Forum Moderators: martinibuster
For instance,
How much control are you willing to cede to a link hunter?
Is cheaper or expensive necessarily a good thing?
What are the best parameters to use when outsourcing your link dev?
Please, do not promote your service, or the specific service of someone you know. Thanks.
You most certainly expose your website to harm. I would not have anyone develop links for me on an important domain, unless they were in house, or I had worked with them extensively previously.
What can people do that could hurt your website?
- Spam blogs
- Spam guestbooks
- Send spam emails
Sending spam emails is the most threatening. You don't want your high quality domain getting blacklisted, or be forced to switch hosts etc.
I've tried both cheap and expensive. The cheap ones find their links via FFA pages, spammy directories, a network of their own terrible sites, or guestbook and blog spamming. Not to be offensive, but these cheap link builders are generally people from countries other than US, UK, Canada, etc. Often they are from India. This means that communication is often a problem.
As far as giving control to a link builder, I don't give them FTP access, access to the links script, or anything related to the site. I may give them an email address from my domain.
I've worked with 4 different groups of the cheap link builders and found none of them to be effective and certainly not worth the hassle. The time spent in overseeing them could be better used doing your own link building.
I have had some success paying people on a per link basis on the more expensive side. The real problem is you can't really count on them for your entire link campaign. They might stop working at any point, and the links aren't really guaranteed to be the type you would get yourself.
I think the best way to go would be to have an in house person trained to do this. However, that is something most people can't afford or don't want to deal with. I do know that some people here have done this and it works very well for them.
With the increased amount of automation in the links industry such as links management scripts, and other tools that make link building easier, for someone with only one or a handful of sites, outsourcing link campaigns is probably not worth the trouble.
Generally I will have them just build a list of emails, and URL's and I take over from there.
Or occasionaly
I allow them to build links from a non- my domain email. And only allow them to get incoming links no reciprical links. I figure I am very unlikely to get penalized for an incoming link when I dont link back. Also I require the usuall must be related not a link farm ect... and hope they listen.
That isn't to say there aren't great outsourcers who will create original, on-topic links for you. If someone promises to get you a potload of links for a few bucks each, though, they'll have to avoid temptation; it's all too easy to cut corners and go back to reliable buddies.
I think the best way to go would be to have an in house person trained to do this.
Conroy makes excellent points. Control over one's business, obviously, is important. A rogue element can cause months of damage- even something as basic as your web host going down.
Unlike web hosting, Link Dev is something that can be controlled with some checks and balances.
I know of one webmaster who had a negative experience hiring in house.
Not all the factories are ok; it has to be able to meet up with your standard and also speaks the same language (i.e. sharing the same mentality). One of the most sweating tasks is how to find the really good one.
When the products are done, you cannot let them simply go. You need to QC (Quality Control) before the products are delivered.
As for outsourcing link dev, it is similar - you may have to sweat a lot before you can find good one who can come up with your standard. After the outsourcer sends you the lists of obtained or potential links, it is your duty to do another QC job. If you don't have time of your own, then hire in-house to act as final QC of the attained links before published (or delivered).
>>Is it possible to outsource and still maintain control?
Yes, it is certainly possible but that would also depend on your relationship with the company entrusted to manage the link development process. Whether they can be trusted with the crucial task of managing the link campaign and of course, the trust in a relationship takes time to develop.
I think control can be applied when you can clearly specify what kind of links you want and whether you are looking for number of links or quality of links
Additionally, clients want want the outsource provider to treat them (and their company) well. You don't want to be overcharged, and you want the work done on-time. For example, you want a mechanic who watches out for your interests and your pocketbook.
Generally, a client should never let a consultant drift (without direction or attention). The quality of work tends to suffer. So, clients should give well-focused attention and praise the consultant's successes.
Consulting companies love "success letters" from their clients who are super-pleased with the work the consultants are doing for them. In the mechanic example, you could write a letter to that person's employer.
Since there are many degrees of outsourcing possible, here's a list of possible variables:
Degree of Integration Will this person join an existing team or will they work on their own?
Degree of Autonomy Will this person have decision-making authority? In this case, will the person a) build a list of link-building opportunities and then send it to an internal decision-maker for approval or b) pursue links on their own?
Degree of Experience Does this person have experience with link building?
Knowledge of Your Company or the Sector Does the person who will do the work understand the sector's jargon, important keyphrases, and business needs? Does the person know your company, its values, and its unique sales propositions?
Length of Relationship Does the person have a reason to value your company and maintain a good relationship with it? Many people follow a "Shadow of the Future" relationship model. We tend to care about relationships when we believe there's future value in the relationship for us.
Professional Reputation What reputation has this person or company earned with its clients.
I work with a professioanl services company (not a web-design company), and we believe that our website sits near the core of our brand. Therefore, we keep most web-production in-house. We're cautious about outsourcing any web project to a complete outsider (whether individual or company).
When it comes to link building, my company would be unlikely to completely outsource link-building to an outside individual or company.
However, we have asked consultants to help our web-team work on a project. So, we have used outsourcing for staff augmentation rather than completely hand-off of projects. These contractors are usually ones we have built long-term relationships with.
If we build significant trust between us and the outsource provider, we will entrust the consultant with more autonomy. However, even then, we want to make sure that the relationship remains healthy. Too much distance between the client and the outsource provider puts the relationship on autopilot, and the "Shadow of the Future" becomes very weak.
I am thinking about 2 things to add now to check this. One is a page rank checker to make sure we have no pr0's and the other is a bad language filter.
I have been very explicit about what types of sites are acceptable for a link exchange. For site a anything goes unless it is a bad neighborhood. For site b if the target phrase is firetruck widgets then the linking site needs to be about at least firetrucks or widgets.
I used a content management system with great granular user permissions control to build my link directory and only give the person access to directories where they should be placing recips.
I get a list of sites we have exchanged links with. So I know exactly who we have linking to us. I've never had a problem with the sites on the list.
My first attempt to do links in house has not worked out. However, my second try is working out much better. It just takes a certain attitude and skill set. I definitely think it can be worthwhile.
Does anyone have a job description or checklist for hiring someone to build links in-house?
Link building is hard, i dont think it is easy at all and reminds me of a point in maths where you reach towards the asymptote, for any of you who dont have a clue what i mean, its basically at some point it is going to get hard, then harder and ridiculously hard to get more links. For example if i had 1000 links already from every directory on the web, most famous resources in the web and sites in my industry, is $$ for 50 links really going to be that easy versus a brand new site?
I guess its all relative on how you think about business, whether to be risky or not, at least if you do it yourself and make mistakes you only got yourself to blame and didnt waste $$$.
