Just What Is Link Bait Anyway? Options

[qwerty]

IMO, with 'link bait' the 'link' part is how you promote the 'bait' portion.

I see it as the opposite (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Links are the goal of link bait. The bait is the tool, game or whatever you create.

What makes 'link baiting' different from viral marketing is the demographic it targets. Link bait has one, viral doesn't.

Link bait can have one, but I don't think it absolutely has to. If you get a ton of traffic from geeks using del.icio.us or a post at BoingBoing, then that's what you got, whether your market happens to be geeks or not. For example, if a cab company creates an Ajaxy Google Maps mashup allowing you to see where all their cabs are at any given time, their market may be people who need a ride in the city where they operate, but technophiles are going to be the ones linking to it. And since massive numbers of links from a variety of sources will increase rankings, it will have done its job.

[randfish]

Cool topic (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

As far as my personal opinion about linkbait - it's really about more than just targeting a demographic, but targeting an industry and the journalists (online or offline) who get attention in that sector.

The goal of linkbait is twofold - increase branding/mindshare and get thousands of links. The process involves going out and finding where your industry is getting discussed (or could get discussed) online, identifying succesful ways to get in front of those folks, building some amazing content and promoting it.

del.icio.us/popular, Digg, Yahoo! site of the day, Slashdot, et al. are good for getting in front of the tech set, but if you wanted to target pop culture, you'd want Fark and Boing Boing and if you were pursuing financial industries, the Motley Fool and CNNMoney and Yahoo! Finance are much bigger targets.

The question is - how am I going to get hundreds or thousands of natural links pointing to my site - linkbait is one answer that can deliver quickly on that goal.

[Scottie]

I'm with Qwerty on this one- it's a concept that's been around forever, creating compelling content that people will link to. Making a great site! Something unique, something worth linking to... it's what I've heard from others before I started SEO and what's always made sense to me. To have a successful site, make something worth linking to! Jill's been saying it for years.

And then someone tags it as "linkbait" which sounds like something intended to trick the target, and everyone is suddenly talking about linkbait.

Baiting is tricking. Plain and simple, it means luring some other entity- onto a hook or into buying something they don't want.

Calling great content "linkbait" is an insult to good content, IMO. (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/ignore.gif) It's like calling a well-written page "spiderfood"- it presumes that the only purpose of the content is for tricking search engines.

Not that me not liking it will stop people from using the word... but sometimes I just want to say "Duh! (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/fool.gif) We've been telling people for years that the way to do well in the search engines is to create a unique, compelling site that people will naturally link to!"

But call it something sneaky and everyone's on the boat... (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/nah.gif)

[ewc21]

Link bait sounds something tricky or deception. The idea is good, the term used isn't so good.

[projectphp]

How about linkompulsion then? As in "compelled to link to stuff"?

Look, this is my take: the bard is always right:

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet." --From Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

Of course, spin doctors can't be wrong, and if toture, I mean "extraordinary rendition" and lying, I mean "damage limitation" and the Chinese gooseberry, I mean Kiwi fruit, are anything to go by, maybe Shakespeare was wrong, and a Rose called "Shitzmell bush", after the noted German caligrapher Herman Shitzmell, mightn't have had quite the same appeal (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[projectphp]

But call it something sneaky and everyone's on the boat...

I wonder what that says about our age? Seems we need a term to get people interested. I wonder if it is the "baitiness" of the word, the bit that makes it sound like decption, that mnade it popular, or if having a phrase enabled people to get the concept.

The Japanese have no word for cliche, hence their art is different to the West, where Cliche, which really just means somethign we have seen many times, is a derision that drives art forward, and stops some art of value seeing the light of day. Which came first: the word or the concept, and does the word's existence change our views?

I think the basic premise, create stuff people will specifically want to link to in large volumes, is most relevant now with the whole Digg thing feeding blogs. I doubt it really works in the vast majority of industries, although I could be terribly mistaken...

