51 replies to this topic

[Jill]

The danger of reciprocal linking is that a 'wrong' site can link to you and damage all your work.

Sorry, but this is incorrect.

Your site will not be hurt by any particular site that links TO you, whether it's a good site or a bad site. You have no control over who links to you, and the search engines understand that.

Who YOU link to, on the other hand, is important. As long as you only link to truly valuable sites for your visitor, you will never have to worry about a problem with that.

Jill

P.S. Welcome Carthago!

[Debra]

Text links to the page by using your phrase in the link is what you need now more than ever

Agree! Since most search engines analyze the text in and around the link, using your keyword phrases should be part of your linking strategy.

Reading that it is all about getting visitors I not agree at all (and it depends on the kind of site you do put online) because commercial sites needs buyers

Buyers are visitors first!

Linking will get them to the site, it's the content that will convert them. Well written links with a call to action stimulates the visitor to click - not to buy.

[Keith]

I think everyone is missing something here...

FIrst, linking is the basis of all marketing, in one form or another.

Second, you want people to link back to you. If you link to them, you have the possibility of damaging your 'reputation' in the engines.

Google, in particular, shares a sites page rank with the sites that it links to. So, with that said, the quality of the links are VERY important. Do not link (or for that matter) allow links to sites with less than a PR4.

If you link to a site with poor content, irrelavent from yours, you can suffer from the indexing.

Third, and a WONDERFUL linking strategy that does NOT require a reciprical link (nor is it even expected) is an affiliate program. Give your affiliates TONS of highly relavent keyword-rich TEXT based ads for them to use on THEIR site promoting YOUR products for a nice commission.

Wow, you make sells, gain links, and improve page rank.

What a fun game ;-)

Keith

[Jill]

Keith, I'm afraid you are giving out some very bad advice, in my opinion.

In particular this statement is absolutely wrong, and I hope that nobody will put any stock in it.

Do not link (or for that matter) allow links to sites with less than a PR4.

Today's PR3 site is tomorrow's PR8. Don't look at toolbar PR as a way to determine who to link to. Never, ever.

Everybody has a brain, and most people have at least a little common sense.

If a site is useful to your visitors, feel free to link to it regardless of its pagerank. To do anything less would be silly, imo. You'd be doing your visitors a disservice. You won't ever be penalized for linking to great sites. It won't happen, this you can count on.

And Keith, you are also wrong about affiliate links. Most of them do not count towards your link pop or PR at all. They are generally not direct links in order to be tracked by the affiliate program. Therefore they aren't useful for that purpose. Using affiliate links are great, just don't do it for PageRank or link pop purposes.

I don't know where you're getting your info from Keith, but imo, it's very outdated, and simply incorrect.

Jill

[Debra]

LOL, Jill beat me to the punch with this one.

I don't agree that linking is the basis of all marketing. Marketing, in a text book definition, is the activities directed to identifying and satisfying customers wants and needs.

Linking is a tacitc employed, not the basis of.

I also don't think affiliate programs are linking strategies. They are sales strategies. You use an affiliate link to sell products, not share information or increase link pop.

You can use some of the same tactics to promote your affiliate links as you would increasing your links, but they are not the same.

[qwerty]

Don't look at toolbar PR as a way to determine who to link to.  Never, ever.

I can think of one reason to look at the PR of sites to which you're considering linking. If the site is grey-barred, I think it's a legitimate cause for concern. I realize the toolbar is pretty buggy, so if I see a page I like and it's got the grey bar, I'll come back in a few days and check again. If it's still grey, I'll think about how good I think it really is. If I like the site a lot and think it would be a useful resource for my visitors, and if I've got a lot of time on my hands, I'll take a look at the code to see if I can figure out if it's really being penalized, and if so, why. I don't want to link to a site that the SEs view as a bad neighborhood, because that may cause me some harm, but I also don't want to be a slave to PR.

Mind you, this has never happened. It's usually pretty easy for me to decide whether or not I want to link to a site, and its PR has yet to be an issue. But I still think it's worth it to be on the lookout for potential problems, no matter how rare they are.

Besides, I normally use IE, and I'm too lazy to keep turning the toolbar on and off

[Jill]

I can think of one reason to look at the PR of sites to which you're considering linking. If the site is grey-barred, I think it's a legitimate cause for concern.

Nope, I disagree.

A site that is legitimately penalized is going to not be a good site by someone with half a brain's standards. We all have common sense and hopefully some intelligence.

Use those, not the toolbar when determining what your visitors will find useful. Since I truly believe that Google doesn't penalize sites that don't deserve it, you will never have to worry if you simply use your own intelligence and common sense.

Down with PR toolbars! (except to block pop ups!) :tooth:

Jill