Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I am willing to consider anything, including paying for directory listings but I do not want to waste the money, I want good value for the inbound links.
Thought?
Thanks in advance,
Eric
do not buy links on crap sites. it is better to pay a bit more for better quality links.
I am all in for buying links on sites of good quality with related content, I was just wondering if there was a good marketplace somewhere?
If link buying is no longer a good thing, how does one increase the importance of a site, aside from getting sites to link to you just because they want to...?
Thanks!
>>>I am all in for buying links on sites of good quality with related content, I was just wondering if there was a good marketplace somewhere?
Yes, plenty. Use your imagination and Google some terms. How ironic is it that they don't want people selling or buying links, but index sites that offer these services?
>>>If link buying is no longer a good thing, how does one increase the importance of a site, aside from getting sites to link to you just because they want to...?
Depends on what you mean by 'importance'. If you mean 'rankings' then *getting* links is then answer, as you suspect. *Buying* them however isn't the only answer. There are other ways to get links to your site.
If you're not clear on all that, do what I did. Open and read every thread in this section of the forum going back 2 years. If that doesn't get you up to speed on link development, nothing will :).
I understand how to use Google. I also understand that reading the posts here will answer quite a few of my questions.
In asking for a good marketplace, I was looking for someone to recommend one, either their own or one they had used with good results.
As for the "next greatest marketing thing" I was looking for a little direction, for instance:
Press releases suck unless you have something useful to say.
Spamming comment sections of blogs suck, and in some cases can be offensive, unless you have something constructive to say.
Writing articles to submit is lame, I might as well spend the time writing the content for my own sites.
Google is frowning on buying links, this I find hard to believe, how could they differentiate between a webmaster choosing to link to a site and one where the link was paid. I could, however, see them frowning on links from sites that are IDENTIFIED as selling links, hence my question about good sites that sell links....perhaps someone reading this has a travel or accommodations related site that would be interested in selling some text links on it?
I have achieved 120,000 unique visitors a month in a competitive market with top 5 results for 80% of my keywords. Recently I lost the #1 spot in my #1 keyword so I am looking for a solution to push me back up to the top.
If there is no constructive information to be gleaned from the people posting to this thread, I will return to my tried and true method of putting up sites, creating good content, generating interest and then linking those sites to my main domains. This just takes a lot longer.
Anyone want to sell me some text links on sites of PR5 or higher?
Anyone want to sell me some text links on sites of PR5 or higher?
I'm sure there are many who would fulfill that request for you. WebmasterWorld is probably not the best place to ask for specifics since it is forbidden via the TOS.
A search in Google for text links should give you a very strong starting point for your endeavors in this area. Any public inventories are poison, stay away from them. Anything within a block of "other text links" would be something I personally would not want. Anything that has a "common footprint" is likely to be under scrutiny of some sort.
It's an evolving game and the best links are those that can be garnered naturally. Ya, sick of hearing that myself but in the end, it's the truth. Outside of those, finding "high quality" partners is the key. Too many "questionable" partners and you may find yourself with challenges.
Best thing to do is keep your link development under the cuff, on target, and stay away from anything that is publicly promoted. Ya, I said it. That business model needs to change if they are going to survive moving forward. It's already under fire "verbally" from the SEs, time for a different approach.
I did some looking around for sites that had similar keywords to mine but are in a market in a different country. I think this might be a good way to find excellent quality links, if I can get the webmasters to respond favorably.
The keywords are very similar but there is no competition because of the country difference.
Other than that, I guess I will continue with what I am doing for now, until I need more traffic, then I will have to approach this with a completely different angle I guess.
I understand the need for SEs to have the best quality content they can. I understand they cannot allow one site to appear above another just because of a set of circumstances created by that site BUT if we are really the best result for the search, since there is no one else in the market doing what we are doing (we are the only licensed option), why do I have to jump through hoops to maintain the top spot.
Anyway, enough griping, back to developing meaningful relationships with meaningless websites.
I would like to be able to purchase some good quality inbound links to my travel and accommodation related sites.
Oh boy!
Thanks for the note on the TOS. I had no idea. I'll keep that in mind on future posts.
Ya, the TOS is strictly enforced. ;)
I did some looking around for sites that had similar keywords to mine but are in a market in a different country. I think this might be a good way to find excellent quality links, if I can get the webmasters to respond favorably.
I might be a bit concerned about obtaining links from countries that are not really relevant to your target audience. Call it me "Tin Hat" theory but I think off topic, out of region links don't really have much value. The time and money invested in obtaining them may not be worth it.
The keywords are very similar but there is no competition because of the country difference.
There might be a reason for that too. :)
Other than that, I guess I will continue with what I am doing for now, until I need more traffic, then I will have to approach this with a completely different angle I guess.
^ Emphasis mine. Your original opening comment...
I would like to be able to purchase some good quality inbound links to my travel and accommodation related sites.
It's not like you didn't pick one of the most competitive industries online, huh? You're going to need thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions of links to compete in that space. It will all be relative to your targeted market. Global market? Pffft! I'll assume you've got that covered. :)
BUT if we are really the best result for the search, since there is no one else in the market doing what we are doing (we are the only licensed option), why do I have to jump through hoops to maintain the top spot.
If you really are that good, then a few targeted promotional campaigns will probably get the ball rolling. If you are the only licensed option, that is a selling point. And, it could be one of those viral selling points. For anything to work today in the industry you are targeting, it better be a one off that is going to rock the industry. If not, then take a different approach and target a specific region to begin with, build tenure, and branch out during the building of tenure. It takes a lot of time. You can achieve short term gain but if you are in this for the long term, start planning now. ;)
Anyway, enough griping, back to developing meaningful relationships with meaningless websites.
