101 Questions on Links

[hulahoop]

Ok I have so many questions on links development I don't know where to begin. What I know about link development is so 8 years ago and haven't updated myself. Well here they are anyway and hope you can help...

1) How do I check how many links I have linking to my site? I did a link:http://www.abc.com/ on G and somehow I don't think it is accurate. On day it was showing 90 then the next day 85.
2) Are forum links better or blog links?
3) I see someone answered saying insite text links are best but most sites don't give out links anymore and sites that do are mainly blogs right?
4) How do I check if the link given to me is a no follow?
5) When giving out links from my own site, should I always do a no follow and when do I not do a no follow? I thought it is now good to give out links. I am right or mistaken?
6) What are the top directories today to submit to?
7) Also does submission to directories from different parts of the world affect your search results? Eg. I once was in Greece and I submitted my site to google while at an internet cafe daily for 2 weeks. That was 5 years ago and somehow, I seem to get more sales from Greece. Call it coincidence but I think not. I can't prove it for sure on Google but I swear that Greece is my highest contributing in terms of sales outside the US and UK. So say I submit from UK, will it help me with US serps?
8) Do you consider this a 2 way link? I get a review from a site on their blog. Later I ad them to my resource list and review them too. Is this a 2 way link and kinda cancels out our links?
9) My site is an e commerce site. How do I get links as most are not willing to link to an e commerce site? Any ideas?
10) Does posting on comments of blogs count as links? or just links on the main part of the blog count?
11) Will it hurt my site if I commented on blogs that have a lot of other spammy comments because the blog was not moderated?
12) Do forum links actually count and get picked up by Google?

Ok I think I will stop here else it may scare you from answering. Thanks for the help guys.

[Planet13]

Here are some VERY quick responses, but you need to search the forums, because all of the questions have been answered in depth in other threads:

1) yahoo site explorer or seomajestic

2)Usually both are no followed and of little to no value. However, they might generate TRAFFIC if your forum posts are insightfu;l and relevant to the topic at hand.

3) True. But if your site is relevant and helpful then they will be more likely to link to you.

4) look for a rel=nofollow in the source code of the page

5) If the site you are linking out to is relevant and a high quality site that your visitors will actually find useful, then use a followable link to it. If it isn't relevant or useful, then don't bother linking to it in the first place.

If it is an affiliate link where you are making money, then absolutely do a nofollow.

6)The best directories are the ones that are relevant to your site. The more relevant, the better. also local directories, so if you are based in Dallas, then look for directories that list business in Dallas. the more specific, probably the better.

7) I can't imagine where you submit from would have any affect, but I could be wrong. have you set geo targeting in google webmaster tools? What is the top level domain for your site (.com or .co.uk or .gr )?

8) yes, it is reciprocal. Not all reciprocal links are bad. You should ask yourself: does linking to this site add value to the visitors who are coming to my site? If so, link to them with a followable link.

9) Write great, unique content. Have non-ecommerce pages with INFORMATIVE AND UNIQUE with articles on how to use the product. Have your customers send in photos and testimonials on how they love / use the product.

You are much, MUCH more likely to get facebook "likes" instead of links, so have a facebook like button. Then if people with blogs come by and see your page has a ton of facebook likes, they will be more likely to write about your page (and link to it) if they see it in a "vacum" (meaning they don't know how many people like your page). It is sort of the herd mentality (everybody else was doing it).

10) Nearly all are nofollowed so they don't count in terms of passing page rank. But if they are relevant blogs and your content is insightful, unique and helpful, it may generate traffic and the people who come to it may eventually link to your site.

11) Why waste your time doing that? comment on relevant, helpful blogs only.

12) usually no, because they are no followed. some high quality forums that are moderated and only allow quality posts will probably pass some page rank. those forums wouldn't allow lots of spam.

As a final thought. You might try working as a "guest blogger" for a closely related (but non-competing) site, if they will allow you to link from your blog posts to your site.

Some people also suggest writing articles on things like buzzle and other article sites, but I kind of get the feeling that:

A) if you are going to take the time to write good articles, it would be better to post them on your own site.

B) Those article farms will probably have the amount of page rank they flow devalued eventually. No evidence to base this opinion though, just a hunch.