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Category: Link Building

Chat through link building best practices and outreach techniques.

  • TylerAbernethy


    It's really hitting me now, because content curating is extremely common in a lot of other forms of media. I always avoided it because I didn't know the extent of any negatives that I might see from the search engines (duplicate content). Does anybody else curate content for their blogs? The main problem that I am having is that I just don't have enough time to publish the amount of content that I need. Outsourcing is the best alternative, and quite frankly, unless your high school English teacher needs extra money, it really isn't a very good one. Basically, i'm looking at content curating as a really good way to publish a lot of content, on more topics, a lot easier. What extent do you consider reasonable? How do you go about creating your content? What would you say is the easiest way to create content efficiently?

    | TylerAbernethy
    0
  • TheReference


    Howdy SEOmoz, I was wondering what your approach is in selling linkbuilding to clients (we're an agency). Do you sell it as "linkbuilding" or more like content creation/content marketing? do you bill by the hours, instead of project based? How would you calculate the number of hours required? (I know "it depends" :-), but still some insights would be cool) Do you start immediately with more creative strategies (widgets, infographics)? I'm really looking forward in learning how you guys tackle this. Best regards, Nik

    | TheReference
    0
  • mikecartmel


    My client's company has just acquired another company in the same industry and with that acquisition came two websites; companyname.com and companyname.co.uk. companyname.com has PA13 and DA10, companyname.co.uk has PA15 and DA10. At the moment, the two companies are to be run as separate companies but will become fully merged in time. My client's own website is brand new  (PA1  and DA) and I'm wondering what is the best way to use these other two sites to improve my client's search ranking. Should I use the two sites to link to my client (these would be logical and natural links e.g. explaining the acquisition, under new management) or would it simply be better to redirect the domains to the new site? Many thanks

    | mikecartmel
    0
  • madedotcom


    Hi, We notice a sudden drop in our external links over a month (May to June). The numbers have fallen drastically from ~55K to ~28K.The followed linking  root domains has changed from 781 to 776. I am using OSE to download the inbound links data an analyse, however the downloaded csv lists only about 25 links from every domain so I am unable to figure how we have lost the external links over time. But, the Domain Mozrank has seen a gradual increase. Now I suspect  the reason for the DA of our site to fall from 58 to 57 is mainly because of the external links loss.  Am I right in assuming this? Is there a way to figure out the lost links? Please help! Thanks,

    | madedotcom
    0
  • nicole.healthline


    We have a partnership with another site that we write content for and 50% of our inbound links are from them. Could this hurt us in any way?

    | nicole.healthline
    0
  • gundogs


    Is it even worth getting a link from PR0-2 , unrelated themed sites like http://www.area-rug-news.com/ or http://www.denvercohomerentals.com/ to my PR4 health training site that has been around since 2007? Can getting a sitewide blogroll link do more harm than good?

    | gundogs
    0
  • shiftins


    I have been doing a lot of research about my competitors on open site explorer and have come to see that most of them are getting a high percentage of links from branded anchor text. It is almost to the point where they are not even using any keyword terms as anchor text. I have a few questions: 1. why are they doing this 2.. how are they ranking for keyword terms when I cannot find any anchor text in their link profile that reflects their target keywords. 3. is it better for me to focus on building branded anchor text keywords than to do exact match keyword terms especially after the panda update 4. if it is better for me to focus on branded anchor text only, how do i rank for keyword terms?

    | shiftins
    0
  • VasilTasev


    Hi all, I am wondering if the exact match anchor text is 100% negative signal after the penguin. I mean even from relevant sites and natural use. During the last 2 weeks I see negative SERP changes and I start to think that it is because exact match keyword anchor text is used. I also use some other anchor texts along with it all the time.. but now I think of using 100% exact match anchor free links. Does anybody have similar observations? Thank you in advance.

    | VasilTasev
    0
  • eddieredwood


    I have been doing some research on where some competing links are getting their links from and I see that a decent number seem to be getting some juice from local.com. My question is- have the panda & penguin updates rendered these useless- or even worse can links from directories like this now harm my SEO?

