useful for the readers and it is FREE, not a paid service or product. Try not to use this unique information within every single article that you write. This info will then become a little useless for the editors and they may even delete that section. Please remember to READ the "Author Guidelines" before you start submitting your articles.
5) Don't submit press releases as tips:
There is a distinct difference between a press release and an informative article. Press releases are strictly for announcing news about your company. Informative articles teach people about a specific subject (not about your company).
6) Have your articles edited by editors:
These days, there are so many authors trying to make their mark. It is imperative that you get your article edited by an editor, friend, colleague, or someone who is really good at checking for spelling and grammar.
7) Try to write something unique to the industry:
People all over the world are writing about the same thing. If you truly want to shine, try writing about topics that aren't covered by everyone. If you discover something new, do some research on what people are saying about it. If you can't find any other content, you may have found a gold mine.
8) Don't copy other people's content:
This topic is seriously funny. We have caught people actually stealing our articles and simply changing the title of the article to call it their own. How pathetic! If you use someone else's content, only use it for study, not for your own promotion and recognition. If you "quote" someone else, make sure to give credit where appropriate.
9) Find 4 new article submission sites to submit to:
If you submit articles once a week, try and make it a habit to find 4 new article submission sites to submit to. I guarantee you that new article submission websites popup almost weekly. We are still finding new sites to submit to, there is no limit to your search. Go within Google and do a search similar to "article submission sites", or "Where to submit articles to?".
Here are 4 article submission sites:
9.1) http://www.article99.com
9.2) http://www.a1articles.com
9.3) http://www.articlepros.com
9.4) http://www.free-articles-zone.com
Other Article Submission Sites
10) Keep your author bio short & sweet:
Try keeping your author biography short & sweet. There is nothing worse than seeing an article submission and realizing that most of the article content is within the author bio. Use one sentence and a couple of links. Most submission sites will accept up to 3 links within your resource box.
11) Don't buy articles from other companies and call them your own:
Commandment #11 is sweeping the world and is giving the article writing industry a bad name. Please don't even consider buying articles from people that claim that they will write a "UNIQUE" article for you to promote. Trust me when I tell you this, the article that you buy has been sold and re-sold many times. You will be doing your company no justice at all by buying articles. Article submission websites frown down on this method and will ban you from ever submitting articles again if you are caught.
12) Try not to attack others within your articles:
Being libelous is not good karma. Attacking others will give a negative effect for your articles. In fact, most article submission websites won't accept articles that are libelous.
13) Use copyright information at the bottom of your article:
Adding your copyright information at the top won't help you at all. I've come across many websites that simply delete your copyright information if it is listed at the top. That's what your author bio is for. Add any reprint rights and copyright information within your bio.
14) Affiliate links should never be used:
DO NOT USE AFFILIATE LINKS PERIOD! Promoting affiliate links within articles is a no no. Most article submission websites have a rule against listing affiliate links within authors articles (body content) and your author bio. If you absolutely need to use an affiliate link, try creating a "short link" that simplifies the link into a smaller, more compact link.
15) Setup For Manual Submissions:
Most link submission softwares aren't the answer. There is nothing better than personalizing your submissions by submitting them manually. Granted, this can take up to 2-4 hours per week if you write one article a week BUT submitting manually will get your article listed within two times as many article submission websites than the softwares can. Many websites require a login or show you an image to "enter the characters shown" to login and submit articles. By using a software, you will never be able to submit to such companies.
Many article submission websites have different and unique fields that they require for you to enter. If you use a software, you will never have that personal touch that each individual website & editor is looking for and your articles will never be accepted.
If you follow these commandments, you should have no problem getting your articles listed on 1000's of websites and get a great deal of promotion for your company.
Keep writing and keep submitting!
About The Author:
Martin Lemieux is the president of the Smartads Advertising Network. Smartads is dedicated to helping you expose your business online and offline.
International: http://www.smartads.infoArticle Submission Website (Beta): http://www.article99.comCanada: http://www.smartads.ca
Articles Submission Sites
http://www.goarticles.com/
http://www.articledepot.co.uk/
http://www.stickyarticle.com/
http://www.articlealley.com/
http://www.article-emporium.com/
http://www.articleworld.net/
http://www.articletime.com/
http://www.directorygold.com/more/article/
http://www.freetraffictip.com/members/
http://www.freearticlehq.com/
http://www.httparticles.com/
http://www.isnare.com/
http://www.article-content-king.com/
http://www.theezine.net/
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Paid Directory Submission Checklist
There are thousands of web directories on the net and selecting the good ones to submit your site can be a time consuming task. Also there are free directories and paid directories. You need to submit to both types of directories.