[qwerty]

Ol' Willie S was right, but that's because a rose is a rose (Sorry, it's the Modernist in me)

See, a rose's name isn't taken from another (although I think it's the French word for "pink"). It's not as if its name was the "lovely flower" or the "bloom of crud". Those two names do carry meaning, because they're descriptive, that is, made up of words that already carry meaning on their own.

"Bait" just isn't a pleasant word, and any phrase that includes it is going to carry that meaning. It can get you a crappy car after you've been enticed by a nice one at a great price in an advertisement (bait and switch). It can leave you with a hook in your mouth (fishing bait). It can leave you in prison, when you thought s/he was old enough (jail bait). It can be an act of abusing a wild animal (bear baiting).

So, thrill me, entice me, draw me in, attract me, grab my attention, but please please please don't bait me.

I'd love it if the name of the practice were to change, but I can't say I'm waiting with bated breath (look it up -- I spelled it right) for that to happen.

[projectphp]

But it is kinda like that with names. Some stick, and for all the wonrg reasons.

We live rather close to indonesia, aned I swear, for the whole eigthies he was "General Soharto". Suddenly, and without warning, he became "President Soharto". Which screams "dictator who lead a militaryt coup and took half of Papua New Guinea" and which "respected leader of our nearest neighbour"?

Names make a massive difference, but if people's criticism is solely because of a name, and not what the name signifies, we will all be in trouble.

That is, after all, what political correctness was all about: changing the English language so that people could use words that carried less connotation. Hands up who likes the PC movement?

The bait part may have negative connotations, and that will be picked up on I am sure, but would a longer name have worked as well? linkbait: two sylables, 8 letters. Way better than "Search engine optimisation", surely.

Alas, if only the fisherman had got it, and called it "linklure", we migth have avoided all the fuss!

[Michael Martinez]

I have seen people use the expression "link magnet" in the same way Rand uses "link bait". He is not baiting people with the intent of deceiving them. "bait" can be used in more than one way, and Rand is not using it in a negative or dark way.

But maybe "link magnet" will prove to be a more acceptable expression, at the risk of becoming yet another politically correct way of saying things.

[jehochman]

Link Appeal

ap·peal
4 : the power of arousing a sympathetic response : ATTRACTION <movies had a great appeal for him>

Merriam Webster

[projectphp]

...ait" can be used in more than one way, and Rand is not using it in a negative or dark way.

But the point stands that it sounds bad.

But maybe "link magnet" will prove to be a more acceptable expression, at the risk of becoming yet another politically correct way of saying things.

Doesn't work as a verb. "Link magenting" vs linkbaiting. You need something that works as both.

Alas words, once in, rarely change. Stuck with this one i'd say (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[qwerty]

"bait" can be used in more than one way, and Rand is not using it in a negative or dark way.

A common usage? Examples, please.

I don't think this is a matter of political correctness (BTW, I once called my brother that and he thought it was a compliment). It's simply a suggestion that if you don't want to make people think of the practice as something deceptive, it's a bad idea to give it a name that includes a word that carries that meaning. I'm not suggesting that "bait" is a dirty word, or evil, or a concept that is to blame for natural disasters. I'm not suggesting the word should be banned from the dictionary. I'm saying that "linkbait" is as trustworthy a term as "linktrickery," "linktrapping" (a fire hazard if you don't clean the filter after each and every load) or "linktreachery".

Look, if the letters S E and O happened to spell a word that was a synonym for taking people's money and giving nothing in return, then we'd have come up with a better acronym for what we do a long time ago, because we're not going to give our business a name that means cheating people.

[Jill]

I like "link magnet." I think it definitely describes what we have here at High Rankings.

But you know for Rand, link bait as a term works because of the target audience he goes after. That's fine.

Link Bait is certainly not something I'd ever sell to a client, however!

[jehochman]

I've seen plenty of sites that are link magnets, but the problem is --- they've got the polarity reversed. (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/lol.gif)

[St0n3y]

Bad: link bait, link whore, link slut, link sleaze, link drought, link stink

Good:link magnet, link attraction, link blizzard, link draw, link-a-thon, link love

(IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/panic.gif)