Your Fan Club - Getting Inbound LinksWritten by John Calder
© 2004, John Calder http://www.TheEzine.netLet's face it, getting one-way, non-reciprocal links in to your site is way to go these days, at least as far as SEO purposes go. Reciprocal links can send you traffic, and may count for something in search engine ranking algorithms, but not nearly as much as they used to. To help you in search results, you have to get inbound links, preferably a text link with relevant text, from a site related to yours. Here are a few tips on getting those all-important inbounds. It's doubtful, for new sites in particular, that you'll get another webmaster to link to you just for asking. Many won't even exchange links with low PR sites anymore, so your polite email request for a one-way link to your new PR 0 site may well be met with laughter. But there are other ways to get links you need. For example, you can post on relevant forums and newsgroups that themselves have some decent ranking. Remember though, that unless you're selling to other marketers, there are a lot more forums than just marketing related ones. In fact, it's much better, if you sell ski equipment for example, to post on ski vacation forums, local forums centered around various ski resorts, and so on. These are more on-topic to your site, and will carry more clout than a link from a marketing site.
| | Linking With A MillstoneWritten by Stephen Brennan
I've been engaging in reciprocal linking with other websites for some time. I've always been aware that a single incoming link from a high PR website is worth far more than many links from low PR websites (the actual ratio is known only to God). I've also always been aware, at least over last couple of years, that incoming links from non-relevant websites is not only valueless but can, in fact, have a negative effect on your Search Engine ranking (*as opposed to PR).I've written previous articles about linking, one or two of which have been specifically about practice of requesting and accepting links from anybody and everybody. However, I've never been armed with any 'hard evidence' with which to support my plea for some sensible thought about way in which some people handle their linking practices. This time around, I have this little offering from Google, people who are responsible for whole 'PR' caboodle. "How is PR effected if you have text links on a page that is irrelevant to website? Links from a non-related site will still pass PR, but will have little or no effect on SERPs. Too many of these might even have a negative effect on SERPs. Remember, PR matters when all other things are equal, but that is never case. You are much better off getting back links from a relevant PR4 page (and site) with targeted anchor text than getting back links from an irrelevant PR6." - Ref: http://www.prlookup.com/faq.htm There you go. You may not have heard it here first, but it is out of 'the horse mouth', so to speak. I don't know how long this particular piece of information has been available at Google for all to see (I don’t spend much time in Google’s ‘support’ pages) but it's there now and I hope that it becomes common knowledge very quickly. To some it may not be a revelation. It won't be of any great concern either, because like many, they have always been a little particular about 'relevance' of websites from which they accept or request reciprocal (or incoming only) links. Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about being 'tight' or 'mean' about linking with lower PR websites. I have always agreed to link with any website that has relevant content. Provided website has same (or related) subject matter, I don’t care about PR. You see, that's what it's supposed to be about - supplying worthwhile links and even alternatives to your users and making your website available to users of other related websites. How is this purpose served by supplying users with links to (and accepting links from) totally unrelated material? Google, along with rest of us, tends to think there is no purpose served at all, hence possibility of negative effect on your SE rankings for thinking otherwise.
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