Forum Moderators: martinibuster
That yeilded about 850 results.
A quick trip thru the results eliminated all but 114 of those sites. Those dumped were completely off target or dead.
I've spent probably 8 - 10 hours reviewing the remaining 114 sites this last week.
I'll be linking to 56 of them.
Of the 114, the 58 that I eliminated suffered from one or more of the following...
Essentially one page sites with no real info.
Unreadable (ie: dark grey text on a dark background),
Had major internal links that didn't work or led to 404s,
Were really just fronts for some other venture, etc.
But one huge failing was the lack of info relating to their location. Considering most of these are very localized outfits, that was a stunner. Sometimes the only location clue was in the organization name.
Lack of any kind of contact info was another oddity. These are non-profit, affinity oriented, membership driven organizations and yet some of them don't put contact info of any kind on the site.... strange.
Think about these numbers 850 - 114 - 56
If this excercise was related to the topic of your website, which group would it fall into? Are you sure?
I got 500 + one-way links in about 3 to 4 hours hard work (if that). Just send out a press release, and sit back.
If you're site is half decent, the links will find you.
I'm looking for relevant sites to link to from my site. The point is to make it easier for my visitors to find other related sites they may be interested in. The process may be a little frustraing, but it's hardly a waste of time.
Unless of course, the sole purpose of your site is to point users in another direction.... eg, sales site, portal etc. If you are going to have links to other sites, ensure these links lead back to your site in some way. Then visitors might be encouraged to return visit.
(Viral is the only way to do that effectively) otherwise you can kiss goodbye to these visitors.
People will click on links if you give them a reason to, trouble is they are to someone elses site! And those visitors will benefit someone else.
true, but if your competitor is 0.25 decent and is getting links, in many cases you're behind.
Not all good sites attract links. Political blogs, techies, academics etc., might but commercial sites are different
He's making his site useful to his users, which is a good thing to do if you want to cultivate repeat users, positive word of mouth, and passively generated one way inbound links.
Why, do you think all commercial websites don't provide a useful service then?
true, but if your competitor is 0.25 decent and is getting more links than you
Why do people worry about this so much. So what! Simply carry on doing those exchanges and you'll soon catch up (most likely without realising it). Anyway, 0.25% isn't that much and certainly ain't worth the stress hehe.
I'm not saying don't look at how competitors are measuring up, but all the constant measuring that some do, it's unhealthy.
Yep, we all know the usefulness of the linking process.
But you place too many outbound links, and you increase the likelyhood that visitors will leave. So, in lamens terms - you stick 100 outbound links, then you potentially could lose at least 1 visitor per link you have.
Now multiply that by 10, 50, 100 etc. Okay, those links can always be removed - but you've still lost #*$!#*$!x amount of visitors that came to your site for a reason. A reason he spent time/money on getting those visitors in the first place. That's a waste.
I'm looking for relevant sites to link to from my site. The point is to make it easier for my visitors to find other related sites they may be interested in. The process may be a little frustraing, but it's hardly a waste of time.
I *know* exactly where you're coming from!
I edit an encyclopaedia covering over 125,000 separate topics, ideally we'd like to link to a relevant external site from *each* of the topics. It's a nightmare trying to find half-way decent and relevant sites to link to, we have even advertised asking web site owners to send us their URL!
As you say, it is very frustrating, very arduous, but not a waste of time.
Matt
And, of course, potentially lose 1 visitor per link that you don't have, if you see what I (and others above) mean.
Willingness to link freely and openly is often a measure of confidence in the value of one's site.
You've lost me now. So he has no visitors or he gets no links? How can you lose visitors that he doesn't get. Total confusion here lol.
...then you potentially could lose at least 1 visitor per link you have.
Nah. Not at all.
Just use, target="_blank" and you're good to go.
External links easily provide:
* greater detail.
* supporting evidence and references.
* additional related information.
* alternate opinions.
