Outbound Links as a Signal of Quality?

2010/05/15 in Optimization | 1 comment

Outbound links as a signal of quality?Are outbound links a signal of quality? Is this one of the over 200 signals used by Google to rank a web page? How big of a factor can it actually be?

Before you suggest that outbound links are not a factor, consider that you can get penalized for linking to what has been referred to as “bad neighborhoods” on the web.

If you can link to the wrong sites and get penalized for it, why wouldn’t you be rewarded for linking to the right sites?

Citing authority sites in your articles, blog posts or content contribute to your credibility, assists your readers and can help to establish your own site as an authority on a subject and may very well invite inbound links and citations from other sites. Sound far fetched? Google doesn’t think so.

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Avoiding Duplicate Content Filters

2010/03/12 in Optimization

Beating duplicate content filters
Avoiding duplicate
content filters is not
as hard as one would imagine; just a little bit
of creative thinking can go
a long way towards setting your content apart from the rest of the scrapers and those too lazy to create their own content.

There are things you can do even when using previously published content on your site or blog. Rather than just copying and pasting content and linking back to it as others already have, consider how the presentation of this content may work to your advantage.

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So What Happened to Mike Siwek?

2010/02/26 in Directories and Search Engines | 1 comment

So where is Mike SiwekWow!

Mike Siwek, a Michigan attorney at law, was turned into Google’s poster child by Steven Levy at Wired.com in an article entitled Exclusive: How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web.

Steven was giving us an inside view on Google’s algorithm and was demonstrating how  Google’s search results were superior as they were the only engine to return a listing for Mike Siwek, the attorney located in Michigan in the top spot when searching for mike siwek lawyer mi.

Well so much for that. I wonder how long it’ll be before you’ll be able to find that listing for Mike at the top of Google’s search results again?

Hey Mike, are you enjoying your 15 minutes?

How Much for a Link Like This?

2010/02/25 in Totally Clueless

How much can I charge for a link?

I was reading discussions on one of the popular Webmaster forums and happened across a thread where someone was asking how much they could charge their client for what they considered to be “high calibre” links.

They went on to briefly explain how it was of such importance and value because of the PageRank and domain extension.

I think there was the glimmer of hope that someone naive enough would validate their ridiculous claim and assist with calculating some absurd monetary value for these  “rare as hens teeth” links.

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Link Sleuth 101

2010/02/04 in Link Development | 1 comment

Finding the best links
Finding the best links is not all that difficult if you’re willing to spend just a little bit of time to evaluate the web site where you’re looking to get a link from. Over the past ten years, this method has provided the results sought after by the clients I’ve served.

Keep in mind that I view social bookmarking as just another passing fad, or the latest electronic ephemera and you’ll understand why I prefer to work for my links much like a curator acquires objects for a museum collection.

Spending just a little bit of time evaluating a web site will lead you to the most important pages within the site. These are the pages you should be seeking links on.

Here’s an example for you from one of my link campaigns.

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