Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Recent results and events have caused me to believe most link broker publisher sites are blocked from passing link juice. Maybe if a new website signs on they are good for a while until the google scans the new broker “inventory” into their link seller list black list. So why take the risk with my site and my money?
This belief has driven me to make a major changes in my link buying strategy.
Now, I make a list of several relevant keywords/keyword phrases and start doing google searches (with the quotes). Then I go 11 or 30 places down the results and find lonely sites that don't know the first thing about the value of a link and offer them a ridiculously low price for them to turn an existing keyword phrase in their content to a hyperlink to my site. So many webmasters have sites that make next to nothing; they will jump at the chance to give me a permanent in contextual link for $50.
PR does not matter, as long as the page has a recent cache date it is more than fine. I know such a link will help me much more than a PR9 footer or sidebar link on a page that has been selling links through a broker for years. I also know the low or no PR contextual link will never hurt me.
The only problem with this strategy is that it is a major pain because it is a manual process and extremely time consuming. Many webmasters refuse to believe that someone will actually pay them to turn a phrase on their site into a link to my site. Then there is the problem of dealing with webmasters that forgot how to make ‘words’ into a link… So getting a contextual link can take many emails back and forth. In the end it is a cheap strategy that works better then any SEO trick I have ever tried. Surprisingly, a few have even refused payment because "I won't be getting many clicks". ;-)
After years of using link brokers, I got lazy going down a link list scanning website inventory and adding paid links to my shopping cart. So working for links is something I had to get used to again. But during the last six months I have been doing this the results have been simply outstanding.
I can't give away all of my secret sauce but I normally send a personal email that in no way could be construed as a spam email. I make sure to mention specific things I like about their website.
The subject normally: theDomain Advertising
I just picked up two permanent contextual links on a pr2 and pr1 page for $75. These were from an email contact started over two weeks ago.
Like I said, this method takes time, but I would rather have a contextual link on some random but relevant indexed page than a high pr link along side a big list of other paid links.
The SEs may not be the sharpest knives in the drawer, but they're certainly not stupid.
Thanks
At least until someone gives them ideas and they open a 'buy links here' section on their website. )
I don't use any formal contract with the webmaster, I think if I did that my success rate would tumble. Besides, the amounts I pay are so low, if I get 3 months from them I am still doing alright. So far, taking the money and running has not been a problem.
Even if a broker started selling links on the page, unlikely since the PR would not be high enough to make it worthwhile, the broker's links would be in a giant block of paid links that the search engines are discounting (in my opinion).
Also, my contextual link would be nestled in the natural text of the webpage, giving it a much better chance of actually helping my site's rankings.
You want targeted visitors, but it doesn't always work out that where a link's housed, means a steady stream of qualified traffic. You could place a link in a on-theme category/page, but the actual site could be very off-topic for your needs, and practically useless.
Links also need not be expensive to produce good results.
Hmm... All I did was a cut+paste on jdancing stuff.
> from jdancing reply to question in different thread
You probaly mean "[paid] Links also need not be expensive to produce good [ROI] results."
Faster Placement of link/advert
Faster Measurement of ROI for clickthrough
Faster Visitor clickthroughs
Weigh this all up against the outlay, and hopefully the purchase is a good one. If not, wait for the renewal time and pull advertising.
Saves much time messing about with free traffic that rarely results in a purchase. (for us anyway).
Questions:
1) Is there a downside to this for the publisher (me)?
2) If this is a win-win, how can I connect with other marketers looking to sell links?
Personally I don't use affiliate banners, as I'm not an affiliate and run a proper company. Question is will smothering a site with banners tarnish it's reputation?, I'd say it could well do - if it's not done right.
Visitors and advertisers may discover the person behind the site is JUST a kid with a bedroom site, and run a mile because of it. Advertisers will fear lack of traffic, and visitors will fear the longevity of the site for it's merely set up to take a few dollars, and then probably fold. That's my thinking behind this.
You may make a few dollars, but don't expect much. There is always a big downside when plastering banners and links everywhere, and a site becomes cluttered fast, which doesn't look attractive. It's your call though.
