Link Popularity Explained
Joe Griffin

Search engines like Yahoo and Google store over ten billion web pages in their vast databases, so structuring and organizing this content is a major undertaking.

To properly organize this data, search engines have developed sophisticated algorithms to the measure the importance of the web pages within their databases. The importance of a web page is measured in two ways, as detailed below:

1) Onsite Optimization
This form of optimization is commonly referred to as “search engine optimization” or “natural search engine optimization.” Natural search engine optimization information can be found all over the web. For more information, search “natural search engine optimization” on Google.

2) Offsite Optimization
This form of optimization is commonly referred to as “Link Building.” It is often categorized under three identities called “one way links,” “reciprocal links,” and “text link advertising,” as detailed below:

One-Way Links

One-way links can be attained through:

- Directories.
- Message Boards / forums.
- Blogs, RSS feeds, and press releases.
- Company affiliates including partners, clients, parent and sister websites.
- One-way link email requests.

Reciprocal Links

Reciprocal links can be attained through:

- Link exchange (two-way) e-mail requests.
- Acceptance of outside exchange requests.
- E-mail exchange requests sent from the Company to other relevant websites.
- Partnerships – Reciprocating with partners is common among websites. When this arrangement occurs, both partners benefit.
- Internal Reciprocation – Many organizations may own or operate more than one website.

In some scenarios, internal reciprocation between sites is search engine friendly. In other scenarios, it may not be. I would advise consulting with an expert to analyze your situation, if you have one.

Link reciprocation should not occur through existing link reciprocation databases that cater to the same group of websites. These networks are commonly called “link farms.”

Text Link Advertising

This process involves the negotiating of text link ads on relevant and/or high profile websites. Similar to the process of buying banner advertisements, text link advertisements are available on many websites in all industries. Google Adsense and Yahoo Publisher Network have popularized this form of advertising. Text link advertising is an appealing model to many because it is typically much more cost-effective than banner advertising, and offers an alternative ad model to the more common banner advertising model.

With that said, advertisers can negotiate a wide variety of relevant and/or high profile text link ad media buys. Text link advertising should be employed sparingly at first and expanded over a long period of time. Understand that sparingly can mean different things for different websites. You may want to consult an expert on the best strategy for your website. There is no such thing as a “quick fix” to poor link popularity.

Building link popularity for a website can be a time consuming, monotonous, and daunting task which requires a lot of patience. Employing search-engine-friendly strategies will typically have the best long term results while maintaining a low risk of penalty throughout. It is important to carefully plan the long term popularity for your website. Unlike most public relation strategies, too much attention too fast is bad.

Grow your link popularity over the course of 12-24 months. You should always plan on a one-year strategy when deploying any natural search engine optimization or link building campaign.

Happy Searching.

Brand reputation can be destroyed by the likes of several online companies in the business of reporting consumer complaints about your brand. Public companies may also be discredited online by old articles showing up under a search for your company’s name. Often times these articles can continue to remind your audience about prior corporate mishaps, or remind investors about poor historical earnings. This can hurt your stock, your image, and your bottom line.

So the question is, how can these sites be removed? Here’s the answer: They can’t. Your only option is to outrank these sites therefore pushing these sites down. This can be done through microsites, press releases, and content about your business on other popular sites. This process is generally referred to as brand management or more specifically “search engine reputation management“. The Internet is like one big viral marketing playground. Your reputation is at stake – good public relations for the web is just as important as good public relations in the traditional world. Don’t let your brand be tarnished by other website ranking for your name on the first page of the search engines.

Call us now at 480-949-1810, and let us help you manage your brand’s image through the search engines. We can show you several examples of our success with search engine reputation management. Or, fill out the form here: search engine reputation management quote

Press Releases are a great way of pushing out a newsworthy message to the public at large. Press releases can be targeted by industry and by region. A good release will get picked up by a couple hundred websites, and from time to time an editor with a major publication will re-write and feature the release, which gives added credibility. From a brand reputation management standpoint, a press release can push negative information further down in the search rankings, though this effect may only last for a few days.

On top of that, press releases link back to your parent website, so the more sites that post your release the better. Many sites will archive your press releases, which creates permanent one-way links to your site. We are seeing more and more success using press releases everyday. For more information visit our press release page at http://www.submitawebsite.com/directory_inclusion_service.html.

Historically the Open Directory Project takes optimized titles and turns them into nothing more than your company name. Since engines like Google and MSN will at times only display your ODP title, this creates a big dissadvantage for your “click-through” rates. MSN has actually released a new tag allowing webmaster to “opt-out” of the DMOZ title for the MSN.com search engine.

Read more here for details.
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=63851

Yahoo Local Featured Listings : Flat Fee Search Marketing

In an effort to simplify Search Engine Marketing on the Local level for brick and ‘Mom & Pop’ shops, Yahoo Local has introduced Yahoo! Search Marketing Local Featured Listings. Now, for a flat monthly fee starting at $29.95 (depending on business location and category) small businesses can advertise in specific local search results.

The high visibility search listings are a bit different than normal Yahoo Search Marketing sponsored links, with the ability to add business phone numbers, map links, directions, and “send to phone” into the advertising mix.

Here is the entire offering from Yahoo Local:

* Guaranteed prominent placement in Yahoo! Local
* Convenient month-to-month billing of a flat rate based on your business category and location
* A highly customizable listing and business details page
* A free 5-page basic web site

Brought to you by Loren Baker with Searchenginejournal.com

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to keep track of all the events in your life, coordinate schedules with friends and family, and find new things to do — all with one online calendar?

