Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I checked out another SEO company, all of their clients sites have "links pages" and they persue a 100% recipricol link strategy.
They also use the classic SEO BY... footer link to their site as well as to another site they own.
I decided to checkout their clients link pages, and guess what , most of them greyed out pr toolbars -- penalty!
A few questions:
1. Does anyone here actually still use reciprocal linking?
2. Do you think its ethical to use this strategy?
3. I think we all agree that linking to their own sites is also not ethical.
If you just want to increase your SERPs rank, then a simple reciprocal link exchange may not work. The standard ideas ring true, that if you get links from authority sites, this will help. That's easier said that done, of course, and many sites want to be compenstated somehow.
Lastly, it's a lot of work for not a lot of benefit at least as far as you can see. SEO and Paid Search tactics do a lot more to bring customers to you site more immediately, but link building is important as well.
Yes.
2. Do you think its ethical to use this strategy?
I have never seen a problem with it. Link exchange is a classic marketing method that has existed since the dawn of the WWW. Link exchange existed before the WWW in traditional print marketing such as when two companies refer business to each other (AMEX promotes Delta Air Lines - Delta promotes AMEX).
3. I think we all agree that linking to their own sites is also not ethical.
It depends on if the sites are related. My business has websites in very unique markets and so our travel site might link to our aviation site. But we would not link our aviation site to our gaming portal.
Link exchange has been abused by full duplex software and services. Full duplex means links are automatically created (usually in high volume) without any editorial discretion taking place. Google recently updated their webmaster guidelines to state "avoid excessive linking". They want you to obtain links naturally and not to obtain links in high volume from full duplexs products and programs.
I have seen something interesting happening over the past eight or so weeks. The phones are ringing here from webmasters who used to buy links and participate in other games to "get links quickly". Now they are calling in to discuss getting back to basics. They are re-learning classic marketing methods (such as link exchange).
The rules have not changed when it comes to link exchange. Make linking decisions for the benefit of your end users, not the search engines. Link only to quality sites when its relevant and beneficial for your end users. Disregard page rank when making linking decisions. When you link back to a link partner, do so from no more than two or three clicks from your home page. Organize your links in useful and thoughtful ways. And most importantly, always maintain editorial control. That means don't hand off your linking decisions to someone who is not intimate with your website's long term marketing goals.
2. Do you think its ethical to use this strategy? [blue]I don't believe the word ethics belongs in this conversation. Perhaps you meant, does it go against search engine guidelines? If so, then I believe the answer is if you do recips for SEO, it's going to pass a hand check if it's light, like with no more than twenty sites.
If you're going to do it for traffic and with more than twenty sites, then block that page in your robots.txt. The number twenty is a number I personally feel comfortable presenting for a hand check. My gut feel is that anything more will not pass a hand check
3. I think we all agree that linking to their own sites is also not ethical.
Real estate sites are penalized for this every day. However that's because the sites are not independent in terms of backlinks and content. Apart from that, there are many sites that do it for reasonable reasons, mostly because the sites stand on their own because of their content, focus, and backlinks.
Just out of curiosity: Does it help your make more sales, too? Because if you do reciprocal linking maybe some of your visitors spend less time on your sites and "leak" to other websites (and end up not coming back). So only looking at how many more unique visitors come might be a problem..?
@martinibuster: Why the number 20? I would have guessed that it'd be a bad idea to have 20 reciprocal links if your site has only few natural links, yet. Whereas a 100 (or even a few hundred) reciprocal links might still be okay if your site has thousands of natural links?
The number twenty is a number I personally feel comfortable presenting for a hand check.
I'll expand on what I posted in my previous post. That number applies under the circumstance of coming under a hand check. That does not mean that doing more than twenty reciprocals will result in a ban. However for my purposes, I prefer to look ahead to that circumstance because it can happen once you're successful.
Under the circumstance of a hand check, under that specific scenario when you are under scrutiny, based on my experience, I feel comfortable with a site limited to around twenty reciprocals. I would never submit anything for a reinclusion if it had significant link directories attached to it.
Twenty is the number I feel is reasonable for passing a hand check.
[edited by: martinibuster at 5:05 am (utc) on Nov. 24, 2007]
The site ranks extremely well, and gets excellent traffic.
Is it your opinion that limiting reciprocals should be something new sites should do, or do you believe that sites with seniority can suffer?
That number applies under the circumstance of coming under a hand check. That does not mean that doing more than twenty reciprocals will result in a ban.
Obtain 500 recips (with editorial control one at a time) slowly over a long period of time and not only will you get traffic from the recips but your rankings will be fine as long as you aren't playing games in other areas.