Stop! Don't do it. Don't waste your time. Seriously. You'll get enough meaningless websites linking to you naturally through scraping. :)
Welcome to WebmasterWorld erh11!
To be honest, I cannot begin to imagine how one would achieve hundreds of thousands of inbound links, forget millions. Yahoo says we have 5100 inbound, Google...147.
So after some commiseration, oh Sage Wise One, please bestow upon me the magic answer, the key to enlightenment at the top of the mountain.
Page One Results, how do you do it, in 15 words or less :-)
Benchmark. Brand. Contacts. Difference. Google. Live. Local. Maps. Media. PointClouds. Promotion. Quality. Tenure. WebmasterWorld. Yahoo!.
But wait, there's more! ;)
That's a pretty weak list up there. I can do much better but 15 words just isn't me. :)
Fortunately we are not global. Unfortunately one of the regions in our domain is globally one of the most competitive search terms. Fortunately we are able to dominate in our area. Unfortunately it is the global players that SOMETIMES dethrone us.
Time to focus on your local market and work from there. You can slowly work your way up there but you definitely need a solid foundation to do so.
To be honest, I cannot begin to imagine how one would achieve hundreds of thousands of inbound links, forget millions.
Heh! I couldn't either until I started doing backlink research on large scale properties.
Yahoo says we have 5100 inbound, Google...147.
I like Yahoo! and Live for backlinks research. Google is a bit stingy with their offerings in this area and I understand why. I don't blame them either. Makes for an interesting playing field in link development.
So after some commiseration, oh Sage Wise One, please bestow upon me the magic answer, the key to enlightenment at the top of the mountain.
The key to enlightenment lies not at the top of the mountain, but down in the valleys where your local travel agencies, agents, and consumers are. :)
Those are some interesting points. Care to elaborate?
I like the viral idea a lot. The vacation industry has room for that. Perhaps I will create a cool vid and "share" it around. We'll see about that.
"Heh! I couldn't either until I started doing backlink research on large scale properties. " - what do you mean here exactly? Not real estate I presume..?
Yes, the valley, down here in the trenches. You are getting warmer though, we have the travel agency angle covered already.....
Perhaps I will create a cool vid and "share" it around. We'll see about that.
"Cool" is the key word in that sentence. Research first and see what others have done. YouTube is full of vacation vids and such. :)
What do you mean here exactly? Not real estate I presume?
I saw an example just the other day of 1,200,000 backlinks for a single word search term. So, yes, high volume inbounds are essential in some instances. That whole industry is off the charts when it comes to links. Based on discussions over the past 12 months, Google has changed a few things in how it views "real estate" and "travel related" websites. It won't be long before you'll be aiming for pagetworesults instead of pageoneresults. < Arrrggghhh, that didn't roll off the tongue as well. ;)
Yes, the valley, down here in the trenches. You are getting warmer though, we have the travel agency angle covered already.
Local writers covering your space? Radio hosts? Industry events? Local networking groups? Vehicle wraps? Local advertising? Google Maps? GPS technologies (up and coming in advertising). The list is quite extensive and budget is usually the determining factor. What da ya got da spend?
One of our issues is that local advertising doesn't really do much for us, since our market is not visible to us and can be on another continent, or at least "south of the border", the CAN/US border.
Since the US economy is tanking, and looks like it will be in the toilet into 2009 and possibly beyond (I sure hope whoever gets into office isn't a train wreck!), our numbers are dropping significantly and we need to increase the interest from the Euro spending Europeans.
Local is good for some things but the big spenders are not here, they are.....there?
As for page 2, Ack, I sure hope not. If we are relegated to page 2, who is going to be on page 1? Does longevity mean nothing anymore? If local service results are relegated to page 2, Google will quickly find that people will not be searching for travel related items on Google anymore. This has already happened on Yahoo. As soon as Yahoo filled the front page with absolute crap results for our search terms, our traffic from Yahoo stopped. Yes, I know it was because we were no longer listed there, but even in the places we did still appear, no one was clicking there anymore.
I like your ideas. Google Maps hey? Yea, I'll do something there soon.
Anyway, it is way past night noon here and I am supposed to be up in less hours than I care to admit and I am required to function properly tomorrow so....
It has been a pleasure discussing with you. Perhaps we can continue again tomorrow night at noon, night noon that is.
e
> Google is frowning on buying links, this I find hard to believe, how could they differentiate between a webmaster choosing to link to a site and one where the link was paid. I could, however, see them frowning on links from sites that are IDENTIFIED as selling links, hence my question about good sites that sell links.... perhaps someone reading this has a travel or accommodations related site that would be interested in selling some text links on it?
Google is schizoid. It is against buying links (to create artificial votes/links to your site), but it is for posting articles on other sites (to create artificial votes/links to your site).
We share many of the same sentiments about what is cheesy, spam, etc., and I've thought about getting links even paid ones, but I just don't want to take the risk. It may work for a while, but Google gets more sophisticated and aggressive. I don't want to take the chance that one day it gives a penalty that takes months to recover from (which I already had for something else).
p/g
And as far as buying links, I think it's less likely that the purchaser will be penalized directly. I think it's more likely a link buyer will receive an indirect penalty as in you continue to pay for those links when Google has devalued to zero all outbound links from the sites where you bought them.
[edited by: ZydoSEO at 5:32 pm (utc) on Aug. 18, 2008]
And I agree on the purchasing thing as well. Otherwise it would just be too easy to demolish the competition with some well placed purchased ads...