The following checklist is for paid directory submission only. This checklist will help you choose the best and worthwhile paid directories on the net.
Submission Check List:
1. Check out if the directory is indexed in major search engines.
2. Check the robots.txt file. Make sure that search engine bots are allowed to crawl the pages where you intend to put your listing. Check the Meta tags to make sure that search engine spiders are not prevented from following links in it. A Meta tag with noindex/nofollow will not be indexed or spidered and links in that page are not followed by bots.
3. Check if the directory is being maintained regularly. Visit the directory from time to time to see if errors are getting corrected, site information is getting updated and the like. In short, look for positive activity on the directory.
4. Check if the listings in category pages match in theme and content or not. Directories with tight focus on relevant grouping of web sites are useful for visitors and tend to show up frequently in SERPs for keyword searches.
5. Check out the age of the directory. Do a whois search ( http://www.whois.net) to get this information. Many new directories vanish after a few months due to lack of maintenance and promotion. With older directories you can at least be sure that you listing will remain visible for a reasonable period.
6. Check if the directory consists of too many empty categories - it is not useful for visitors and also does not send a too good signal to the SEs about the directory. Think twice before submitting to such directories.
7. Check if the contact information is available on the site. Proper businesses will provide you with some kind of contact information.
8. Check the Alexa rank of the directory - it is not accurate, yet you can get an idea of traffic the directory receives.Look for directories with decreasing Alexa Rank as it indicates that the directory is getting popular.
9. Check if the directory provides SE friendly urls. No JavaScript link or redirection. Also watch out for dynamic urls. Sometimes search engines find it difficult indexing or recognizing dynamic urls with parameters like http://www.
10. Check whether category pages have too many outgoing links. If your link is one of 100 links on a page, visitors will find it difficult to locate your site.
About the Author
Lakhya Phukan is the webmaster of Hedir Web Directory. You can submit your site at hedir, or search for the syndicated directory list at hedir
Monday, October 17, 2005
Why link page has a PR zero?
"Hi Andy, I have noticed that a lot of sites that request a link exchange from me may have a PR 5 or 6 on their home page and when I click through to the links page there is a PR 0. This is very disappointing and I don't exchange with them. Should I reconsider this practice or am I right in thinking they are doing something to prevent PR from passing to their links pages? Best Regards, Troy"
There are many things to consider when exchanging links. The above question asks whether you should consider linking to a PR 5 site when the links page is a PR 0. What are your thoughts on that? The question you should ask yourself is "Why does the homepage have a PR5 and the links page a PR0?". There can be a few different reasons for this.
Reason #1 - the links page is new and has not had a PR assigned to it in the Google toolbar (that does not mean it has no PR, just that the toolbar has not been updated to reflect its PR). This case is easy to spot. Look at the URL of the links page. Then go to the homepage and View the source of the homepage in a text editor (from the View Menu in Explorer, select Source). Do a search of the source for the links page filename. e.g. if the links page is called links.html, search the source code for links.html. If you find a link on the homepage to the links page, chances are the links page is new and has not had time to be assigned a PR in the toolbar yet. In this case, I would consider the link to this site. You could also go to the Way Back Machine: http://www.archive.org/ ..and type in the links page URL. If the Way Back Machine has no record of it, it may be new (though it is possible to prevent the WBM from caching your site). Now, before we move on, check that link to the links page in the source again. Make sure that there is no dynamic linking going on. While it is not always easy to spot, the introduction of the "nofollow" tag in recent months, has meant that many non-techie webmasters have been able to create dynamic links, quickly, easily, and without much technical knowledge. If you see the word "nofollow" in the link HTML pointing to the links page, then this webmaster is not passing PR to the links page. In fact, worse than that is the fact that the search engines wont even find and index the links page. This is a case of one webmaster trying to cheat you out of PR. Don't link to them.