I have a new site. There are pages on the site where widget sellers can have their business info (name, address, website, email, etc) listed. There are also pages where companies that finance widget sales can do likewise. There are also a lot of content pages about widgets and widget financing.
I saw what happened to real estate sites that were trading reciprocal links with other real estate sites. As I see it, Google didn't like that practice because it was obviously intended to increase page rank. After all, why else would a realtor in State A link to a realtor in State B? It made no sense.
What I'm doing with this new site is inviting widget sellers to have their businesses listed on the appropriate Widget Seller page for their states. I'm also asking them to link to the Widget Financer page on my site for their particular states. (BTW, I'm checking each site carefully to make sure that any links they have are on-topic, that the site hasn't been somehow penalized, and that the links they have are going to quality sites).
To me, it makes complete sense that a widget seller in State A would have a link to a page on another site that offers information about widget financers in State A.
Or am I completely wrong?
I also have a couple of links pages that have links to related businesses which are not widget sellers or widget financers.
Opinions much appreciated.
[edited by: martinibuster at 6:14 am (utc) on Nov. 25, 2007]
[edit reason] Member requested edit. [/edit]
why else would a realtor in State A link to a realtor in State B?
Real estate agents (and many other business people) do a LOT of networking in the real world, and trading referrals with non-competitors can add significantly to their bottom line.
They're aiming for the same effect in cyberspace.
I saw what happened to real estate sites that were trading reciprocal links with other real estate sites.
I wouldn't read too much into that. As far as I can remember, Google doesn't target specific industries- only specific practices. A shakeout for trading links would affect a wider swath of industries than real estate. A whack at link trading would shake up a lot of industries. In my opinion there's no sense or logic to the claim and no truth in it.
If anyone's telling you there was a real estate link trading shakeout it more than likely means they're covering up shadier practices than what they're admitting to, or they're just plain clueless.
Real Estate sites tend to engage in shady practices like registering numerous keyword rich domains, using the same template for all their feeder sites, then interlinking them with their main real estate site that features a super-giganto photo of the agent.
Last week someone posted a link to a real estate blogger bemoaning an unfair real estate shakeout and it took me about fifteen seconds to unravel that bloggers shady network.
2. Do you think its ethical to use this strategy?
There is a big difference between acquiring reciprocal links to help visitors and 'some' ranking as opposed to using reciprocal links as your foremost way of building links to try and achieve higher rankings.
There is a big difference between acquiring reciprocal links to help visitors and 'some' ranking as opposed to using reciprocal links as your foremost way of building links to try and achieve higher rankings.
You hit the nail on the head. Its this other companies primary method. However, I have not traded in recipricols for a few years.
However, thinking about the 20 method :) I guess it can be used to compliment your offering.
I wouldn't read too much into that. As far as I can remember, Google doesn't target specific industries- only specific practices.
I find myself in a strange position trying to tell you something about SEO martinibuster, but are you really sure about that?
I hope its ok to drop this link? If not please remove it (thx)
[seomoz.org...]
Not sure how appropriate his conclusion is, but read what the second quote says and the conclusion he draws about a different set of criteria, etc.
Anyways, I think it might be possible that they might be using different algorithms for different fields (I cant tell..I just think they might), especially if they see something is wrong with a set of SERPs and then see it's a problem in the industry/field as a whole, so why not tweak it?
I also know that aaron wall once draw conclusions about international search results (other than .com and .co.uk) seem to favor authority sites (and their subpages) less...its not a different field but usually a different language, but I wouldnt be surprised if they made the effort to change criteria for different SERPs (like the French Revolution thing)/industries based on their observations.
However, it would be helpful if you posted the relevant quote instead of making us read a 2,000 word article and guess which part you consider important. ;)
It would be great if you pointed to the passage you feel says Google penalizes specific industries for certain offenses while leaving everyone else untouched.
Did find this though:
But Mr. Singhal often doesn’t rush to fix everything he hears about, because each change can affect the rankings of many sites.
That's part of the reason why I said Google doesn't tweak it's algorithm to punish a specific industry. If they see a problem they fix it in a manner that affects all instances of the problem, not just the sector.
So if Real Estate sites are building too many feeder sites and interlinking, they don't target thousands of specific Real Estate sites and hand tweak them out of the SERPs. They tweak the algo to combat the effects of the technique so that anyone across multiple industries who tries to manipulate the algo via that technique is going to get whacked.
In the article they discuss an instance of Google Finance not showing up, and instead of fixing that little area, they determined it was an issue with freshness affecting the entire algo, not just finance, and that's how they tackled it.
it was late at night (actually it is again ;)) and I was a bit careless I guess.