Seeing the big picture

With Google Calendar, you can see your friends’ and family’s schedules right next to your own; quickly add events mentioned in Gmail conversations or saved in other calendar applications; and add other interesting events that you find online.

Sharing events and calendars

You decide who can see your calendar and which details they can view. Planning an event? You can create invitations, send reminders and keep track of RSVPs right inside Google Calendar. Organizations can promote events, too.

Staying on schedule

You can set up automatic event reminders, including SMS notifications, and instantly bring up anything on your calendar with the built-in search tool.

GET AN ACCOUNT

Written by Bob Mutch

With most SEO experts holding that PR has little or no ranking weight most people are lost as how to rate the value of a directory and which of the odd 1500 directories are the most important to add their site to.

Many of us can rattle of the top 5 or 10 directories but past that most don’t know. We all know that dir.yahoo and dmoz are the top. Then zeal, busines.com, and ms bsd, but after that opinions really diverge.

I have to admit that I didn’t really know for sure myself until I was asked by the director of CRGP at stanford.edu. When he asked me about the value of my super link package I had to tell him that was some thing he wouldn’t be interested in.
www.seocompany.ca/sales/huge-deal-on-seo-sem-services.html#product18

That is when I started to rack my head for a good system to rate directories. I needed a system that was simple, that most people could agree on, and that could easily show the value of a directory.

I have put together a system that rates the value of inbound links a directory has. Here is how the points are awarded.

With a submission to dir.yahoo getting you on the average 15 links I have given Yahoo 1 point per link (15 points per submission). 1 link from DMOZ gets you 30 points (twice the value of a dir.yahoo submission), edu’s I have valued at 1.5 times a dmoz link (45 points) and gov’s 1.5 times a edu link (67 points).

Here is my list of the top 43 directories rated using the Inbound Link Quality (ILQ) system.

QLR | URL
5810987 www.dmoz.org
5133260 dir.yahoo.com
475426 www.lii.org
113947 www.business.com
44671 sbd.bcentral.com
12490 www.whatuseek.com
9974 www.zeal.com
9397 www.cannylink.com
5824 www.123world.com
5340 www.americasbest.com
4911 www.joeant.com
4892 www.chiff.com
3357 www.mavicanet.com
2369 www.botw.org
1949 www.elib.org
1545 www.isedb.com
1227 www.rlrouse.com
1169 www.gimpsy.com
1110 www.goguides.org
1107 www.uncoverthenet.com
922 www.qango.com
922 www.azoos.com
777 www.bigall.com
691 www.azoos.com
672 www.exactseek.com
635 www.illumirate.com
629 www.web10.us
569 httwww.skaffe.com
525 www.businessseek.biz
495 www.platinax.co.uk/directory
450 www.informationoutpost.com
418 www.thisisouryear.com
405 www.abilogic.com
255 www.relmaxtop.com
250 www.sunsteam.com
202 www.alivedirectory.com
135 www.site-sift.com
120 www.wowdirectory.com
96 www.01webdirectory.com
90 www.socengine.com
75 www.sporge.com
75 www.yeandi.com
42 www.massivelinks.com

The home of this list is can be found at the below link where the values will be updated regularly and number of dir.yahoo, dmoz, edu and gov links shown.
www.seocompany.ca/directory/top-web-directories.html

Article by Joe Griffin published by leading Webmaster resource website – www.webpronews.com.

http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/expertarticles/wpn-62-20060328LinkReciprocationWhatstheDeal.html

Link Reciprocation is quite a popular model for building link popularity for a website. There are many different forms of acquiring reciprocal links. Link reciprocation in general is acceptable by the search engines. Unfortunately many link reciprocation strategies are not search engine friendly.

The worst form of link reciprocation involves website service companies that offer subscription-based networking with mass numbers of other Webmasters, all of who are communicating around one and one topic only….link reciprocation.

These fee based subscription models lead to network and farm based link reciprocation….Yes, that right, this is the notorious “link farm” you’ve heard about. This model of reciprocation embodies the very epitome of “link farm.” And here’s another thing; The search engines hate this model. Having witnessed over 1,000 projects come through our door over the last 9 years I can tell you without a doubt that next to “duplicate content,” link farm reciprocation is the #1 reason why websites are filtered, penalized, or even banned.

We’ve never actually used a service link this for any website we’ve ever worked with, but many site owners come to us with these networks in place. When we find that our clients are using these services we immediately pressure them to cease these practices. Sometimes, however, we are simply to late…the damage has already been done. Fortunately we have developed best practices to help clients who have incurred problems in the search engines get their problems corrected. In speaking with many new companies each day I have found that many websites that are penalized incurred these penalties through these link networks (we get a lot of sites asking for our help after they receive a penalty in the search engines).

There are other non-friendly types of link building….we can talk about these at a later date. The thing to know is that link reciprocation in its natural form is totally search engine friendly. There is nothing wrong with linking to your partners, and with having them link back to you. You can also initiate link reciprocation campaigns if you choose your audience wisely and take every precaution to ensure your campaign remains search engine friendly. Most link reciprocation campaigns that involve mass emailing websites are not SE friendly. When in doubt, ask an SEO consultant for advice.

Here’s the point – STAY AWAY from link scheme networks!

It’s hard to believe that Google has been shifting live datacenters around for the last month(give or take a few days). People all over the country are seeing different results at different times of the day. I hope this calms soon, and settles down with the new real live results.