    | eddieredwood
    0
  • TylerAbernethy


    man, I know I am opening the flood gates for some serious debates, so let's just not and say we did. All I want is for some people to help me out. My site is www.ontracparts.com we sell heavy equipment parts. So we were steadily increasing in traffic and rank, before penguin. I had ordered a few backlinks from a semi spammy source (meaning that they used spun content) Like I said our rank was increasing pre-penguin, and I stopped ordering. We seemed to hold our postitions after I stopped ordering (for about 2 weeks everything remained the same) So, I ordered more of them. Then penguin dropped and our rankings and traffic remained the same. for a little while that is. Soon the rankings started to drop. Probably a direct result of those links right?? Well here is the weird thing.. Traffic is slowly increasing again now that I ordered more links. Rankings drop, but traffic increases? what the heck? what should i be doing now, post-penguin... just writing and publishing content on the site everyday?? How do I go about getting links if I can't just buy them anymore?? I should also mention that there is practically ZERO guest blogging opportunities.. I say that because there is nobody blogging about heavy equipment right now. Not that I could find anyway.

    | TylerAbernethy
    1
  • MasonInteractive


    Hi, I know Article Directories are not valued as high as they once were and many took a hit from Google. But are there any Article Directories that are still worth posting content on? Thanks!

    | MasonInteractive
    0
  • adriandg


    Does the trailing slash matter?  Say my website resolves to: link to: http://www.domain.com/ So if a user went to link to: http://www.domain.com it would 301 them to link to: http://www.domain.com Then does a link to: link to: http://www.domain.com**/** pass the same amount of link juice as a link to: http://www.domain.com ?

    | adriandg
    0
  • VCOMM


    Prior to Penguin, I had begun a link building campaign of sorts for a tourism bureau. All it was designed to do was leverage a wealth of relevant link opportunities that were right under our noses...the bureau's own members. These restaurants, hotels, attractions, etc are extremely relevant web sites with respect to the tourism bureau's target and niche. The links were to be in the form of image badges stating "Proud member of..." with brand-only alt text and title tags. I will focus on keeping these links a reasonable percentage of the overall domains linking into the site, I will vary the alt text throughout, and cultivate the links slowly over a 5-month period. But since the bureau's site already drives traffic to these individual member sites, the links we cultivate will end up being reciprocal. Even though they are natural in the purpose they serve, should we be worried, and consider abandoning the program?

    | VCOMM
    0
  • DerekM88


    Hello mozCrew Just a quick yay or nay. We have an embeddable code on our site for customers who want to post our link on their website listed here: http://www.accupos.com/etc/embed-code-restaurants.php But in our link, there are actually 2 separate links, one branding link that says the name of our company, AccuPOS, and another link which targets a specific target keyword "Restaurant POS Software". My question is, does Google only give credit for the branding link, since it is listed FIRST? Or will we get double credit? Is this a good or bad practice, and what would you recommend? Thank you! Derek Moore

    | DerekM88
    0
  • MalcolmGibb


    I put a project up on a well known freelance website for a completely unrelated task to link building. I got a response which just made me laugh and i must share it! Hi,
    Sir i am providing a good services always,I have a serious person,so our Bid is not only to win a chance work with you but also maintain a long Term relationship with the bridge of this project.And if you have find Any error and any thing out of your criteria so you have full authority To ask us about that,i will correct that always.here i am attach our Link sample,please check. Budget £50 GBP:- 1.Social bookmarks Links 100 Links ALL PR1 AND PR1+ 2.Forum posting Do-FOLLOW 250 Links ALL PR1 3.web2.0 links 50 Approved Submission every Article contain
    5
    links
    your site so total 50*5=250 links, 4.1 article writing for web2.0 submission. 5.Link wheel :- 100 link wheel links. TOTAL 500 LINKS IN £50 GBP ALL work done in manually Sir. I hope you like this. I am waiting your positive response Sir, do not waste my time. He actually sent me an excel sheet with all of his link wheel domains... all PR 1/2. Is anyone really stupid enough to go for something like this? I hoped post-penguin would wipe out this kind of activity!