Reason #2 - Links page is not being linked to, or is linked to using a dynamic link. If you do not find a link to the links page on the homepage of the site, or the link uses one of the forms of dynamic linking, then I would not recommend you link to that site. The links page will get no PR, and wont even be found by the search engines, so you get no benefit. It is possible the links page does have a link pointing to it from another page, but let's look at that as a separate issue.
Reason #3 - links page is buried deep in the navigation of the website. Some webmasters bury the link to their links page deep within their site, so that the only way a search engine spider will find the links page is by following 3 or 4 links from the homepage. When this is done, very little (if any) PR flows to the links page. Again, I would not link to a site like this. You wont get much benefit.
Reason #4 - Multiple links pages bury the page your link is found on. On some websites, there are so many reciprocal partners, that links are often split across 10s (or even 100s) of pages. For a search engine spider to find the page you are on, it would require following link after link on these links pages until it reaches yours. Again, by the time it gets there, very little (if any) PR will have flowed to the page your link is one. For points #3 & #4, my advice is simple. Start at the homepage, and see how many clicks it takes you to navigate to the page your link is on. If it is more than 2 clicks away, think carefully about exchanging links. You may not get much out of the deal.
Reason #5 - a sneaky one here. Check for a robots.txt file on the site that is requesting the link exchange. If there is one, make sure that there is no command that disallows the spiders from accessing the links page. This is a technique that will prevent the search engines spiders from visiting the links page, so no PR, and no benefit, is passed to your site. This is a definite one to avoid.
Andy Williams is author of the free, ezSEO internet marketing newsletter, offering subscribers up-to-date information on all aspects of internet marketing. Sign up today for free weekly advice, from someone at the frontline. http://www.ez-search-engine-optimization.com/
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Link-exchange Tips
------------------------------------
Hamoon Arbabi
You can find more detail about Link-exchange, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Marketing tactics, Business opportunities, Services, Tools and... in http://homebusiness.nexuswebs.net
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Reciprocal Link Campaigns
Many people have difficulty with this - it’s hard to get people’s attention when they’re getting dozens of requests a day. First, make sure that you’ve put the link up in a place where they can recognize it and where they can get to it easily. No weird path names, no hiding it behind fourteen other URL’s. Second, make your e-mail title something snappy. Many people will try something totally unrelated to a link campaign - something that will make a person want to open their e-mail. It can’t look spammy - no “important offer you can’t refuse” stuff. You need to put something that they will think is different - “question about your (insert subject) site” might be a good idea. Or, try a reference to their content. Just don’t get too out there - “Abraham Lincoln had a helper monkey” or something of that sort might get people to look at it, but they may not take your link offer seriously. Just make sure that the link offer is a good one, and one that will get their attention when they see the e-mail in their inbox.
Teve Torbes is an expert owner of a flea control site, who knows a whole lot about natural flea control. He has also created a valuable inflatable air mattress site.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Reciprocal Directories
http://citiesamerica.com/Resources/
http://directory.hostwire.com/
http://directory.leadingsolutions.com/
http://link-ads.com/directory/main/
http://ly2.com/directory/
http://mkdir.anchorbase.com/
http://ofcourse.us/
http://searchranger.net/
http://www.2listnow.com/
http://www.2searchgames.com/
http://www.2searchtech.com/
http://www.abeela.com/
http://www.anewdir.com/
http://www.articlecodex.com/Links/
http://www.askbufas.com/
http://www.baluchor.com/
http://www.bayengine.com/
http://www.bigvertiser.com/
http://www.blueurl.com/
http://www.buy-modern-art.co.uk/
http://www.cheapdirectory.net/
http://www.cliky.com/
http://www.dir.hiifii.com/
http://www.dirave.com/
http://www.directory.kreationstudio.com/
http://www.directory.mkpitstop.co.uk/
