Asking bloggers in your category for links.. do you do it?

14 years ago

Originally Posted by mkterbynite

Hi there,

So I made a list of Blogs tonight in my category (travel) and noticed a lot have blogrolls.

Guys, have you found this has been effective doing a 'link swap'. I understand that reciprocal links aren't as good as one-ways, but they still count for something right?

They do still count for something. You can get a few such exchanges. Problems begin to arise only when your link profile begins to look unnatural.

Also, do you think sending an email asking to swap is the best way?

You could also call or write by snail mail.

Thanks
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LocoDice 14 years ago

Philip, thanks for the reply.

So what would you suggest as a good approach to make the most of blogs in your category/space with high PR?
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WareTime

14 years ago

build extremely useful content that generates it's own links. That's how I do it and it works.

You need to understand duplicate content to do that. When a lot of lunk heads are told they should not have duplicate content, they take it to mean this.

"My dog is brown" and they write "The canine I own is sienna" see that's not duplicate, now google will love me for I have unique content. You're joking, right? Yet that is how most SEO'ers approach unique content.

This is only unique at the word level, not at the conceptual level which is where your audience is. They don't analyze individual words, they consume the article and the idea or concept of it. To them, blue flowers = azure flowers and provides nothing new they couldn't get elsewhere.

What you need to do is think is about making something conceptually unique.

Instead of writing another tired review for your webhost reviews site, find one that offers crappy service and that has tons of complaints on the web. Find out how you would cancel their service. Write a complete step by step so damn simple my grandma that has never used the internet could do it and succeed guide on it and include a link to one you do recommend.

Then hit the sites complaining of said host, and post the "I used to have them too and they did suck, here's and article I found on how to get rid of their service".

Thanks
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PhilipSEO

14 years ago

Originally Posted by WareTime

build extremely useful content that generates it's own links. That's how I do it and it works.

Sure, link bait works. It works best if you know how to identify real information needs and know how to fill them and then market your info. One problem though is that some markets are already saturated with high quality information.

The alternative is to just get some links.

"My dog is brown" and they write "The canine I own is sienna" see that's not duplicate, now google will love me for I have unique content. You're joking, right? Yet that is how most SEO'ers approach unique content.

Well, if the words are different, then the content is different from Google's point of view. Contrary to popular belief, Google doesn't use LSI (latent semantic indexing) and is unable to "see" that one article says the same thing as another article, but in different words. For better or worse.

Instead of writing another tired review for your webhost reviews site, find one that offers crappy service and that has tons of complaints on the web. Find out how you would cancel their service. Write a complete step by step so damn simple my grandma that has never used the internet could do it and succeed guide on it and include a link to one you do recommend.

Then hit the sites complaining of said host, and post the "I used to have them too and they did suck, here's and article I found on how to get rid of their service".

Nice idea!

Thanks
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WareTime

14 years ago

Originally Posted by PhilipSEO

Well, if the words are different, then the content is different from Google's point of view. Contrary to popular belief, Google doesn't use LSI (latent semantic indexing) and is unable to "see" that one article says the same thing as another article, but in different words. For better or worse.

BUT... even though technically different in Google's eyes, it's the same in the readers eyes. Higher bounce rate, less time on page, less natural links, etc. That is why the "unique" content is not so unique or useful for ranking.

Thanks

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callstar

14 years ago

Originally Posted by WareTime

build extremely useful content that generates it's own links. That's how I do it and it works.

You need to understand duplicate content to do that. When a lot of lunk heads are told they should not have duplicate content, they take it to mean this.

"My dog is brown" and they write "The canine I own is sienna" see that's not duplicate, now google will love me for I have unique content. You're joking, right? Yet that is how most SEO'ers approach unique content.

This is only unique at the word level, not at the conceptual level which is where your audience is. They don't analyze individual words, they consume the article and the idea or concept of it. To them, blue flowers = azure flowers and provides nothing new they couldn't get elsewhere.

What you need to do is think is about making something conceptually unique.

Instead of writing another tired review for your webhost reviews site, find one that offers crappy service and that has tons of complaints on the web. Find out how you would cancel their service. Write a complete step by step so damn simple my grandma that has never used the internet could do it and succeed guide on it and include a link to one you do recommend.

Then hit the sites complaining of said host, and post the "I used to have them too and they did suck, here's and article I found on how to get rid of their service".

There's a big problem with link bait, no one ever links using the right anchor text... this the only inherent flaw of using link bait. It's definitely good but it always ends up generating PR0 links because they are new blog posts usually. Most of the time when someone recommends a website or post, they make the anchor text CLICK HERE or something like that. Link bait is definitely a good strategy but you have to be good at what you do and offer real value... you also need to be in a circle where you're respected in your field (well it helps anyway). Article marketing is probably the most effective linking strategy overall from what I've tested.

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callstar

14 years ago

Link exchanges work better than almost anything, especially if you get some nice pr4 links. People in this forum keep saying that social bookmarking, blog commenting and article marketing are the best but high quality related, link exchanges are excellent and have given me a lot of top rankings.

I'm currently running a proper test Blog Commenting VS Article Marketing, it's in my blog but I also made it a forum post. I wonder why it hasn't appeared yet?

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LocoDice

14 years ago

callstar, so you are saying this is the case, even if the links are reciprocal?

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PhilipSEO 14 years ago

Originally Posted by mkterbynite

callstar, so you are saying this is the case, even if the links are reciprocal?

All or even most of your links should certainly not be reciprocal. Don't do anything that will reveal a pattern of manipulation. Your link profile should look natural.

The best links exchanges are between different internal pages of the two sites.
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callstar 14 years ago

Originally Posted by mkterbynite

callstar, so you are saying this is the case, even if the links are reciprocal?

Yeah, it's stupid to leave link exchanges out of your backlink strategy, in some cases they are better because I've got pr4 links in exchange for a pr0 or something but overall I have done well with them. Even an even PR related link exchange will give you better results than a random blog post or pr0 spun article.
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LocoDice

14 years ago

So on a somewhat related tangent.

If i get a bunch of links to sitexyz.com (where as the home page would just be sitexyz.com), does that count towards my PR for sitexyz.com or just sitexyz.com ?