What I meant by read the second quote and the conclusion he draws about (...) was that you should look at the second part of the text which is displayed as a quote. There it says this:
Some complaints involve simple flaws that need to be fixed right away. Recently, a search for “French Revolution” returned too many sites about the recent French presidential election campaign — in which candidates opined on various policy revolutions — rather than the ouster of King Louis XVI. A search-engine tweak gave more weight to pages with phrases like “French Revolution” rather than pages that simply had both words.
And right after that Rand Fishkin concludes:
The short paragraph about the French Revolution, if accurate, gives some insight into the fact that the algorithm is not uniform - not even close. Individual queries get individual attention - so next time you're stumped because Google's formula for some new term you're optmizing doesn't match up against your experiences from the past, you may simply be dealing with a different set of criteria.
I'm also not sure if he's a 100% right about his conclusion, but it sounds very possible: They didn't like something about the SERPs for French Revolution. So they made sure more weight was given to phrases like "French Revolution" instead of pages that simply stated "French" and "Revolution", if I understood that correctly.
Rand Fishkin seems to make the assumption that they tweaked the algorithm especially for those SERPs (French Revolution) and the concludes that the algorithm isn't uniform, at all.
I'm not sure if his conclusion is right, as one could argue that they tweaked the algorithm in a way that phrases "word1 word2" are more important than simply "word1" and "word2" appearing somewhere on the page.
But on the other hand this was a particular case..the results returning too many pages for the french presidential campaign (if I remember that correctly), which would make me think that they might have not applied that tweak to all SERPs in all industries, but maybe just to this one.
Anyways..whether Rand's conclusion is right or not, I wouldn't be surprised if they did in fact use differently tweaked algorithms for different industries.
Maybe they see something that's wrong in one field, but only in that field and it wouldn't make sense to try to fix it for the whole algorithm as that might open up another loophole (as often their algorithm seems to be a balancing act: favor authoritative sites' subpages to prevent spam or allow sites focussed on the particular topic to rank?).
Ok, that looks like it's about user intention, maybe not really spam fighting. Nor is it a tweak against a specific industry.
Less clear is if the tweak affected exclusively that particular phrase or if it affected the entire algo.
A search-engine tweak gave more weight to pages with phrases like “French Revolution” rather than pages that simply had both words...
That appears to imply it's a broad algo tweak, not confined to one phrase, to put a little more weight on matched phrases (under certain conditions) over the words simply existing on different parts of the page. A complete phrase match isn't necessarily the right match, so the challenge probably was to identify sets or scenarios where a complete match made sense, and then give it more weight.
Algo watchers may have noticed the OOP thing and how pages with the different parts of the phrase in separate areas of the page were ranking. So that might be what they're referring to.
B/c the text doesn't say whether they tweaked the algorithm for "French revolution" or if they tweaked their algorithm in general so that something like the "French revolution" thing won't happen again (for whatever search query)?
The algo not being uniform means that there are issues like user intent, the commercial makeup of phrases, geographical considerations, and more. User intent is a big one, though. Many people have an idea that when they type a phrase into the search engines, the resulting answers are ranked according to the best to worst, with position ten not being as good as position one. Well, that's not how it works.
A better way of looking at it is that position one through X represent what the search engine believes will be the correct answer for the greatest amount of searchers. So the algo will consider user intent, and sometimes come out with news, blogs, photos, and videos, all dependent on probable user intent. imo, there are different user intentions or interpretations reflected in those SERPs.
[edited by: martinibuster at 6:39 pm (utc) on Dec. 31, 2007]
However, I think what Rand Fishkin meant by the algorithm not being uniform (after mentioning the French revolution example and going on to say something along the lines that..if your experiences from the past dont work you might be dealing with a different set of criteria..the algorithm isnt uniform - not even close, etc.) is that for different SERPs/fields/etc. the algorithm might be tweaked simply for that field. At least that's how that piece of text reads to me.
However you're right we're getting off-topic and I shouldn't try to put words in his mouth.
1 - I still do reciprocal links. Although i try to do that with useful websites. Ones with similiar content to my own sites or i feel both sites can benefit from the links. I feel that reciprocal links aren't dead. Without links, the internet wouldn't work ;)
2 - I dont find any ethical issues with reciprocal links. Maybe to only use this stragegy is only going to harm you or at least not open up the true potential of getting visitors to your sites. And if you only do reciprocal links than you're a bit one track minded.
3 - Have to disagree there imho. Mainly for the reasons above.
In summary, in my opinion, if you only use reciprocal links or dont use them at all, then you're limiting your options on getting visitors to your site.
:)
Over a year ago, I had some problems with highjacking and actually had some inroads into Google to help figure it out. I know for a fact my site was checked and looked at many times, yet I don't think anyone had a problem with what I was doing.