http://www.directorydelta.com/
http://www.directoryone.info/
http://www.eastmedia.co.uk/directory/
http://www.emoblue.info/
http://www.epicdirectory.com/
http://www.exchange-station.com/
http://www.ezdrivingdirections.com/directory/
http://www.fix-8.co.uk
http://www.freebie-articles.com/directory/
http://www.futuresiterank.com/
http://www.gdirectory.info/
http://www.godlyreminders.com/
http://www.gogettraffic.com/Dir/
http://www.gotlink.info/
http://www.grovenetworking.co.uk/
http://www.isins.com/
http://www.keralaclick.com/dir/
http://www.leaderslist.com
http://www.linkcabin.com/
http://www.linkheredirectory.com/
http://www.linkvelocity.com/
http://www.mavidir.com/
http://www.mlinkz.com/
http://www.ndex.org/
http://www.ofidir.com/
http://www.one-way-link.com/
http://www.pakimp3.org/links.php
http://www.plome.com/dir/
http://www.prwebdirectory.com/
http://www.raptor-uk.com
http://www.seekpick.com/
http://www.selectiveweb.com/
http://www.sitecatch.com/
http://www.sonstra.com
http://www.suaffiliates.net/
http://www.suggestlink.net/
http://www.thenightclubsite.com/directory/
http://www.toronto-internet.com/
http://www.tr64.com/
http://www.twbdir.com/
http://www.uranus-directory.info/
http://www.urldig.com/
http://www.webaldo.com/
http://www.webtrafficpromotions.com/directory/
http://www.worlddirectory.in/
http://www.xa6.net/
http://www.z5-directory.com/
Paid Directories
List of paid web directories
http://addlinkdirectory.com/
http://alphadir.com/
http://directory.uquick.com/
http://linkwith.us/
http://www.ababba.com/
http://www.after5webdesign.com/directory/
http://www.agreatdirectory.com/
http://www.alldotnet.com/
http://www.allinorder.org/
http://www.allmuse.com/
http://www.amillionquid.com/
http://www.askfrank.info/
http://www.athenadirectory.com/dir/
http://www.axisdirectory.com/
http://www.beeus.com/
http://www.categorizedweb.com/
http://www.collectiveseek.com/
http://www.completecrawler.com/
http://www.cooldir.net/
http://www.crazydirectory.com/
http://www.directory-hound.com/
http://www.directoryi.com/
http://www.directoryu.com/
http://www.directoryy.com/
http://www.dirspace.com/
http://www.e-web-directory.com/
http://www.extradir.com/
http://www.eyellowpage.net/
http://www.freshdir.com
http://www.fridaydirectory.com/
http://www.friendly-directory.co.uk/
http://www.guideanddirectory.net/
http://www.hunt.co.in/
http://www.idorel.com
http://www.justanotherlink.com/d/
http://www.kwikgoblin.com/
http://www.linkalliance.net/
http://www.linketta.com/
http://www.linksvalley.com/
http://www.mammoth-directory.com/sites/
http://www.nowdirectory.co.uk/
http://www.onedollardirectory.com/
http://www.onestop-directory.com/
http://www.onlinestoredir.com/
http://www.portprophecy.com/
http://www.primodirectory.com/
http://www.publifacil.info/
http://www.qettle.com/
http://www.qtdir.com/
http://www.querycube.com/main.php
http://www.rkdirectory.com
http://www.ru7.org/
http://www.saanvi.org/
http://www.saltlist.com/
http://www.searchennetworks.com/
http://www.seofriendlydirectory.com/
http://www.severallinks.com/
http://www.sezza.com/
http://www.sitefind.org/
http://www.smartfind.org/
http://www.sorttheweb.com/
http://www.sorve.com/dir.php
http://www.thehyperlinks.com/
http://www.thelocalforum.co.uk/directory/
http://www.theorangepages.com/
http://www.thewildacres.com
http://www.topleveldirectory.com/
http://www.unadir.com
http://www.venusdirectory.com/
http://www.warpocity.com/
http://www.webmastertag.com/
http://www.webverzeichnis-webkatalog.de/en/
http://www.xeit.com/
http://www.yourlinkdirectory.com/
http://www.zeoma.com/
http://www.zoomsearch.info/
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Backlinks Checking Tool
This tool is to check your backlinks and the anchor text used in those backlinks.
By - We Build Pages
Monday, October 03, 2005
Google Says - Part 5
Google Says: Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.
There are several sites that will check your rankings for free on the search engines, and some will require a Google API key. First you will need to get a Google Account. Once you have your API License Key you can use the Google API's to check rankings or as mentioned above find software that uses your API License Key.
By following what Google has to say over time you will find your website drawing targeted traffic that you want as well as enjoying popularity in the major and secondary search engines. The quotes I used are from two documents in particular, which have more information for those curious enough to poke around.
Author : Clint Dixon
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Google Says - Part 4
Google Says: Have other relevant sites link to yours.
