Forum Moderators: martinibuster
If you are completing a form on a site that accepts link requests, under additional comments, please do not try to sell the site on the idea of trading links and how it's good for your google PR, blah, blah, blah. If the site encourages link exchanges with a form, they already know about the importance of links. You may bore the reviewer causing them to delete your application for a link.
If the form asks for your site title and description, look over the existing links on the site before writing your own title and description. If they are all short captilized titles with one sentence descriptions that start with a capitalized letter and end in a period, don't write your 10 line description and title in ALL CAPS and end it with 5 exclamation points. This means that the reviewer would have to re-type your information if your site is approved for a listing. If the reviewer does not feel like re-writing your site title and description, they will simply delete your application for a link.
A description is not a list of keywords separated by commas, a title is not a list of keywords separated by commas. Unless the site you are applying for a link on has other sites listed this way, don't try to be sneaky with all your keywords.
Don't make demands. You are the one on someone else's site filling out their online form, which was provided for your convenience. They have offered to kindly take a look at your website and possibly link to you, and you are demanding that your title(the anchor text) MUST contain these 4 keywords? Just be happy if you get a link, don't make demands when requesting links from other sites.
Know your URL! I can't believe how many people mis-type their own site URL when filling out an application for a link.
If the site has a form for submitting your link, don't email your request instead or it will most likely be immediately deleted.
Take the time to read the page and see what types of sites they accept, if yours don't fit into those categories, don't waste your time submitting your link.
If you are doing any of these things, you will have an easier time getting links if you stop.
If you are doing any of these things, you will have an easier time getting links if you stop.
I might say...
If you are doing any of these things, you may want to look at your marketing strategies. This type of link development is no longer viable, not if you're doing the standard links exchange bit and have a links directory sitting on your site.
If the site has a form for submitting your link, don't email your request instead or it will most likely be immediately deleted.
And if the site's email form specifically says, at the top, in BOLD CAPS "Do not use this form for link requests. Submit any link requests here instead (with a link to the submission form)," then do NOT use the email form for link requests. (You wouldn't believe how many of these I get.)
Do not put "Visit our site at www.our_domain.com" in the site's description field. Your site address is already in the URL field. You don't need to mention it again.
Do not use things like "The Best Site for Blah blah" in your title.
Don't submit your site if all it has is a "Coming Soon" page and some Ads.
Don't put "Free widgets of all kinds" in the description if you don't have free widgets on your site.
If you're sucking email addresses out of "whois" for your mass mail link requests, at least skim the email addresses before sending a link request. If the email address is something like "Do_not_send_link_requests_to_this_address@some_domain.com" then DO NOT send link requests to that address.
Someone has done every one of these things, as well as every one of the things spaceylacie has mentioned, this week.
CLICK on the freaking LINK!
And if it doesn't work, go back and fix it.
(Yet another pet peeve.)
[/rant]
JK
Tell that to her $7000 / month...and yes, the site is very usefull.
This type of link development is no longer viable.
I'll stand by that statement no matter what you tell me. ;)
Typically when there are facilities in place to Submit your URI to a links directory, there are other issues at hand, not just the links directory.
Also, you're probably using an off the shelf directory script that is generating the usual footprints.
Also, your links reside at /links/ or some other poison keyword.
Personally, I just don't think these have any value other than to the site owner and their visitors. From a ranking, indexing standpoint, I believe most are ignored if they leave the common footprints that a bulk of these programs are notorious for.
But hey, if they are working now, go for it. I've been here for a few years and get to watch the waves come and go. Like everything in the links industry, it's short term and somewhat risky depending on how you're doing it all.
Sorry spaceylacie, didn't mean to hijack your topic. So, let's bring it back into focus and continue on with best practices for requesting link exchanges using a Submit URI form.
I will add to my list:
Look around a site to see what they are all about before requesting a link! In fact, this should have been the #1 pet peeve I listed.
If you want to get off-topic, here's one:
<off topic>I really don't care about current trends and fads or what is currently "viable". I think the future is in a human edited child-proof Internet.</off topic>
Look around a site to see what they are all about before requesting a link! In fact, this should have been the #1 pet peeve I listed.
lol, that's going to be tough! Why? Because many are finding you by using advanced search commands looking for Submit URI forms and such. They could care less about what types of links you are looking for. They're just there to particpate in the link exchange, relevant or not.
I really don't care about current trends and fads or what is currently "viable". I think the future is in a human edited child-proof Internet.
I like that alot! But, you are involved in a fad that has been abused more than it has been used properly. So, to counter this, the search engines just purge, penalize, devalue, ban, etc. everyone using the technology (by footprints) and they could care less about collateral damage which of course would be those who are using the program for what it was originally designed for.
I review websites(100s a week) for a site that accepts link requests via an online form.
For that many requests, you really need more robust client and server-side checking. You can do a regexp to check for excessive exclamation marks, keyword lists separated by commas, promotional language, and so on. Warn them with javascript, then deny them server-side if they persist in ignoring your specifications.
Don't submit to an unsuitable category! Make sure you're submitting to the most appropriate category before you hit that Submit button.
It's not just abut SEO it's about directories that actually send me visitors. If it's a good directory it's amazing how much of a boost a listing can be.
But, you are involved in a fad that has been abused more than it has been used properly.
Hm. I know what you mean by this, but I've been involved in this "fad" since Yahoo was sitting on akebono at Stanford, so I tend to ignore the ups and downs and let them pass me by. :-) This is also sort of off-topic, but links from my directory do seem to pass PR even though the word "links" is, in fact, in the URL. Maybe age of the site has something to do with it.
On the other hand, the scripts managing the directory have been completely developed in-house and haven't really attempted to mimic any of the standard directory scripts like Yahoo used to use and like ODP uses now, so there's not exactly the same sort of "signature" other than the word "links".
Don't submit to an unsuitable category!
I enthusiastically echo this. I can't count the number of completely inappropriate categories people try to submit to. I think mostly it's because some of my category pages have slightly higher PR than others. Why would you submit your Camera site to the PR4 Camera section when you could submit it to the PR5 "History Of Dinosaurs" section, after all? [/sarcasm] (Btw, neither of those are categories on my site, and were just given as examples.)
JK
