Detecting Directory Spam

An interesting tidbit was given to me by my friend Justin - a very respected SEO who had recently talked to Google engineers about site optimization issues.  The knowledge was frightening...

 

Google will create a site and submit it to a massive directory submission service and watch where their links start appearing.  They assume that since these links appeared through an automatic script, that all the other sites on that directory were automatically submitted as well, and they discount all outgoing links from that directory.  In other words, they won't penalize you, but you just wasted your money by submitting to 75,000 directories at once.  Unless, of course, the traffic directly from those directories makes up for it - but that's pretty doubtful...

TG

 

Signed Denver Broncos football

Newsweek SEO article

This article by Newsweek was highlighted by Matt Cutts on his blog - I just wanted to give my own two cents worth.

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10415455/site/newsweek/

 

I feel like the SEO world is slowly creeping into the mainstream.  Every day I see another article about optimization.  It's just that lately, those articles are coming from more and more mainstream journalistic sources.  One year ago you would never had heard the terms "white hat" or "black hat" in Newsweek...

 

These days it's getting tougher and tougher to be entering the SEO game, because there's a lengthy learning curve, and the people that have been in it for a long time have such a head start.  But, the amount of press that it's getting, combined with the allure of easy money and work-at-home mentality will flood the Internet with new SEO's, and further bring the industry to the tipping point.  The 'tipping point' being defined as the point when search engine optimization is a household name, a recognized industry, and not a black art practiced by shadowy figures in dark rooms.

 

The interesting thing is that while site optimization is getting all the press, it's only one of the many ways to promote your site - and not necessarily the most cost effective.  Most people will hire an SEO for hundreds or thousands of dollars to write articles, post links, submit press releases - with the promise of results down the line.  They could very well be spending that same amount of money on PPC ads, or email newsletter sponsorship and seeing immediate results, instead of waiting to see what will happen...

 

Interesting times ahead!

 

TG
 

Linking Strategies

This is a reprint of an email I received from Entireweb Newsletter.  These folks send out good stuff - it's actually something I take the time to read most every day.  This email is particularly relevant for anyone with a web site, wondering how they can go about getting more natural traffic.  There aren't too many details, but it's a good primer for the 30,000 foot view of creating links back to a site.

 

Reciprocal Linking

Quite simply - this is a link from your site to another and they link back to you. A bit of advise here is to only link to sites that are relevant to yours. i.e - If you are selling Cars - only link to Car websites, a link to a Health website will really do you no justice, and trust me I have seen hundreds of website owners make this mistake. What's important here is not number of the links you have, but the quality and relevancy of the site your are linking back to. Be Selective and also take a good look at the sites linking to the site you want to link. It's really no good if this Car Site you want to link to has 40 reciprocal Links from Online Pharmacies.

How to Do this :

1. Pay a SEO Company to do it for you. (can be quite expensive)
2. Buy Them
3. Link Exchange Sites.
4. Search for them on your own.

Important : Do not add to many reciprocal links to quickly, build it up gradually otherwise you will be penalised by the search engines, as it will be seen as un-natural. A good way to start is not more than 10 to 20 in one month. As your site gets older you can start adding more.

One Way Links

This is what the search engines call a natural link, and these links are given a far better ranking than a reciprocal link. The easiest way to do this is to write articles on what you are selling and then submit them to article directories with a link back to your website. Website owners are always looking for content for their sites, and Article Directories are the easiest way for them to get content, with out them having to write them on their own. There are hundreds of these directories around and the more you submit to the quicker you will build up your one way links. It also is less time consuming than reciprocal linking and you will get far better results.

MultiSite Links

For this to be effective you need at least 3 to 4 websites to be involved in this. It is also seen as a natural link by the search engines and can be quite difficult to do if you only have one website. Although it can be done. You will just need to find 3 other websites that are interested.

How it works is this :

You link to site B, Site B links to site C, Site C links to site D and site D links back to you. This way all the sites get a link with out any of them creating a reciprocal link.

Directory Listings

This is also seen as a natural link as most directories don't require a link back. It's very simple and all you need to do is submit your site to as many directories as possible. There are thousand's of them on the Internet, so all it requires is a little bit of time and hard work. If you make it your goal to submit to one a day, the process won't become a tiresome.

Good Luck!

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About the Author: Dale Maxwell - http://www.affiliate-program.co.za