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RyanKent

Hi Bob.

When you receive a link, there are several ways to weigh it's value. Mainly there is the direct value of users who will see the link and click on it to drive traffic to your site. A second consideration is how the link will help you improve search engine rankings.

In this case, you already have a link from the site from their Resources page. More links from the same site wont improve your number of linking root domains, so it wont diversify your link profile in that regard. Footer links are often not seen and rarely actually used. My question to you is, how often do you think a user might see the link and click on it? I would even suggest you test the idea with your analytics.

How much will this move us up for the keyword "NLP"?

Search engine rankings can move for various reasons without your making any change. With that in mind, I don't believe receiving a footer link from this site will have any positive effect on your rankings. With that said, it can't hurt so you are welcome to obtain the link. I would rather suggest you obtain a link in one of the sidebars, or perhaps a content link in their blogs or elsewhere.

RyanKent

Should I consider setting "nofollow" for some of the links on other pages than the homepage?

Definitely not. When you nofollow a link, you do not save any link juice. You stop the link juice of flowing to the link but it does not flow to other links on your page.

The idea of optimizing your links is to step back and take a fresh look at your links and question whether they are all truly necessary and helpful. Your home page presently offers over 700 links. You really need to cut your link count to less then 100.

The primary recommendation is to provide links to the main category pages, but not all the subcategories. For example you have a Bookmaker link on your home page, then list out 25 different bookmakers. Instead simply link to the Bookmaker page and offer the bookmaker links there. Apply this process to all your categories.

The New York Times is about the most packed home page of links a site can reasonably offer, then their link count is half of yours. They can support having that many links because their DA is 100, the maximum possible for a web site, whereas your DA is 31. You really need to find a way to get under 100 links. If you do not make a change, your rankings and site indexation will suffer.

RyanKent

Link building is a rather deep topic which takes both training and experience to truly develop.

At a high level, you want to EARN links, not build them. If you provide a website which is based upon solid architecture and is well designed for a great user experience, then add well-written, authoritative, engaging, and current content to that site then others will WANT to link to your site.

For example, take a look at Rand's latest article: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/phoenix-rising-bings-new-webmaster-tools-whiteboard-friday. As of this moment the article has almost 1000 tweets not to mention 160+ likes and 85 +1s. Clearly this article will earn many additional links as well.

What makes this article, and many similar articles on SEOmoz rank well, is they are topical (i.e. related to SEO), authoritative (Rand is a recognized expert in the field of SEO and he is interviewing Duane Forrester, Sr. Product Manager @ Bing), the article is very well written and current (the changes have just been made). This combination of factors helps make a great article.

When you build your own links in forums and blog comments, many of them are tagged as "nofollow" meaning they are not directly helpful for search engine ranking. Take a look at your "Joy" and "dyslexia" links above which are "nofollow" as well.

You should also know Google values some sites and pages much higher then others. For example, if you obtain a link from the New York Times it will likely be discovered in under an hour. If you obtain a link from a random forum which is not popular the link may take a month or never be discovered.

RyanKent

500 errors should not happen. I would recommend determining the root issue and resolving it.

404s are a natural part of the internet. There is nothing inherently wrong with your site having some pages that offer 404 errors.

With that said, I recommend taking any pages with value that 404 and 301 them to the most appropriate page on your site. It will allow your link juice to be retained, and offer your users a better experience.

I would also recommend offering a soft 404 error page that offers a site map or other navigation help.

RyanKent

The Link Acquisition Assistant is a SEOmoz PRO member tool which provides that information. Try these searches in Google

RyanKent

The "revisit-after" tag has absolutely no value in HTML nor SEO. At no point of time did this tag ever have any value. There was a single search engine which was never of any significance which created this tag, but it was never adopted by Google nor anyone else.

If anyone disagrees, then I would suggest they add the following meta tag to their page:

It is no more effective then the "revisit-after" tag but at least it's original!

http://code.google.com/webstats/2005-12/metadata.html

RyanKent

It is my understanding that once Google or another SE has indexed your page and the linking page, the link would be immediately established and any juice would flow immediately and completely. I have never encountered any discussion of an aging process with regards to the time it takes for a link to achieve maximum effect.

I have seen discussions which discussed the theory that an older link had more value then a newer link, but those theories were discredited.

It may take a couple months for the Linkscape to see the link and your moz toolbars to update, but you should be able to see the link in GA.

RyanKent

It can't be done with respect to Google's visibility. Anyone can link to you at any time and there is nothing you can do about it.

The main positive action you can take is to earn as many good links as possible so if you get some bad links pointed to your site they will only represent a small percentage of your total links.

I know people hate this answer but we have to trust Google has systems in place to deal with black hat SEO tactics of link spamming a competitor's site.

If you wanted to go to extreme measures, you can block a link from reaching your site in your web server settings. On Apache servers (the most common servers) you can do it in the htaccess file. Once again, this is not recommended but those who are extremely determined to block the links from working can do it this way.

RyanKent

Daniel,

I highly advise against any such method of link building. The proper link building technique is to earn links. If the links are given away free to anyone, you did not earn them. Google often views free directory links as manipulative and "inorganic".

You need to closely examine each directory. Is it a quality directory? Can anyone get in or are there authentic standards which cause a percentage of websites to be rejected? Does the directory comply with Google's Guidelines?

I have worked with multiple clients who have been penalized as a direct result of similar links to what you are describing. The result is the clients had to contact each linking site and request the links be removed. This process is very time consuming and expensive. It costs many times more to remove the links then to get them in the first place. Once again, I strongly advise against ever using any directory submission site. Even if you do not earn a penalty, the links simply offer no value.

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