Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I need to set some reasonable expectations for the person doing the campaign. What is fair-good performance in links per hour? I understand that it will depend on quality, PR, how on topic they are, etc... But any kind of general advice would help.
Muchisimas gracias for any feedback.
If anyone could tell me how many pr 5 links they can expect their link hunter to bring in over the course of a month and how many hours of work that represents it would help a lot.
The first case will completely depend on your website and your market.
The second case depends on the talents of the individuals involved. I would say 1 free PR5 link every 16 hours is reasonable. If you are willing to pay for links (which I advise if you want to go this route), then you can get them 1 per 4 hours at about 30$ / link / month.
You'll probably end up getting banned, though, so use a throwaway domain.
tolachi,
I would like to suggest that either you or your top supervisors on web development to do this job by yourself as an experiment for at least 10 days or 2 weeks and see how may you attain.
Then use that as a benchmark so you will have rough idea what you can expect from the person in charge.
What kinda of links are you looking for?Legit, on topic or related sites. Nothing in a bad neighborhood etc....
sit2510: Good suggestion. Although not how I wanted to spend the next two weeks.
ofcourse, for a site that has 0 pr you would need to do more for who ever you want to link to!
e.g. I made a full page for this website with a bunch of pic's, links, and text and linked to it from my home page. But it is the price to pay for a few high pr on topic links, my site has been live for just over 1 week and i have 14 pr 5's and 6's linking to me.
After time goes by your page rank goes up... you will just give them a normal link on your links page...
p.s. My site has about 15 pages! i think that if Google sees my site early on, notice that it is building 1 page more at a time i will miss the 'sandbox' so as my content grows my link pop grows to...
(sorry to be boreing you!) but if its a new site you need to work!
Almost everyday since June 23rd (past 24 days), I've gathered a list of over 2,000 urls that could be potential link exchange partners. Out of that list, I've added over 400 to a categorized link directory so far. Out of all these, I've received 76 reciprocal links. Some only responded after a 2nd email. Many I will send a second or third email for a link if they don't respond after two weeks of my original or second email. When I began this 24 days ago, my site was PR0. I gotten links mostly from PR4 sites. A few PR5 and perhaps one PR6 gave a return link. Some of the PR4s had less that ten links on the page. I still have a PR0 site. Google has started to list 9 urls that link to my domain. I am doing this in my SPARE TIME after my regular non-internet/non-computer 9 to 5 job.
Of course, I'm using tools and certain shortcut "ideas" to get this all done... I think I'll reach my goal of 100 reciprocal links by the end of next week. 80% of these links are related to my site's topic.
Thanks for the numbers. I think that gives me a really good starting place for what we can work towards.
Many I will send a second or third email for a link if they don't respond after two weeks of my original or second email
A third email inside 2 weeks? I have a filter set up in Mailwasher for people like you :)
A third email inside 2 weeks? I have a filter set up in Mailwasher for people like you :)
I will send out the third, only after 2 weeks has past from the date the second was sent.
I don't understand why a site owner would provide a public email address for the purpose of trading links on their site and then put a mail filter in place to prevent these link request emails to be ignored.
Akogo
I don't understand why a site owner would provide a public email address for the purpose of trading links
If the address is identified as for trading links, you might have a point. But most site owners put an address on a site so that paying customers can contact them in my experience.
Just making the point that if somebody hasn't replied to 2 emails in a short space of time, they are either on holiday, busy or not interested ... so there is little point in annoying them with a third.
so there is little point in annoying them with a third.
In your experience, have you ever "actually" sent out a third mailing and found out why they didn't respond to your first or second emails? Were they upset you sent out the third piece? How many emails did you send out?
Akogo
In your experience, have you ever "actually" sent out a third mailing and found out why they didn't respond to your first or second emails?
Nope. I don't run a directory, so I suspect our tactics be rather different when it comes to picking up links. I don't use the mass mailing approach.
But I do manage sites for a number of clients that are carpet bombed in the fashion suggested above. To a man, they send me the first email. The second occasionally gets a rude comment before it goes in the trash, and the third (fourth, fifth, etc ... some people just don't know when to give it up :)) are all just deleted.
How many people have I assisted/chatted to? Probably not enough to make a scientific study ... 30 or 40 at best. But many run small/medium sized businesses, and are sick of wading through hundreds of messages a week that they didn't ask for.
I know one particular chap that gets a couple of genuine emails a day, along with 80 or so HTML spam emails. He is on dial up, and it takes him 15 minutes to download his email each day (15 minutes he pays for). How happy do you think he is going to be to see your third email?
Almost everyday since June 23rd (past 24 days), I've gathered a list of over 2,000 urls that could be potential link exchange partners. Out of that list, I've added over 400 to a categorized link directory so far. Out of all these, I've received 76 reciprocal links.
I still have a PR0 site
There was talk around here a while back that Google penalised sites whose picked up links at an unnaturally high speed. Might be worth keeping an eye out for that one.
mass mailing approachHow many emails sent out at one time would you call "mass mailing". How much did you assume I mailed at one time?
are sick of wading through hundreds of messages a week that they didn't ask for.Are these hundreds of messages asking for a link?
There was talk around here a while back that Google penalised sites whose picked up links at an unnaturally high speed.Is this just a fear or has this been proven?
As far as having a PR0 site, what other way of getting PR can you suggest besides asking other website owners for a link?