    | MalcolmGibb
    0
  • smallinov


    If I have lets say 5 sites and I am able to negotiate a link on a highly ranking site for all five of them together would there be potential for penalty for linking them together on other sites as well?

    | smallinov
    0
  • ScottBaxterWW


    Hi Guys, So we have just received a message from Google confirming that we have an un-natural link profile. We are currently in the process of gathering all our links and going through them 1 by 1, at the moment I'm just stuck deciding if we should remove this link. It's a high profile PR site, its updated every day with quality news?? What do you guys think of this? Thanks, Scott

    | ScottBaxterWW
    0
  • shiftins


    So prior to joining SEOmoz I have tried a few seo companies and had somewhat decent results. All of these companies did things like: directory submissions
    social bookmarking
    social profiles
    blog comments
    article syndication
    press release and so forth. These things that they were doing worked and improved the rankings of my websites in the serps. After some time and research I figured out that all this stuff was easy to do and that I could do these things myself. After joining SEOmoz I come to find that these types of links are not considered high quality because they are easy to acquire. Some of you may even say that they are the basis of a spammy link profile. My question is why would you not want to do these things if they work and all of your competition is using these strategies, including big name brand companies?

    | shiftins
    0
  • CHEATERS


    Earlier today, I received a $50 off coupon for a Business.com listing. Back when I was really learning about directories, lots of people recommended getting one of these listings because editors actually review it to make sure the website linked is of good quality. Even the SEOmoz Directory Guide regards it as a good link. Now, it seems like every outbound link from Business.com has a 'nofollow' tag right when they link to the target website. Furthermore, the actual business listing doesn't even link to the website! Let me take, for example, web design companies: http://www.business.com/internet/web-design/ This directory has tons of 'nofollow' links. On top of that, if you take any of the companies listed and do a search for their business page, the business page doesn't even have a link to their website! That doesn't exactly seem like it's worth $300 a year... Any chance there is something I'm missing here? I'm not fully understanding this, it seems.

    | CHEATERS
    0
  • Bucky


    I am about to launch a new site and I am looking for someone for link building in the real estate industry with proven track record. I would be interesting in discussing terms and strategy.

    | Bucky
    0
  • cfield_splashmedia.com


    I need to be able to explain to a client the difference from an SEO perspective between Blog. vs  /Blog. www.website.com/Blog vs Blog.website.com The client wants to know which one will help there website with SEO. I belive both will but /Blog will more. I'm looking for a tangible answer only centered around this subject. Thanks,

    | cfield_splashmedia.com
    0
  • JohnChena


    Will Google penalise if I earn links with  keyword + "intitle:resources"  query?

    | JohnChena
    0
  • montseyel


    Hi there, I have the opportunity to get a link on a https page.I can't see any page rank but it has lots of good links to the http url. How Google will value this link? any study? Thanks

    | montseyel
    0
  • rasmusbang


    Hi all, I am currently thinking about adding a link section to my site. In 2010 I released a new version of the site, where one of the main differences to the old site was that a link section was left out. Now i see in webmaster tools that a lot of old links are still indexed but has a 500 error. My question is: 1. Will my site in general benefit from having a link sections with relevant links for the users - in terms of SEO? 2. Will my site benefit from creating a link section and having all the old link section URLs in google redirected to the new section? Best regards, Rasmus

    | rasmusbang
    0
  • PrasanthMohanachandran


    Could you please explain business profile listing and the advantages of it in detail. Can the listing be made in any of the business profile listings websites or to the content related websites. For example, for automotive engines website, can the profile listing be made in any business profile listing or only to automotive related business website. Can you also provide few business profile listing websites with good page rank.

