Forum Moderators: martinibuster
What about the following subjects? Bad or Good?
1. Link Exchange Invitation
2. Link Exchange Requests
3. Webmaster's Name, Link Exchange Information
4. PR5/4 links to your site
5. Your site has been added on my PR5/4 page
6. I've introduce your site to my visitors
7. Your link on my PR5/4 page, Please Confim
...
Anyone has a good experience?
Thank you very much!
This is a good question and in all honesty I don't have the training or experience to answer it from an SEO perspective.
However, in my humble opinion based on what I have read here and there over the past year, I would think that the answer is no. First, we need to define what we understand as a "link farm" To me, a link farm is a place where anyone and everyone can place a link on any topic, from personal home pages to the sale of condominiums in Mars... any topic; and usually there is no one to verify the accuracy, or integrity of the listing.
On the other hand, if I have a directory with listings related to my site, which are handpicked by me, I don't see how could Google or anyone confuse that with a link farm. Besides, there are a couple of directories in the handmade crafts arena which are reciprocal only, and they are doing very well with PR5 and 6.
Jose
So far, in my PR0 directory and theme pages, I have about 120 reciprocal links, plus about 30 more coming. In total I have 428 listings, but I need to send a second message to about 300 of them. I delete those sites that don't respond after the second message, but I would never include threats of deletion, or anything like that.
I'm a little confused by Jose's example. Surely if you have 120 incoming links the page can not be PR0 unless something fishy is going on. Using my own little hobby page as a comparison. It has a PR5 for index.html. Besides links from my own inner pages of which there are lots, the Google/DMOZ directory and using a quick link:me search one other page not in my domain. Is the DMOZ link that important?
I've never done a link exchange campaigne. I just build my site and link to sites that I believe the terminology is "on theme" and "of interest to my readers".
I have written the people in my same widget hobby niche who I thought had truely great pages and told them I was linking to them but the two most notable examples did not offer to link to me, one didn't even reply. I lost respect for the person who runs that site.
I know I have more incoming links than are found in Google as even my humble hobby site gets link exchange requests. I maintain a token link page which is badly in need of pruning and usually will put links there but people seem to expect them to go on index.html...
The whole campaign aspect interests me as occaisonally a porn site manages to pass me for what would be considered my single most valuable keyword. I can't figure out how it is pornographic but I haven't wanted to know bad enough to investigate his site...
;-)
Muskie
Muskie, let me see if I can clarify a couple of points here.
First, what I called "link exchange campaign" may be a misnomer. What I really meant is that I am actively engaged in looking for relevant, subject related sites to link with. I called it a campaign, because I established myself a goal of reciprocal links I wish to achieve this month.
Second, this directory has only been around since 7 July, not even a month yet. I don't think is enough time for Goggle to cache it just yet. Google has over 380 pages of my site in their archive, so I don't expect any problems with this.
On top of that, I moved my theme pages directly to my domain directory (instead of having them in a "links" folder which is the default for Zeus, and I renamed the directory from "ThemeIndex" to "HandmadeCraftsIndex";
so I have done everything possible to "De-Zeusifize" my directory as I know there still some paranoia out there about a Zeus directory. So I have done everything so far to help improve the directory's PR, but I know it will take time. Nothing fishy here! : )
Jose
Two comments on using the term "PR(x)" in the subject...1. When I receive a message mentioning PR in the subject, I never read it. If you know what PR is, then you're in it for yourself and any benefit to me is secondary. PR is like a drug - when you get some, you only want more. Sure, you may give me a taste of the product, but you're really hoping I'll help support your habit.
If you are a serious webmaster/SEO type person, you'll at least look at the email, assuming it's got through all your antispam and local filters, but I have a buried form email (so they gotta be keen!) with a unique subject line and 3 fields they have to fill in, to get considered.
Anything else, I know they've trawled our site/s with a spambot and it's easy to filter them for deletion or, if it gets through my filters, perusal at my leisure.
And I *know* from the subject line whether it's going to be just another canned "reciprocal link" request.
And I admit, I read em, 'cos you never know, and if only to keep up with whatever kind of idiocy they're peddling now, as a good reason to link to them.
I have on occasion, even visited the site to see if it is worth linking to. How many over the last two years? Umm, none that made me go "Wow I have link to this site". They're either so OT it's not even funny, or just such god awful site design/navigation, that it would be embarrassing.
But I ditch all emails (subject line OR in message text) using "Page Rank" as some kind of magic SE results formula, and where reciprocal link requests state the "to mutual advantage because Page Rank improves search rankings", as the primary and most of the time, the only reason for reciprocal linking, I decline all such offers without any further investigation.
I've received at least 20 "reciprocal link" requests in the last 2 weeks; all were spam templates, and only one was even REMOTELY related to the actual content of the site requested. <derisive snort!>
Guess what happened to them?
I'm with KathieFry (multiple messages/ #3) and trillianjedi (message #5). If you use these two courtesies, your response rate should improve.
Asking for a link for the sake of a link sucks, especially if it "PR" driven, as described by previous posts.
Many of the people posting a response to this thread, have been webmasters/SEO for longer than Googles' even been around, so we're used to the "Content is King" mantra. The glove to this mantra is "relevant outbound and/or reciprocal links".
PR has really prostituted this ethic, however, if you have the time, personally visiting the target site and a personal email or filling in of the contact form, usually gets a response.
And if it doesn't, what skin is it off your nose? The link is there to improve the service you provide to your site visitors anyway, isn't it?
Last word: Will you people stop being so obsessed with Page Rank! You'll go blind! ;-)
Hooroo
JP
I am beginning to think that the lack of criteria on my part, regarding what they say in their contact, is the reason for being able to gather a few links.
As of today, test site 1 has 4800, and test site 2 has 3900. As both have only 8 pages, these links are hardly all internal.
Both sites have less than 60 outgoing.
Roll on the next update, so that those webmasters who don't understand the unimportance of PR will be even more impressed.
May all your search terms be No.1
GranPops, can you please clarify the above?
Thx
J
One only hopes that they are referring to their own sites and not to a site of their employer or client.
I regard a link exchange as a trade between two websites, not between a boring old fart like me, and some young, highly intelligent, computer nerd.
Therefore the criteria are the factors of the site not the anti-social behavioural patterns of a webmaster.
[webmasterworld.com...]
May all your search terms be No.1
