| About Link
Building : To Link, or Not to
Link ?
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 F arms
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. F or 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 F ind 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. F ree 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.
By
Vik Tailor
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