    | PrasanthMohanachandran
    0
  • dad7more


    so i was doing some competitor research for the following domain and seomoz seems to be telling me that this domain has over a thousand links but that only 2 are external. from surfing the site it seems that most of those links come from several years of weekly blogs. will this domain be easy to overtake by setting up a good number of external links? what kind of number would i be looking at? <cite>www.diehlorthodontics.com/</cite>

    | dad7more
    0
  • Dynaread


    I am relatively new to the SEO world, and I want to build backlinks linking to our main site. My preferred way to create backlinks is by adding them in my blog comments or forum responses. I am an active participant in a large number of blogs/forums related to our field and I would like to add relevant backlinks in the comments/answers I post. I originally thought that a backlink was just a link, but none of the links that I have added to blogs like that have been recognized as backlinks. https://www.dynaread.com/ Why is this so? I know now that good backlink would be something like: Dynaread is a science based dyslexia remediation program for older struggling readers. However I have no idea how to add this types of links to blog comments or forum pages where there is no link tool. Do I have to do something with HTML? Please explain briefly what a backlink really is and most importantly how I can create them. Thank you in advance for your help! Joy P.S if you have suggestions about some resources where I can learn more about the subject please let me know. I love to learn more.

    | Dynaread
    0
  • MarieHaynes


    Lately the changes in Google all revolve around reducing the power of "self made links".  We've seen blog networks devalued and low quality directories devalued.  We've also seen people penalized for unnatural patterns of anchor text.  With all of this in mind, I'm wondering how much time I should be putting in to guest posting.  It seems to me like the safest focus should be on creating great content and then promoting that content.  But it's so much easier to spend a few minutes writing an article for someone else and getting an anchor texted link back to mine. To most, guest posting is still considered white hat.  But really, when you look at it, you are providing a webmaster content in return for a link back to your site.  But it is definitely not a natural vote for your website.  It is really just a self made link. If I were Google, I think it would be quite easy to find ways to determine what is a guest post that was created simply to get a link back to a site.  And then I would devalue the links from those posts. What do you think?  Do you still do much guest posting?

    | MarieHaynes
    1
  • alsvik


    We just went from 50.000 external followed links to more than 150.000 ext followed links within a week. At the same time we went from just below 200.000 total links (internal/external) to more than 650.000 links and linking root domains dropped from around 750 to below 500. We don't do linkbuilding. We don't use a seo-agency. We do all stuff on our own. So why this major change and what impact will it have?

    | alsvik
    0
  • Havalina


    Im currently having some banner commercials on a relatively large Danish forum. I talked the forum owner into maing the banner "dofollow" so i could get the "juice" from the site, however im in doubt if this is good or bad for my SEO. Webmaster tools is telling me that i now have over 47.000 links from this forum. it seems like a Lot of links considering that i only have external links from about 5 other sites and the fact that my site is quite new. It seems like my site is not ranked very good yet(as mentioned in another question). I hope someone has some input 🙂 Best reguards

    | Havalina
    0
  • aidanlawlor


    I am starting a link bulding campaign and want to know where to put the reciprocal links on my site. Do i create a new specific Link Page? or do i place them on the pages that i want ranked higher? This is my first question on SEOMoz. Please be kind....:) Thanks

    | aidanlawlor
    1
  • eli.boda


    Is it worth going to the trouble to contact webmasters in person by phone rather than just using email? If so, what has been your approach to link building by phone?

    | eli.boda
    0
  • mr_w


    After reading the article http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/identifying-link-penalties-in-2012 I decided to do some investigating to see if I to have suffered from link penalties. After using site explorer I found a ton of over optimized unnatural links from jnjbtw.com and other pharmacy sites. See screen shot: My site is a website about kayak fishing we clearly have nothing to do with pharmacy, doctors or drugs. I know similar questions have been asked before about spam sites linking to you and if they affect you or not but this is about how overly optimized the links that are going to my site are.  Would this flag penguin to add a penalty to my website?  Any idea how jnjbtw.com has all these links to my site were they hacked?

    | mr_w
    0
  • BobGW


    Hello, We have a person who has a degree in the content area of our niche, and it's a wide niche area. How do we contact people on MyBlogGuest.com and ask them what they would like our person to write about? Do I private message them or get their contact off their website? What do I say to not be ignored? Thanks.

    | BobGW
    0
  • ebowdublin


    Can anyone give a yes or no as to whether paid directory listings are any use from an SEO perspective or is money better spent elsewhere? Thanks!