Now the important factor here is relevant, links to your site should be related to your website in some way that is based on common sense, using our New Jersey pizza shop, linking the pizza shop to a Boise Idaho “slip and fall” law office would not make much sense to most of us, so the search spiders will not see this as a logical link but more of an attempt to influence rankings. Now if you were to link the pizza shop with a cardboard pizza box manufacturer or a pizza oven installer this would be reasonable and the spiders would see it that way as well.
Google Says: [0077] The dates that links appear can also be used to detect "spam," where owners of documents or their colleagues create links to their own document for the purpose of boosting the score assigned by asearch engine. A typical, "legitimate" document attracts back links slowly. A large spike in the quantity of back links may signal a topical phenomenon (e.g., the CDC web site may develop many links quickly after an outbreak, such as SARS), or signal attempts to spam a search engine (to obtain a higher ranking and, thus, better placement in search results) by exchanging links, purchasing links, or gaining links from documents without editorial discretion on making links. Examples of documents that give links without editorial discretion include guest books, referrer logs, and "free for all" pages that let anyone add a link to a document.
Next there is the amount of links you want to build. Natural links take time to develop and the search engines know this. As such adding 100s of links per month is usually not seen as a good thing to the search spiders and usually results in a filter being applied to your website with lowered rankings.
I wrote about links and how I do not see much value in them in helping to attain front page results in the organic search results listings. Read the article for more information. And this still holds true. I have rarely built links for my clients, and because of this most of my clients have never suffered any sort of "google sandboxing" effect. Once the site is crawled and indexed, then links can be added in moderation.
Google Says: Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
What google is telling us here is that taking part in a reciprocal link exchange will be of little value and if it is intended to influence search rankings will earn you time in the corner so to speak. Others may link to you from poor quality websites and there is little you can do to stop this, however you do not have to link back, that is where the penalties come in when you take part in these schemes. Then you are a willing participant.
Google Says: Submit a sitemap as part of our Google Sitemaps (Beta) project. Google Sitemaps uses your sitemap to learn about the structure of your site and to increase our coverage of your web pages.
This sitemap is different than the one you build for users. It is used to help Google crawl and index the world wide web in a more efficient manner, While Google states the use of Google Sitemaps does nothing to effect rankings, it has always been my thought that making Google's life easier is going to have some positive effect. Even if it is only good karma, it can't hurt like other things people try.
Google Says: Submit it to Google at http://www.google.com/addurl.html.
This step is not needed if you build a link from a high-value and Google-friendly website. In fact there have been some who feel that allowing the search engine spiders to find your site on their own by crawling links is of more value to your web sites rankings.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Google Says - Part 3
Again we see where googlebot does not crawl text in flash, JavaScript nor any graphic images. Also by following Google Says here there is a mutual benefit extended to other search engines, since those search spiders also usually do not crawl these areas.
Google Says: Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive and accurate.
When writing Title tags you only want to use 96 characters or about twelve (12) words, such as "Perth Amboy New Jersey Pizza Restaurant Take Out Delivery" Also change your titles per page like so "Pizza Shop Perth Amboy NJ Offers Pizza Food Eat In Free Delivery"
As for Alt image tags, there is a fine line here. Alt image tags are meant for those with vision accessibility issues and related text to speech reading software. The software reads what is in the image ALt tag to the user so we want to use "pizza shop logo image" and not pizza, pizza shop, pizza restaraunt, fresh pizza, fresh dough, pizza, calzone, pizza image. Doing this is seen as spam and will result in a filter to lowered results.
Google Says: Check for broken links and correct HTML.
If you were running a real bricks and mortar business, you wouldn't have broken pieces of stuff all over the floors of your store or business. It’s the same thing in web pages. Broken links or poor html coding of pages will cause the search spiderbots to trip and get hurt, thus not able to crawl your page. This is a liability which, while you won't hear from a lawyer, Google and other search engines will not recommend your website to other customers.Validate HTML code at http://validator.w3.org. Also, be sure to validate CSS code if used.
Google Says: If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.
This is a topic worthy of several articles which I cannot cover here, as much as I would like to. If you are using a dynamic on a Unix server, you maybe able to use a Mod Rewrite to change dynamic URLs to static on the fly. You can find more information on doing this here. You will also need to check with your web host provider. If using Windows servers, you would need to do an Isapi Rewrite and should consult your web hosting provider about this issue.
Author : Clint Dixon