No site can incorporate "it all" and attempting to do so is a waste of time. Properly used and maintained, external links add enormous site value. Some sites dislike external links, or segregate them on a "links page", in the belief that having worked so hard to get visitors they mustn't let them leave. This view is a total mis-understanding of the nature of the WWW, of why people initially visit a site, and why they subsequently return.
Generally people surf the web looking for information or entertainment. Surveys show one or more weeks of browsing (information collecting) prior to an online purchase. It is also common to use the web to research a purchase but buy from a local brick and mortor. Adding value is a better use of time than "trapping" potential customers.
Providing quality, well researched, well presented, information is a huge step for a business in the war of obtaining and retaining visitors. Good contextual external links provide instant access to additional information, which in turn provides an excellent reason to return. Improving site stickiness is a better use of time than "corralling" viewers.
External links do have problems:
* obsolete links require time pruning link rot as 404 errors do increase site avoidance.
* too many external links, especially on a single page, lessen their individual value. Use all links judiciously in context and they will appear (and indeed will be) of greater value.
* too many external links unrelated to a site's purpose will lessen its value to visitors subsequently lessening return visits.
* too few external links make a site look small and uninviting: a cul-de-sac. Through streets get the traffic and the business.
Well chosen, well placed external links are critical to creating a site where viewers want to return, again and again: a successful site. That's why the difficulty factor of "external link mining" is of importance.
The overburden to ore ratio is, as ken_b mentioned, getting worse.
Think about these numbers 850 - 114 - 56
The resulting ore contained impurities of about 50%. Again not unusual. (It would be interesting to know the impurity composition: what percentage deliberation, what ignorance/incompetance) The webmasters should be ashamed.
Pure gold at 6-7 links per hour. 10-minutes a link. The difference between "off-the-rack" and "custom-tailored" is time. The difference in quality is priceless.
iamlost said it better and more completely. The people one loses because a site did not appear complete/authoritative/independent/fair. The people one loses because a site seemed scared/aggressive/ignorant/incomplete.
People clicking on links is not the only way that they can leave your site...
No site can incorporate "it all" ....
And in my case, I certainly can't "know it all". External links are a great way to avoid looking like an idiot. Instead of trying to bluff my way past folks who want to know more than I do I just provide them a place tp find the info.
Properly used and maintained, external links add enormous site value.
Maintaining out bound links can be time consuming, but if you're going to post them, you need to maintain them. It's sad how many dead links there are out there, even in the serps, let alone on individual sites.
Because of the time needed to maintain outbound links, it might be wise not to post more than you can maintain.
Maintaining outbounds means more than checking for dead links. Dead links are nothing compared to a link that leads to a site that's been changed from something related to... uhhh... something else unrelated.
... segregate them on a "links page",
This can be a difficult thing to deal with. I can't load 56 new links on the most relevant section index page, or most of the pages it leads to. So I'm adding a prominent "Find...." sort of section to the main page for this section. I put a few of these new links in that spot and link it to a "links" type page. On the other pages in this section I'll use a prominent "Find......" link to direct visitors to the new page. These "Find..." links are in addition to the general "Resources" links that appear in my main navigation set at the top of every page on the site.
...an excellent reason to return.
and to tell their friends about my site.
External links do have problems:
* too many external links, especially on a single page, lessen their individual value.
This can be a tough thing to work out if you don't plan ahead. In this particular situation, 56 links is probably on the edge of too many. But it's not quite enough to sub-divide yet.
Somewhere between 50 and 100 links is where I like to divide a page. I've been using a basic plan for this since I started the site that allows for this kind of future sub-division, and it works pretty well.
The overburden to ore ratio is ... getting worse ... 850 - 114 - 56
Sort of a sub-text of my intial post, the overburden, irrelevant listings in the serps makes this whole process valuable to a visitor, and thus to me. Why spend the time digging through the serps when you can easily find a link on a known site?
Pure gold ...
Certainly my hope and expectation. The "pure gold" may not be found in the links themselves, but might be in the return traffic and viral promotion they generate for the site.
But this isn't a "post it today - profit tommorow" exercise. Mining gold takes time and effort.