Normally if your link pages are good, you will receive high percentage of positive response within the first couple days. However, some webmasters might not be able or might not want to link back, so for whatever the reasons, it is a great idea to send 2nd and 3rd request for a follow up.
For me, I will send out the 2nd e-mails after 2 or 3 weeks only as a reminder, and often someone will link back. The 3rd piece will be sent around after 45 days (or after 1 Google backlink update cycle) so that the potential link partners could have a "clearer picture" and make their final decision if my link is worth. This 3rd piece is a very crucial step and I often get high response rates ( + ) from high quality link partners.
If they still don't want to link back, I would give up with that link partner and I don't care to find out why?
Akogo, you said to get 76 return links out of 400 (equal to 19% positive response). That's a very good rate for PR0 site that you started with (I would also guess that most of the reciprocated links that you received are from PR3 or less link pages).
I would say that you are probably on the right track. Starting with PR0 site, one of the best ways is to canvas potential link partners in term of volume and quantity. When you got higher PR, then you can become more selective.
Thanks for telling us how you handle asking for link exchange requests.
Having a PR0 site shouldn't stop anyone from trying to ask for a reciprocal link from another established site. As of today, I'm now up to 85 links pointing back to my site. The average PR for the link pages my site is on is 4. My PR is still 0.
Some of my pages started to appear in the Google cache last week. I'm sure that once a PR for my site has been calculated, it definitely will be easier to get a link from webmasters who require a minimum PR.
I'm also getting a bit of traffic through these links.
Akogo
As far as having a PR0 site, what other way of getting PR can you suggest besides asking other website owners for a link?
Submitting your site to DMOZ is enough on it's own to give you a reasonable PR. Given a few months, this generally results in a number of other links to your site turning up as other directories using DMOZ data refresh themselves.
There are numerous other ways of picking up links too if you use your imagination (news feeds, free web services, press releases, etc).
Are these hundreds of messages asking for a link?
Not all of them, obviously. But there are a significant number of people that think it is good to batter people with 3 or 4 follow up emails at a time in quick succession. They certainly contribute to the problem.
akogo ... you seem to have missed my point here. I don't think that asking for links is a bad thing. Neither do I think that asking for a link more than once is necessarily a bad thing. But sending numerous emails in quick succession to the same person isn't something I would want to inflict upon them.
You're very fortunate to get 85 links out of 400 (about 21%) with PR0 from average of PR4 link pages. :)
Have you counted the actual number of link partners who link back? For example, 1 link partner owns many websites and link back from his/her network eg. 5 links, 10 links, 30 links...
I'm quite curious to know, because it has been a very long time that I have not launched link exchange campaign with PR0 sites. Recently I use to launch PR4 sites with PR3 link pages, the positive response is around 40%, provided the target is the link partners with PR4 link pages or more. Most of the time, I launch with PR5 sites with PR4 link pages and the success rates vary between 60-80%.
sending numerous emails in quick succession to the same person isn't something I would want to inflict upon them.
I am only sending a 2nd email to the same person only after that person has not responded to the first email when TWO WEEKS has elasped; and this second email has been modified in the subject and body to clearly state it is a second attempt at contacting them.
Do you consider this "quick succession"? What do you mean by quick succession and do you think a TWO WEEK wait is too quick?
Have you counted the actual number of link partners who link back? For example, 1 link partner owns many websites and link back from his/her network eg. 5 links, 10 links, 30 links...
Thanks for concrete PR # and success percentages. It should help me and others knowing this.
TWO WEEKS ... Do you consider this "quick succession"?
For 2 emails, no. But if it was clear that you had really looked at my site and hand written an email to request an exchange of links, you would get an answer to your first email.
I would forgive a reminder after a couple of weeks if I hadn't got round to replying ... but for me personally, a third email from you would mean automatic addition to the spam filters unless there was a genuine (and different) reason for that message.
I would have never though of asking for a link without reciprocating. Why would they link without you reciprocating. What's the concept behind this? I will try this myself in a future project.
Akogo
But if it was clear that you had really looked at my site and hand written an email to request an exchange of links, you would get an answer to your first email.You would still require this eventhough you had a reciprocal links page and had "how to link to us" info and provided an email address to ask for a link exchange? How about when you set up a form that ask for a link title, url, description and reciprocal link location? Would I still have to meet your "hand written" requirements?
I would forgive a reminder after a couple of weeks if I hadn't got round to replying ... but for me personally, a third email from you would mean automatic addition to the spam filters unless there was a genuine (and different) reason for that message.
I guess I shouldn't give away my secret formula...
I basically tell them how I found their website and for what term and which SE. I make this part up or generalize, if I found it through something like link:whatever.com.
Compliment a specific related part of their website.
Mention I have a related website.
Suggest they link to my website.
Express my appreciation for their time and their great web resource.
Give them my Contact info.
The whole letter is about half a page. I have the basic format and add whatever is necessary.
My basic assumption is that they will be more likely to link if I show interest in their website. That is why I save the link suggestion part till the end.
Thanks for explaining your approach!
Do these sites have link pages?
Some will write me back and ask me to provide a reciprocal link before they add my link. I have chosen to not reciprocate any links at this time.
I do link to websites I have chosen for their good, on-topic content and I have offered link exchanges to a few websites that I feel complement mine: although none have accepted. I have a feeling that I will have more success with these link exchanges as my PR increases.
