Is Reciprocal Linking A Thing Of The Past?
Do the search engines give any credence to exchanging links?
Well, this depends on who you listen to. Some search engine optimizers will tell you that you’re wasting your time with reciprocal linking strategies since backlinks (meaning one way links) are king. Others will tell you that reciprocal linking is a thing of the past and then there are those who suggest it’s about striking a balance.
So, why link to other websites in the first place?
I think this is the question that needs to be answered before determining whether a) it’s worth linking to other websites at all and b) what kind of links the search engines prefer. And in my view, the undisputed reason for linking to other websites is to generate more traffic so you sell more of your products and services.
More links from quality sites, results in more traffic, more traffic means more sales and more sales means more money in the bank right? Right! So the whole purpose of linking is more than just “link popularity” so you get indexed by the search engines … the result of good quality links to your site is more traffic. But there are a few things you must be aware of when developing your link exchange strategy and you must first of all be aware that …
Not all links are created equal!
Website linking is more than just about “I’ll link to you if you link to me” because in doing so, you could potentially damage your website rankings but not necessarily in a way that SEO experts have suggested. For example, some will suggest that each time you link to another website, you give away votes therefore devaluing your PageRank. This has led to some Search Engine Optimization experts discouraging external linking at all. So, this led me to ask the question,
Is reciprocal linking dead?
There are definately those who will tell you that reciprocal linking is a thing of the past, and I personally do not get involved in link exchanges but mainly because the requests come from “linking agencies” who will write a general letter to any webmaster with a PageRank of 2 or above and request a link exchange. They will even tell you, “I have visited your site and see that you have a PageRank of x … and feel you are a good fit.” And this is just the many I receive from these agencies wanting to link my site to their Real Estate clients!
When I first wrote this article, I have to say that I still believed that there was some value in reciprocal linking but I really do contend now that there are other ways to build backlinks to your site that are far more efficient than simply writing to webmaster after webmaster asking for link exchanges.
The most important element in getting good quality links is to provide good quality content which will encourage other webmasters to link back to your site without requesting that you reciprocate.
For the many ways on how to build backlinks, you might want to go check out my article on the 101 ways to get traffic to your site. If you can promote good content, you can get quality backlinks to your site without having to reciprocate links.
All the best,
There Is No Duplicate Content Curse … Period!
The word on the street is that if you use duplicate content on your blog, the search engines will penalize you.
Some marketers have even gone as far as saying that your site will be deindexed so there is a wave of fear sweeping the Internet right now and of course there are those capitalizing on this fear!
But, what’s the real scoop on Duplicate Content?
What I will say is that “There is No Duplicate Content Curse … Period!
Being penalized by the search engines for having duplicate content on your site is a myth, it’s a lie and an outright blatant excuse for some marketers to make money from you!
You can still get traffic from duplicate content on your blog but what certainly isn’t acceptable is using mirror sites, i.e. having two identical sites with identical content to try and trick the search engines.
Having a mirror site does not even have to be deliberate as in the case of Brad Fallon of My Wedding Favors whose webmasters copied the entire content of his wedding favors site during some maitenance initiative and inadvertently hosted it on a server where the search engines could get access.
Brad’s site was deindexed and it took him about a year to make up with Google again … another clear indicator that even if a mirror site is created, it doesn’t have to stay in a black hole forever. If this happens to you, you better have a good arguement for the search engines though as well as another plan of action to get traffic to your site whilst your site is in limbo.
So, as they say on the kiddies programs … “do NOT try this at home!”
Okay, you’re still skeptical and you want proof that if you use duplicate content on your site, the search engines are not going to sting you?
Well, here’s a snippet from Google Webmaster Central Blog about duplicate content:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/06/duplicate-content-summit-at-smx.html
Notice what it says below the red line …
“If duplicate pages are detected, one version will be returned in the search results to ensure variety for searchers.”
First off, this means that it isn’t a good idea to take a load of Private Label Rights (PLR) content and post them onto your site because Google is looking for uniqueness.
So how does Google determine which article is unique if there are duplicate copies of the same article?
It used to be said that the search results would show the article that Google indexed first, but in his report, Search Engine Myths Exposed, (which is no longer available by the way) Jonathan Leger explains that there are primarily two things that determine which version of the duplicate article Google will choose …
They are links to the page and title tag.
Sadly, that free report linked to above is no longer available and I was deeply disappointed when I sent the details of this report to my readers and very few downloaded it. Why was I so disappointed? Because I was a subscriber to a $800 per month membership site which was great, but in my view did not bust these myths as well as Jonathan’s free report did.
Anyway, I digress!
What Google are looking for are links from the page that matches the search query typed in by the searcher and, if it finds no links with that search term, it will look for pages that whose title matches the query.
In other words, if you have a page that has many “good quality” links coming into it from other sites with the search term in the anchor text, you have a very good chance of ranking well in the search engines. It also means that if there are no anchor text links to the page, but the article that wrote on your blog and then submitted to the article directories contains the search term in the title, you could dominate the top 10, 20, 30 positions in the search engines with that one article despite the fact that the search engines have indicated that they want to serve up variety.
Why would they do this? Because your article was the most relevant to the term searched for.
Marketers have also claimed that it’s the article that is indexed first by the search engines that wins. Jonathan Leger refutes this argument and has proved that the page with the most links wins!
If you really want to know more about the duplicate content filters and, I think you should be interested since knowing how it works can take out the “slog” of posting unique content on you blog, I highly recommend that you check out the posts Jonathan Leger has on his site about duplicate content.
