seo link building Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Gravity Search Marketing

Ask the Experts: Will Reciprocal Linking Affect my Google…

December 11, 2006
by Gradiva Couzin

Q: I recently asked a relevant website with a high Google PageRank value if they could link to a page on my website. They said they would gladly add a link if I could add one to their site somewhere on my website. Would this be damaging to my site? I have thought about setting up a links page with a noindex, nofollow tag so that Google will not pick up the link on our website. What should I do

A: Reciprocal linking can put your site at risk and is not recommended by Google. That said, you are talking about a gray area that you may be able to work to your site’s benefit.

We came across a recent quote from Matt Cutts’ blog (Matt is a “celebrity” Google engineer; he is Google’s unofficial ambassador to the SEO industry). Here, he talks about sites that he was reviewing as part of a panel for a conference:

“Several times during the session, it was readily apparent that someone had tried to do reciprocal links as a “quick hit” to increase their link popularity. When I saw that in the backlinks, I tried to communicate that 1) it was immediately obvious to me, and therefore our algorithms can do a pretty good job of spotting excessive reciprocal links, and 2) in the instances that I looked at, the reciprocal links weren’t doing any good. I urged folks to spend more time looking for ways to make a compelling site that attract viral buzz or word of mouth. Compelling sites that are well-marketed attract editorially chosen links, which tend to help a site more.”

See Matt’s full post here.

You say it’s a relevant site. In our opinion, relevance is the bottom line. Therefore, PageRank issues aside, if you think that the website would be helpful/useful/interesting to your visitors, we say go ahead and provide a link. If not, then don’t do it for the PageRank, because there are lots of other ways to drive targeted traffic to your site.

ask the experts

Ask the Experts: Should I Auto-submit to Search Engines?

September 6, 2006
by Gradiva Couzin

Q: I once had a program that would submit my website to all search engines. A person warned me about using that kind of program because the search engines will cut you off if you submit too often. Is that true?

A: We don’t have a definite answer about whether autosubmit programs will get you penalized or banned, but we can tell you that we don’t recommend doing it, and we don’t think it’s necessary.

There are only a few unique search engines with a big audience reach, and as you know from our book, those engines are Google (and AOL, which uses Google’s results), Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask. After submitting to the biggies that allow submittals, probably the best thing for you to do is look for niche directories and sites that speak to the same audience as your site, and approach these very targeted websites for a link or listing. This method of link building helps you focus on getting the specific audience you want to your site, and doesn’t waste your time or money on audiences that are too general or too tiny. You can look on our website for a sample link letter. And of course link building is covered in the hour-a-day plan in our book.

Back to your original question, there are differences of opinion about whether oversubmitting can get you penalized by the search engines. But we would guess it can’t, because it would be very easy for someone to attempt to knock their competitors down by oversubmitting competing sites. And we don’t think the search engines would want that to happen.

Ask the Experts: Will Reciprocal Linking Affect my Google…

Ask the Experts: Should I Auto-submit to Search Engines?

Q: I once had a program that would submit my website to all search engines. A person warned me about using that kind of program because the search engines will cut you off if you submit too often. Is that true?

Get An Effective SEO Strategy