    | ebowdublin
    0
  • dad7more


    If I write an article that contains a link back to my site, should I post in only one place or can I post it several times?

    | dad7more
    0
  • melusine


    Hey, I have a site with a possible excessive reciprocal linking penalty. It has had a -50 penalty since October. I sent a reconsideration request in December but there has been no change. I actually dumped all the recip links from my site back in 2009, but there were thousands of them - it really was an excessive campaign that went on for years. Would it be worth it to try and have the recip links removed, like what people do with a paid links penalty? I can get the email addresses of most of these sites but it will be a huge undertaking. I haven't done anything else wrong with this site, but it does have a content problem that I've been working on. It was hit by the very first round of Panda, but I was working that out up until the penalty in October. What would you do?

    | melusine
    0
  • eli.boda


    From your experience, what have you found to be the most effective method for link building? It's starting to look like the only way to receive good links is by writing great content or offering great services and allowing the links to come in naturally (which is obviously the most important thing anway), but are there still any effective methods of getting valuable links through link building, apart from having personal connections and relationships with site owners?

    | eli.boda
    0
  • Craig210


    I have heard a few different things, and I am still not quite clear.  Regarding blog commenting, what is the preferred way to do it now? Should the text that is hyperlinked just be our main website name written out http://www.example.com?  Is anchor text the text that is hyperlinked? And should the link always go to our home page, or should it go to whatever page we are commenting about. Is blog commenting still good to do post penguin?

    | Craig210
    0
  • vendorshop


    What is the difference between External Followed Links and Total External Links, why are the numbers different? Should the numbers not be the same? I have a difference of 24 links can anyone explain why?

    | vendorshop
    0
  • dad7more


    so i have a web design firm and, when i decided i need to offer seo services i originally went with an seo reseller company. i decided to try them out on myself so i gave them 4 keywords to rank for and tried them for about 6 months. when they started, our website was in google oblivion for those 4 keywords. after 6 months some keywords are on page 1 and some at the top of page 2. the ones on page 1 are the ones i also optimized for by putting the keyword in a footer link in all my clients' sites. when i look over what they did they either wrote cheesy articles that link back to me and posted them in random places or they commented on people's blogs linking back to me. but it seemed to work. at least to get me from oblivion to page 2. now it seems to me these methods are discouraged here but they seem to do at least some good. any thoughts or comments on this?

    | dad7more
    0
  • VasilTasev


    Hello folks, I have a problem with optimizing a page for 2 different keywords. Here is the situation: On-page: Both keywords in title; both words in body text (I didn't count them but approximately 3-4 times for 100 words in total) Off-page: Exact anchor text from article directories, Synonym & Brand anchors from directories. My link building shcedule is as inconsistent as possible. I just keep around 50 links per week. I do social sharing, guest blogging with exact/synonym anchor text links and also I link to other pages across the whole site. I try to avoid site bar and footer links although I have some because it's partner links, I didn't buy them. I even asked web masters to put nofollow tag to those link after the drop because I was concerned that Penguin considers them bought links. The result: 1st keyword is going quite well, it reached 5th postion but after that dropped to the second page, which more or less I can explain with various factors such as overal keyword competition, maybe penguin thought that some links are spammy. The problem is that the second keyword is disaster. I found it in SERP after 1 month hard work on 17th page and now it is swinging between 14th and 17th page. Honestly, I am confused. Is it possible that link building with 2 keywords to the same page creates self canibalization of some kind? Just to remind that the 2 keywords are quite different, i,e. there are not related as synonyms or similar. Do you guys have had similar problem? Thanks in advance for your advice

    | VasilTasev
    0
  • WizardOfMoz


    Hi, Since Penguin is about regulating link building, here are my questions: How many percent of a site's overall links should be branded terms? How many percent of a site's overall links should be related to the site? How many percent of a site's overall links should have nofollow? Any recommendation on anchor text distribution? Lastly In your opinion, which e-commerce site you think has the best link profile? Thanks!

