Where are the White Hat Links At?

[martinibuster]

Interesting post over on the LocalSEOGuide blog titled, Does Anyone Get And/Or Give Links Anymore [localseoguide.com]?

The blog post asks the following question:

And who are these freaks who are still linking from their websites?

To paraphrase a scene from the movie Blazing Saddles, "Where are the white hat links at?"

• News media?
  
• Bloggers?
  
• Content mills?

Or is the linkscape pretty much corrupt?

What is your opinion?

[Leosghost]

I link to what I like..it never did me no harm..

I phoned a guy a couple of days ago , for some advice about a product that he wrote about ( he sells it in the USA, but to buy it from him , the shipping would be 5 times more than the product ) so I asked if he knew what was in it, and so maybe I could find an equivalent here in France..

15 minute phone call..he was friendly, helpful, I appreciated it.. I'm now linking to him ( one way ..to say "thanks" :-) from a 10 year old PR5 in his "niche" ..

I asked him what he would like for "anchor text"..he is a "mom and pop" type business..but he knows about anchor text and inbounds and basic SEO..he asked for what I would have thought was the most potentially helpful link text to him..

He didn't ask for a link, but he was pleased to get one, but he gave his advice for free before it was mentioned, and I don't need, nor want a "recip"..

I have been linking to sites and pages that I like , or that my visitors may be interested in, this way since 98..and will continue to do so..

The sites that I do it from, ride out Florida, Panda et al just fine..and even my own cross/ ( A->G->H->Q->Z etc ) interlinking of my own stuff, works just like it is supposed to..because it is relevant..and I can link from them to my new stuff, and up the new ones go..and they stay up there..

YMMV ;-) ..but I doubt it..as long as the sites themselves are "solid" and "valuable for visitors"..others will link to you..

[Lame_Wolf]

I give out links, but only to related sites and to ones that will benefit my visitors. Never been affected by Panda etc.

I won't link to blogs, sites that under a year old, on free servers, spammy, poor navigation, pop-ups, PHP pages and a lot more besides.

A lot of people make the mistake of having their links page at the bottom of the homepage, and nowhere else. I have mine in the normal navigation and on all pages that use that navigation. 1000's of pages link to my links page.

Don't expect good results if you try to fool webmasters. All you will do is fool n00bs into linking... and those are not the ones you want to be looking for.

YMMV

[Planet13]

Well, I'm reluctant to share publicly, but...

A little social engineering goes a long way, I guess.

Turns out, if you find people who are opinionated, and you ask them for their opinion, and you let them know that you posted their wonderful, ground-breaking, world changing opinion on your website... well... some of them will want to tell the world that your website has been honored by the presence of their opinion.

Plus, asking windbags for their opinion about something is a way to get(somewhat) original content for your site which.

~~~~~

On the other hand, maybe it is not a good idea to listen to my opinion. Kind of hit a snag lately.

I don't have many links, mostly because I only do link begging, but the ones I have were pretty good.

Google was loving my site. In mid-February I was up 100% from a year ago.

Then things started to slide. By March 15th I was down about 10 to 15% from mid February.

Then Panda hit on March 23rd and I lost 30% of traffic overnight.

So, maybe you would be better off doing the OPPOSITE of what I suggest.

[martinibuster]

Well Planet, the panda thing isn't really too related to links, more about on page things, as I understand it (and who really understands it?). So don't kick yourself about the links. That's some of the best advice I've seen posted in awhile.

I link to what I like...

You're not the only one. That's a really good approach, without worrying about PageRank leaking etc. I have a liberal link policy, but with a few strings attached about spamminess etc.

I won't link to blogs, sites that under a year old, on free servers, spammy, poor navigation, pop-ups, PHP pages and a lot more besides.

A good blog can sometimes be hard to find. There must be some blogs out there that are worth linking to? (I think mine are pretty good. :P)

Re sites that are under a year old, what if the site is authored by an authority in the topic?

[Lame_Wolf]

Well Planet, the panda thing isn't really too related to links,

True, but it gets blamed for everything from the price of postage stamps to the Mayan calendar.

[scooterdude]

I keep reading that linking out liberally is a good thing, i haven't done it before, ever, but I am adding a links page to my sites ,which is linked to from every page,

I guess it may be an idea to make sure that even when linking to sites I like, the link is useful to users of the site i am linking from

Say i like the blog by that famous SEO, might not necessarily be the best idea to link to him/her from a site on "blue widgets"

I did get some natural links recently, great surprise as I didn't realise people still did this, the immediate outcome tho,,, :)

[CainIV]

News and bloggers are definitely steady streams to be sure. And there are literally never enough ways one can craft a campaign to generate links from those sources if they spend time concerning themselves with what those editors and their respective audiences are looking for, and are creative enough to present that in usable and unique content.