10 replies to this topic

[seoisgod]

I sell woodburning stoves, fireplaces etc and was quite surprised when i had an email this evening from a company in america that sells patio furniture asking to do a link exchange with me.

Im showing a PR of 1 and the site that wants to swap links has a PR of 4.

Would it be of any use to me to get a PR4 link coming in? I know its not exactly within my business type but will the fact that its got PR help a little? anything that helps is good right even if its only a little bit.

any advise would be great

[torka]

Do you think a link to a patio furniture company in America would be interesting or useful to your site visitors?

If yes, it's worth it.

If no, it's not.

The Google Toolbar PR is an outdated approximation, and it says nothing about whether the site is actually allowed to pass PR or not. Plus, sites don't have PR. Pages do. So if you're going to link based on PR, make sure you know the PR of the actual page your link will be on (as well as the number of other outgoing links on that page, cuz that will affect what portion of that PR will get passed to you -- assuming PR is allowed to pass from that page in the first place, that is).

The best advice is to not link based on perceived PR, but on what your site visitors would find valuable.

My

--Torka

[Jill]

Im showing a PR of 1 and the site that wants to swap links has a PR of 4.

Really? The page your link will be featured on is a PR4? You may want to double check that (if you care about toolbar PR for some reason).

[BungeeBones]

I sell woodburning stoves, fireplaces etc and was quite surprised when i had an email this evening from a company in america that sells patio furniture asking to do a link exchange with me.

Im showing a PR of 1 and the site that wants to swap links has a PR of 4.

Would it be of any use to me to get a PR4 link coming in? I know its not exactly within my business type but will the fact that its got PR help a little? anything that helps is good right even if its only a little bit.

any advise would be great

PR is really a moving target and not an accurate one either. For example, visit my directory site www.BungeeBones.com. Notice the site's pr is 5.

Now click on the Web Directory button in the left menu and notice it, too, is PR5. Click on any of the categories and notice their rank is PR5 too (even if they are empty).

This web directory I built is designed to be subscribed to (i.e. installed on any website by any webmaster with a few lines of code) and it performs the same on any website it is installed on. For example, visit www.realestate-synergy.com and click the "Links Directory" button in the menu to arrive at a subscription copy of the above. Go through a similar exercise to see the PR of the categories and you'll see they, too, have the same pr even if they are empty.

The moral of the story - Google isn't all seeing and all knowing.

Look for opportunities to receive traffic. If the exchange makes sense that you can receive traffic from the exchange then go ahead, you have nothing to lose. The work comes in when you start having to continuosly verify that they still are linked to you. It is real easy to send out a bunch of requests, post the outgoing links, get the link backs, and the a few weeks or months later just drop the entire link page. Unethical? True but done.

Link exchange is still the best way to improve your traffic IMHO

[Jill]

Link exchange is still the best way to improve your traffic IMHO

Really? Wow, I wouldn't have thought that, but I guess if you're getting links from sites that have a similar target audience, it could be a good traffic generator.

[Randy]

Dunno the exact definition of "link exchange" being used, because to me that sounds like only reciprocal linking.

That said, getting links --either one-way or recip-- from places where your target audience already lives is indeed the best source of sustainable traffic IMO. Personally I make the place a link is coming from or going and the target audience a large part of my link building efforts. I can say without doubt that across a wide spectrum of sites these targeted links tend to bring me half or more of my overall traffic. And they perform month-after-month no matter what the search engines decide to do.

That's important to me. Partly because I like diversity so that I'm not relying too much on search generated traffic, and partly because it's just good business. However what's even more important is that when I look at Conversion Rates of these different channels --and I do track them as separate channels-- my overall conversion rates from traffic generated by a referral from one of these targeted link sources it often ranges anywhere from 2 to 5 times higher on average than does search engine traffic. Even PPC traffic, where my ads are quite narrowly targeted to a specific type of searcher for the most part.

[BungeeBones]

Dunno the exact definition of "link exchange" being used, because to me that sounds like only reciprocal linking.

That's been my conclusion - that there really isn't any difference.

And I also look at Pay Per Click as a form of link exchange, except the parties have "employed" a broker or middle man to arrange the exchange. When you contract with Google to place your link on a site and if they place it on my site we would have essentially done half a link exchange. If I too contract with Google and they in a astronomically remote chance place my link on your site then we have achieved a Google brokered link exchange. Granted the chance of that occurring are extremely remote but my point should be obvious. Google arranges link exchanges, gets paid for it, and shares the income as a way to get more ad space on websites.

The "reciprocal" part of link exchange is more about equity, about getting value for value. reciprocal linking for the most part is between website equals. Granted, there are some benovolent webmasters that will provide links to anyone but most webmasters are looking for at least an equal PR or higher.

I think the original poster was asking about that; about the idea of "equity". Is it a good trade?

My point is this; when considering whether a reciprocal link to your site is a plus or minus it is important to know what your goals are. I think appeasing a search engine bot (to get traffic) requires a completely different strategy than reciprocal linking for traffic.

I think the most important thing is to know where the link to your site will be. The method used to organize the links is important. If the other site just stacks them one one, unorganized page users aren't very likely to sort through the rat nest. But if the links are organized by topic there is a much greater chance a visitor will browse through the links

[Jill]

If I too contract with Google and they in a astronomically remote chance place my link on your site then we have achieved a Google brokered link exchange. Granted the chance of that occurring are extremely remote but my point should be obvious. Google arranges link exchanges, gets paid for it, and shares the income as a way to get more ad space on websites.

No idea what you're talking about here. Google brokering link exchanges? Huh?

[ewc21]

@woodburner:

I won't care whatever the claimed or actual PR value of the site is. You'd want to get the advice from torka that if that site's content is going to be valuable to your visitors, then link to it -- even if it doesn't link back to you.

@Randy:

Yes I believe that was how I understood the term. Nice to know from your findings that referral traffic from inbound links yields better conversion rates than search referrals. I'd guess that must be common for sites that have large amount of content.

[nethy]

No idea what you're talking about here. Google brokering link exchanges? Huh?

Yeah definitely.
Also, the Bill & Mellinda Gates Foundation is going to start a fund for young engineers that want to develop operating systems. The top 10 OS's will get 10m dollar to keep developing it for mass production. inspiring.

Gotta keep up with your current affairs Jill.

[Jill]

Offtopic

Also, the Bill & Mellinda Gates Foundation is going to start a fund for young engineers that want to develop operating systems.