[edited by: Maxnpaddy at 2:57 pm (utc) on Aug. 11, 2007]
I'm finding links to a particular site within my niche. The links are contextual, in the text on the page, but I can't imagine any reason why the site owner would have such links in the text unless they were purchased.
After I signed up for Google Alerts, I found that many of the sites my competitor is getting links from are doing the same thing.
I wonder how long it will be before the SE's figure out what's going on?
You suggesting that webby folks are trying to hide paid links within their sites?
The engines will catch them in the end - er, but is this a no-go thing, I mean is this so bad, I see nothing wrong with this.
But the SE's might still see it wrong.
They might think it's there to manipulate their SERPs.
Just found an 8 year old site which uses text highlighted advertising, which hasn't been banned (I'm looking at it now). It's highly ranked in the serps of every single engine known to man - proof that the major engines won't ban for this technique.
Good to know this form of text link is allowed. Not sure it is suitable for every type of site, but it's another option for advertisers.
In other words: a site that is known to sell links would not pass any PR or LINK value.
Same would apply to sites purchasing links. Although not banned or sandboxd or penalized or whatever - it's purchased links would not be considered.
The 8 year old site you mentioned sells links. Do the sites that purchase get their value from it? still to be proven.
Do the sites that purchase get their value from it? still to be proven.
All advertising IS a risk, wouldn't you say. You are betting or paying for a certain amount of visitors everytime a link/advert is placed. No argument there.
Nothing's guaranteed - nothing. But it's in the website's best interest TO drive visitors, so the advertisers return and repeat purchase.
You wrote:
Just found an 8 year old site which uses text highlighted advertising, which hasn't been banned (I'm looking at it now). It's highly ranked in the serps of every single engine known to man - proof that the major engines won't ban for this technique.Good to know this form of text link is allowed.
My assumption is that you're not being banned for selling or purchasing links. The only thing that changed is that the purchased links are not counted (or recognized) towards link popularity.
So again, the sites that *purchased* the links off this 8 year old site - in terms of link popularity - do you have proof that the links provided some value?
(I'm not talking about the traffic, I'm refer to the link popularity part of the paid text link)
So the links I just bought aren't counted - who cares, cos I don't. I'm still left with a valuable link on a well-known resource and it send me some traffic from time to time. That's why I bought the link, I didn't buy for PR from the foolbar, and certainly not so that Google can rack up some database and determine my position in the serps, so that I may beat the next guy because of an extra 20 links to my name.
Web guy A "I have 300 links to my site - Yahoooooo!"
Web guy B "I have 1000, and that makes me better than the world, because Google says so"
-- yeah, it must be true then. hehehe
My point is Google has folks running around worrying about insignificant things like how many links are counted bytheir engine, I said their engine, which means they are wasting your time making you chase pointless links to boost your rankings, when someone that has the SEO budget will wipe anyone out any time they please, so overtaking your ranking without any effort whatsoever.
do you have proof that the links provided some value?
You shouldn't waste your time on a stupid link count, it's time better spent buying links for the traffic, and trying to get those visitors to buy stuff. It seems to me the webmaster game is about the one-upmanship of a few areas eg: Pagerank, link popularity, and adsense earnings - all pretty worthless and many reasons can be given why this fails. I thought the idea of a website was to give a service, to direct people to information that is actually helpful, rather than rip them off or fight for the title of Link God 2000 or whatever.
Develop or gain links that help your site/business/project, I think this is lost when entering some massive game, yeah, it's a game to Google alright, they are the gamemaster - but it's distracting to the main Goal.
real web pages have links
Exactly, it's what the internet is. Links are good, they help me find what I'm after, so if I visit a site that doesn't send me to what I want, I'm clicking the white X in my browser. That results in lost sales, enquiries and possible recommendations to more interested people.
Sites sell links, that's factual and impossible to deny and disguise, and there's nothing wrong with selling links, for everybody in the advertising game does it, so why fight it, and for what - so one stays in some search engine's good books.
Put another way, my business depends on paid ads for it's survival and profit, and I'm not happy about any major organisation telling me what I can or can't do with my own business.
There must be others who feel this way.