    | WizardOfMoz
    0
  • mbelsito


    I have read conflicting perspectives on whether or not businesses should partake in relevant conversations on blogs' or articles' comments sections. Does anyone have insight on this?

    | mbelsito
    0
  • splatdude


    Hi there: I own a website development and internet marketing business. We began providing onpage optimization as a natural extension of our website design services for our clients. I'm now personally working on the backlinks for our site, and I have a question for someone with more insight than I currently possess: You folks are probably aware that many web design agencies post footer links in their client's site, with some sort of anchor text to the effect of "website designed by Blankety Blank..." I've read that these types of sitewide footer links are probably a wash, in terms of linkbuilding value. (Thoughts anyone?) My best sense is that they help a little, but not a lot. Which led me to my next stratagem, which I'd like some feedback on the merits of... I'm thinking of offering my clients a slight price reduction in exchange for a dedicated page on their site for attribution. It wouldn't be pure self-promotion in nature; really just a brief description of tools used to build the site and a backlink. It could be part of a pre-existing "partners" page on the site, if client has one, currently. (Some of ours do...) The net result of this would be a single backlink from the main body content of client's page. Is this a smart move? I'm wondering what others think...

    | splatdude
    0
  • astahl11


    Getting ready to do some link building. I've got several lists of competitors' links, including a bunch of sites with broken links that would be a great fit to link to us. I've got a capable VA to get started work on reaching out to people. Just curious if this is the right game plan, seems a little simple: For this round of link building I'm thinking all the links would point to my root domain. -Find quality sites/links to go after -Find an email to the owner/webmaster -Have the VA send them a value proposition email(i.e. why it's good fit for all)...or tell them about broken links etc. -Follow up myself when a response is generated. -Hope/verify they link to us. Thanks for the help with the newbie questions.

    | astahl11
    0
  • ba_seomoz


    Hello, Our site is struggling organically and one of the key factors (not surprisingly) is a lack of backlinks.  We have hired a content writer and are working on a content strategy to generate quality, relevant backlinks.  But this is more of a long term project. After reviewing backlinks to our competitors' sites, it seems clear that they are using agencies or services to generate backlinks (most coming from low quality sites).  I'm aware that this isn't a good long term strategy (although it seems to be serving them well at the moment). I was hoping the community could provide some insight on products or services out there that provide "safe" backlinking strategies.  I don't want to do anything that is going to harm us in the future.  I've read a bit on the hoth, and it seems fairly safe and potentially effective, but it's hard find much objective advice on the topic. Any insight is much appreciated - thanks in advance! Jason

    | ba_seomoz
    0
  • jlane9


    This article site has a PR5 my article with author bio here, has no PR http://goarticles.com/article/A-Guide-to-an-At-Home-Spray-on-Tan/6531453/ Is this type of link of any value ? Thank you in advance, Joe

    | jlane9
    0
  • CommercePundit


    Can I share one video to multiple video sharing sites?

    | CommercePundit
    0
  • danlae


    Hi, One of the keywords i am optimizing for seems to be penalized. We are selling childrens clothes and we have 1 folder/url for each producer/designer. Main page is strong compared to competitors and we are ranging 1st for 2 most important keywords. Most of our other producer pages are ranking 2nd-4th. I took some time to rank and I had a some catalogues(hotvsnot, addsitelink, webzdirectory, 3 blogs) link into this specific folder some 3 months ago. It didnt seem to rise in ranks staying in range 12th-23rd spot. Which seemed sort of weird to me. 2 Days ago it dropped to around 120th spot. No other pages on site dropped. Looking at it now I do see that its almost 100% 'producername' in anchor text which i guess is the reason for the ranking problem and maybe the drop in rankings a couple of days ago. Blog links are completly natural, catalogues are not i guess. The total sum of links doesnt seem natural because the anchor text is same on all. Still its not that unnatural if you sell nike shoes to have a catalogue called nike and the anchor text to be pointing to it to be nike, but still. So my question is:  do i try to change anchor text in catalogues or have them completely removed ? Do i get blogs etc to link to my site using an other word than the producer name that might seem less natural ?? Thanks for your help.

    | danlae
    0

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