Do you measure the success of your linking campaigns?

[itrainu]

In August and September we spent a great deal of energy obtaining incoming links from what we deemed to be the most relevant sources including directories within our industry.

We kept a spreadsheet of who we contacted when, follow up dates and results, etc.

I used Google as a base measurement - wanting to know if Google increased the number of incoming links. So far, Google has not increased the number of incoming links it shows for our site.

MSN and Yahoo have increased the incoming links...but those links are attributed to posts I have made in another forum where my signature has a link to our website.

So, 2 months after a great deal of energy was spent on a linking campaign, I am not sold on it's merit, though I will fully admit that these things can depend upon the industry, how you request links,etc.

Are the rest of you measuring success and ROI in terms of time and effort with your linking campaigns?

Thanks :-)

[shaoye]

i dont see my links added in the past 2 months either

yes i did see it once a couple of weeks ago, then gone.

[Crush]

Are the rest of you measuring success and ROI in terms of time and effort with your linking campaigns?

Definately! Beats adwords when you are number 1.

[itrainu]

Crush, how do you know that it is the links that put you in #1 and not on page optimization?

[Crush]

cause i have been around for a long time

[tonyww]

crush do you use a link management program?

[Crush]

link management program

I use my own

[caveman]

>So, 2 months after a great deal of energy was spent on a linking campaign, I am not sold on it's merit, though I will fully admit that these things can depend upon the industry, how you request links,etc.

If you work in my categories, I'd say it won't really pay off. Waste of time. Focus on other things...

If you don't work in my categories, I'd say it will pay off, especially if you acquire a good number of links from quality, related sites, and do not just focus on one kind of site. One day your site will pop up, and you'll be glad you put in the time and effort. ;-)

[itrainu]

>If you work in my categories, I'd say it won't really pay off. Waste of time. Focus on other things...

Hmmm...it looks like we might be in the same category at present time *grin*

I am beginning to wonder if google might perceive "widget directories" to be link farms?

[Mike Anthony]

You have to be patient. A lot of times sites won't be visited by googlebot and other search engines. Sometimes for months they don't visit a site. If you add content, they visit more often. My main site is visited everyday so anything that I put on it gets indexed pretty quickly, but I have another one that hasn't changed in 3 months, and hasn't been visited in 3 months.

Be patient, think quality and it will work out

[caveman]

> am beginning to wonder if google might perceive "widget directories" to be link farms?

Nah, not unless you've got a bunch of widget directories linking to one and other.

Whether or not another widget directory is useful anymore is another question.