So... and I follow this religiously, if it is useful to the user, do it. This site now has recips that number in the thousands. It has twice as many outbounds. It ranks in the top 5 for multiple money phrases. What is funny is that the directory started out as just a linking campaign and just kind of grew on its own into what it is today. The directory is not the main part of the site. It has a forum, a place for users to post pics, local search engines for niche searches, pretty much anything I can dream up that has to do with the niche. The site was definitely built for the user and nothing else.
My submission form did not require a link back, but it urges a link for preferential ranking. About half the requests for submission link back to my site.
Webdude, This is a strategy that has worked for over a decade but gets little discussion. And you are smart not to require a reciprocal link because that builds trust with the prospective link partner.
So many webmasters get lost in the sea of link building chicanery and forget the basics. A simple and elementary invitation to link up via a link request form is the lowest cost of link building available.
Folks, pay attention to webdude. When you publish a form that accepts link exchange requests, you are placing an outfielder in the center field of link building that never drops the proverbial ball.
Webmasters and professional link builders look for link exchange forms. They know how to find them in the search engines. When you place a link exchange request form on your site, you are showing the world you are open to a link up. That doesn't mean you have to approve every link exchange request that comes in. But when you publish that form, savy webmasters know you are MORE LIKELY to link back to them because the form says "I am open to link exchange" and most forms are interfaced with link management software that makes it easy for the receiving webmaster to respond to a link request.
Furthermore, webmasters who publish link exchange request forms are MORE LIKELY to get one way links.
It goes like this.. you publish a form soliciting relevant link exchange from X target markets. The link exchange requests come in (slowly and naturally over time). If for example, 1 request comes in every day for 30 days, you have 30 requests. Many webmasters who fill out the form will go ahead and link to your site because they are initiating the link exchange request. Lets say 30+% or roughly 8 go ahead and link to you. If you reciprocate to lets say only 5 of the 8 requests who have linked to you (because some were irrelevant requests), you just obtained 3 one way links. Sure some webmasters might remove the one way when they determine you are not going to link back. But that doesnt always happen.
And links that aren't paid many times stay published for very long periods of time, if not forever. Webmasters monitor links that were paid for.. they remove the ones that fail to pay in the future. Link exchanges are almost always free. So the webmaster has less reason to monitor and remove.
Links beget links! And Link request forms start the process. Sure you will get some spam and junk link requests.. its the nature of the web. So reject the junk and look closely at the ones that are relevant to your business.
The simple action of placing a link request form on your site (manual form mail or powered by an editor based link management software) will produce one way links to your site without your having to do anything other than publish that form on your site.
Many here will disagree with me but my decade plus years of experience with link building via reciprocation speaks for itself. Link exchange forms produce one way relevant links and relevant reciprocal links. This practice is not right for all types of websites but it stll works very well for most small and medium business sized businesses, especially niche websites.
In the past quarter, we have noticed more and more webmasters pausing their adwords accounts and getting back to link exchange. Thats because many are tired of spending $ on campaigns that fail to produce. Sure, link exchange is somewhat time consuming but those who do it with relevancy in slow to natural volume are ranking better than ever and generating quality traffic from the link exchanges themselves.
A Link Exchange form - simply invites about 95% garbage links requests and is for the most part a waste of time for the sites I have. Time is money and spending 20 minutes everyday wading through ridiculous link requests is not cost effective.
Webmasters that truly want a link with me can contact me via the contact form, but they should be prepared to tell me a little about their website if they want me to link over to them.
I get one way links to my website by offering good content and tools on my websites that other websites either want to use, or want to send their visitors to...
A Link Exchange form - simply invites about 95% garbage links requests and is for the most part a waste of time for the sites I have.
So then do you also terminate your email service because you get more spam than relevant email? Your argument entirely misses the point.
My point is that a form generates link requests and one way links. Of course you are going to get junk link requests. Its the nature of the web. If the form is part of an editor based software, you simply delete the junk and look closer at what's left.
The form allows for a method of collecting the data and allowing you to sift through it in a logical and thoughtful manner. To dispense with the form because it generates spam is the same as dispensing with your email service because it generates spam.
So then do you also terminate your email service because you get more spam than relevant email? Your argument entirely misses the point.
No I never missed the point. Adding the form brings on about 95% more spam requests which cost about 20 minutes of time per day to deal with.
Any reputable webmaster that really wants me to link to him will contact me with a simple contact link. They do not need a form or text to point that out. And if his or her website is good, I will link to it without needing a link back.
The only reason to WANT to wade through 95% spam link requests IMHO is if your intention is to build links to the purpose of better rankings, in which case, I would simply contact the top 10 ranking websites for various searches in my own genre, email them each individually or call them by phone, and get high quality links that are really going to matter, still avoiding the excess spam that comes with a link exchange form.
