Google’s update on links

I am pretty thrilled to see the current update on link abuse that Google has put out, I have seen so much abuse of links that is simply powered by the purse that you have in hand. Some sites spending 100’s of thousands of dollars a month to drive links to their sites. Many of these sites that ranked did not deserve to be ranked, and where a horrible useless site is put up.

We know how popularity is a significant factor in determining if a site should appear within the index. My hope is that this may allow sites with perfectly good content that have not been picked up have a chance to be picked up. With the increase in value of search engines over the years, it can be difficult to build natural popularity without the assistance of search engines.

It would be extremely helpful to allow sites the chance to be reviewed as they where years back when the amount of new sites where small and easy to view one by one. Some sites that may not be targeted for revenue should have the chance to come up without building a giant waste fund for paid search to get their chance to compete.

Study of blog article link effectiveness

Over the past 6 years I have spent a considerable amount of my time testing link strategies and have come to a simple conclusion.

• Reciprocal links do not work.

Purchasing text links from time to time does work, however this tactic is severely frowned upon by the search engines. Especially with Google!

So now you really need to think out of the box, I have spent countless hours trying to get journalists to write about my sites and it definitely works and pays off. However it’s a process that I feel is too costly to maintain a large website that scales. Focusing on trying to get small time bloggers to cooperate with me and write about my products and services also pays off.

The blogging community has an amazing ability to drive traffic and provide the side affect of boosting your Algorythmic rankings. I was thrilled when the company Blogsvertise.com showed up. I wasn’t sure that they could match the correct bloggers to my specific need. I am ecstatic with the ROI in terms of both traffic and effect on rankings. I would definitely check these guys out.

Hopefully this is a sustainable way to drive traffic down the line.

Buying links for SEO

Now here is a loaded subject, buying links for search engine rankings is definitely considered bad water by Google these days. I believe that they have added it to their webmaster guidelines. Instead of just buying pointless links on sites that have nothing to do with what you are selling or what services you may offer. Try and focus on sites that make sense for you business. Here are a few ideas of how you can make links work in your favor.

Say you have a hotel site in some remote place. Think about what you offer at this hotel or resort!

Do you offer diving? How many scuba diving sites are there? Countless! Are there blogs? Why not sponsor them and get them to write about your resort? You would be surprised how many small bloggers there are who would love to write about a cool place to visit.

Camping?

Hiking?

Surfing?

Horseback Riding?

I am sure you can think of dozens of related sites that you could approach!