Link Development Forum

Sorry I hadn’t responded before now. I wanted to give your post some thought first. I’ve posted at [webmasterworld.com...] with regards to a question about linking and it got me thinking about your comments.

Trying to influence ethics in an industry is a big task to bite off.

Businesses take note of the bottom line and that’s money. Ethics have a place inside each of us and it’s up to each of us to decide what our ethics are. I think the best I can come up with is stretching myself to explore new possibilities and if I elect to, sharing my theories or strategies with the industry.

An example is to consider how many of us think of linking as a chore to hand it off to a college student and pay by the link? Do we embrace our linking tasks with the fair prospect of adding to the coffers through developing relationships above and beyond the simple act of linking?

What I would like to see more of and believe folks undervalue with regards to their linking efforts, is networking. I think of linking as an additional chance to meet, create and expand on business opportunities. When I take my linking strategies seriously and instead of link hunting for the sake of the link only, begin to approach linking as a door to expanding on business relationships, my linking takes on a whole new meaning.

It amazes me that there are so many "companies" (if you can call them that) that offer "guaranteed traffic" and "thousands of hits". In today's web world, traffic doesn't do anyone diddly squat, yet there are people doing it and people paying for it.

While these places still advertice "Massive Hits" not a single one of them mentions page rank. I would imagine that, if one really wanted to put their mind to it and do a well developed directory site, that a "Page Rank Farm" could not only be made, but probably not even punished by Google since, if it was done right, it would actually have relevant topics on each of the link pages.

This is why I've always loved the Terminator Movies. (Why??? I hear you ask.) Because technology evolves at a much faster rate than the people working with it. ;)

I'm hoping that most of us don't consider this to be a chore anymore, but an integral part of site optimization. I've read a variety of articles on Link Strategies and most are relative to developing quality reciprocal links. This past week, I've had the honor of communicating with a fairly large name in the industry who is renown for his linking strategies and the process he uses to obtain quality inbound and outbound links.

I think it is time for the SEO/SEM community to wake up and smell the coffee (for those who haven't already). It is definitely not about quantity anymore, it is strictly a matter of quality.

To me, a link sitting in a directory that is buried thousands of pages in the SERP's has no value whatsoever and may or may not be considered in PageRank, its all relative to the PR of that resource and the value that it has to the general searching public.

> Trying to influence ethics in an industry is a big task to bite off.

I would like to feel that this falls under common sense rather than ethics. Although I do see your point. The issue of advertising submission to thousands of search engines, directories and FFA's is definitely an ethics issue.

> I think the link farms are more dinosaurs from an even longer gone era than we think.