Varying your IBL's naturally

Smart way to start a site off

[alphacooler]

As I approach the launch of a large site I am tying to think to myself what is the best way to obtain backlinks that looks 100% natural and thus yields the most benefit in the eyes of SE's.

In the past I have primarily started sites with directory links only, and let the naturals follow. However, I do NOT believe this is the proper approach. The major SE's can easily recognize a directories. I was planning on a split of:

50% directory links, 30-40% one way from related sites, and around 10-20% reciprocal. How does this mix look?

Of course the rate of link growth is JUST as, if not MORE important. Thus I was planning on analyzing the number of links to competitors' sites against how long their sites have been up, and work from there. Does this sound like a sound link building plan?

Any other suggestions?

Thanks.

[Esoos]

Not bad, but I'd say directory links are playing too large a role in your mix.

Ever since I read Richard Koch's 'The 80/20 Principle', I got 80/20 on the brain. This has nothing to do with the concepts covered in the book, but 80/20 still has a nice ring.

80% non-directory, 20% directory
80% non-reciprocal, 20% reciprocal
80% on-topic, 20% off-topic
80% to homepage, 20% to subpages
etc...

It's pretty arbitrary, but it gives you something to shoot for, and it helps approximate a natural build-up of links.

Mature links are key, too, so the sooner you get started the better.

[alphacooler]

Esoos, I've been searching the boards to see if I could find anyone talk about their splits while doing campaigns, but couldn't find much, thanks for your input.

Another question: Say I have 50 solid directories that are on my list to submit to. BUT, my problem is that I am not trying to get my homepage to rank, but yet different subdirectories. I have about 10 subdirectories each of them needs their own unique IBL's with diff. anchor text. All of these dirs fall under the same theme however.

How should I utilize these directories to link to my various subdirs? Obviously I don't want all 50 directories linking to all 10 subdirs right? Although if a directory naturally liked my site as a whole they might very well link to many of my interior pages. Any suggestions on best how to handle this situation to keep things looking natural? Anyone feel free to chime in here. This is a problem I have thought a lot about.

[graywolf]

Vary the anchor and surrounding text to the home page and sub directories / pages.

Don't forget forums that allow sigs (getting fewer and far between now) and legitimate blog comments. I wouldn't let the "no follow" tag deter you from making a comment, I some of them showing as backlinks.

[Esoos]

You may have some trouble getting those directories to link to your site's subdirectories. You're usually going to be subject to the preferences of that directory's editors, and I don't see a lot of cases where directories are linking to pages other than a site's homepage.

Still, a high ranking homepage can pass a lot of juice to its subpages.

One other approach would be to use article directories, <snip>

The nice thing about most article directories is that they let you specify your own signature line, where you can link to any page you like using any anchor text you like. Also, your articles stand a chance of getting sydicated to other sites, resulting in more links.

The bad thing is you have to write some articles ;). Also, maybe half the people who syndicate your article will try to weasel out of including your link, so you have to be vigilant.

[edited by: martinibuster at 7:18 pm (utc) on Aug. 22, 2005]
[edit reason] No URLs, thanks. [/edit]

[martinibuster]

Well, the whole premise of this thread, Varying your IBL's naturally, is a contradiction, since the IBLs are unnatural to begin with.

I think the answer is more advanced than blanket percentages. The search engines are supposedly looking at statistics of what passes for normal and what appears spammy. Naturally, those stats may look different for different industries. Therefore a percentage approach may not work because the actual mix may be a moving target.

So what can be proposed to make unnatural links look natural?

[Esoos]

True. Trying to find the perfect mix of links is a bit like trying to find the perfect keyword density: it's constantly shifting, essentially meaningless, and distracts you from what's really important. It's best to try to grasp the big picture and play it by feel, rather than try to manage the details. I've found that the more time you spend in SEO, the more you tend to rely on intuition.

The whole process of building incoming links tends to be so chaotic that it's really impossible to manage percentages. As you build links, some people are going to screw up the link, some linking pages will go offline, and you'll also be naturally acquiring links from places you have no control over.

The benefit of shooting for percentages is that you at least point yourself in the direction of an incoming links structure that appears natural. If you aim for something like the 80/20 ratios above, you'll usually end up with something totally different after 6 months. But you'll have begun with something approximating a natural link structure, and chaos is only going to make it appear more and more natural over time.

[alphacooler]

martinibuster, Let me rephrase. How does one vary IBL's to LOOK natural? How about that.

[glengara]

Since you haven't launched the site yet, I'd suggest you first check whether you've optimised your internal linkage, things like using KWs in the nav-bar and possibly the file names.
You don't hear much about it these days, but a properly constructed internal linkage structure means less dependence on IBLs.

As for links looking "natural", I'd say relevant to the page content, and preferably within the content itself.
Not easy to find I know, but there's a move by some to add content specifically to include on-topic recips, both as a method of adding value to the links, and to "future-proof" against the traditional links pages being devalued.