I hope you’ll also check out Jonathan’s Share a Post software and find out how to ethically use duplicate content on your site as well as get traffic from some of the great articles in its repository.
Getting Indexed By Google
Every time there’s a Google shakeup the speculations start as to why Google re rank or even de rank many sites – especially when it involves high profile sites or sites that are owned by large corporations.
However, the intention of this blog posts isn’t to talk about the Google shakeups because whilst there is speculation as to the reasons why, no one knows for sure. And whilst Page Rank isn’t the most important element of making money online, one thing is for certain …
If your site isn’t getting indexed by Google or
the other search engines you are not in the game
Indexing does not mean giving your blog a page rank or a rating, but it does list you in the organic searches and this is important if you want to be found by people other than those you notify that you exist as well as enabling you to benefit from getting free traffic.
Some people have had their blogs up for what seems like forever and yet if you type in their domain name in Google, Yahoo, MSN or Alta Vista, nothing comes up in the search engines.
If it’s possible to get a brand new site indexed within 36 hours – as was the case with my client who owns OrangeLily.net – then a site that has been live for weeks should have been indexed by the search engines. But how?
Here are some useful tips that ought to get the search engine spiders visiting and indexing your site on a more regular basis:
- Created 5 to10 articles and post three or four of them when your blog goes live and then add at least one post every week after this
- Create yourself a Google Sitemap – do a Google search to find out how
- Use the keyword phrases in both your blog title and tagline that reflects the terms people would use if they were searching for information that may be found in your blog. So rather than use yourdomain.com in the title of your blog, use a keyword phrase and the same applies to the tagline. If you take Brad Fallon for example, just one of the best SEO experts on the web, the title of his blog is “SEO Expert, Brad Fallon” and not what most people would expect … BradFallon.com
- In each post that you make, again you should be using keywords and keyword phrases that people would search for on the Internet.
Just doing those 4 things above will get you recognized by the search engines and then the more you add fresh unique content to your blog, the more likely Google and the other search engines will visit your site to index your posts and pages.
To your online success,
Why I Don't Focus on Traditional SEO
As a business owner online who wants natural organic listings in the search engines, your main objective is to please Google and play by their rules. The reason being, Google are the biggest search engine with about 60% of the market share and generally, if you rank well in Google, you’re likely to rank well in MSN, Yahoo and the other search engines.
Most of the traditional search engine companies focus on ensuring you have the right keywords as well as right keyword density on the pages of your site (on page factors), whereas Google relies more on a linking structure or backlinks from other credible sites (off page factors), to determine how relevant your page content is to the term that a searcher online types into Google as well as how credible your site is.
See http://www.google.com/corporate/tech.html for more information on how Google’s linking structure works and how they determine the credibility of your site.
Now, the problem with just focusing on keyword placement and, contacting other website owners to ask them to link back to your site is that some website owners will want to charge you to have a link on their site nowadays which, can actually get you into serious deep waters with Google … though a long-standing debate, it’s not all bad but again, you need to play by Google’s rules if you want to pay for links.
What could also be an issue is if you decide for whatever reason that you don’t want to pay for links any longer … you could end up losing a whole bunch of credible links overnight. The net result (no pun intended) is that you’ll loose your ranking, meaning less traffic and less money … overnight! And when Google decided to come down hard on perpetrators of link buying in December 2006, it left a lot of companies struggling over the Christmas period so, be warned. Do your due diligence to ensure you’re not violating Google’s terms of service before getting into link buying.
So, to answer my own question though, why do I not focus on traditional search engine optimization strategies?
My focus is on “findability.”
How can I get more people to find my site or, your site, on the Internet. Or put another way, how do I get more people to find me online and still get quality incoming links to my site from other credible websites at zero costs.
I think Mike Filsaime, successful Internet Marketer said it best at the UK World Internet Summit in 2006. He referred to strategies that get you backlinks as “throwing seed out on the Internet.” He then went on to say that getting traffic from this seed may not be as instant as Pay-Per-Click traffic, but it grows and grows and long-term will give you a great return on investment.
I’ll add to that by saying it will get you an awesome amount of credible backlinks to your site too.
Some of the best ways to get backlinks to your site are:
- Blog posts
- Submitting articles to article directories
- Submitting your RSS feed to feed directories
- Podcasting (audio broadcasting)
- Video broadcasting
- Commenting on other people’s blogs
- Web PR
- Forum commenting
By using these methods, it’s not just a matter of getting links to your site from credible sites, it’s about “spreading your seed on the Internet.” What you want to achieve is popularity … whenever people search the forums, the search engines, article directories etc using variations of the keywords you want to rank for, you want them to find some reference to yoursite.com.
And more importantly, when they click on yoursite.com, you want them to find good quality content.
I’ve never personnally bought into the fact that you have to put your product in front of a prospect sevent times before they’ll buy, but if you do believe that, this must be the easiest and most economical way of presenting your product to your prospects.
In addition to the exposure, it will also give you more branding power because you’re not limited to just getting your message distributed via the search engines or links, people can find you on blogs, in article and RSS directories, iTunes, YouTube, GoogleVideo etc.
In my view, these are actually far more powerful strategies than just focusing on keyword density and approaching other webmasters for links … though take note that I am not suggesting these are ineffecitve nor, should they be abandoned (though reciprocal linking are now seen by some search engines as spam – another post for another day) but I will say that I’d rather spend my valuable time writing good quality articles and submitting them to article directores than spending hours writing to other webmasters for links.
Hope this helps you put search engine optimization into perspective as well as give you a good idea of where you should be spending your money as well as your time.
