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I totally agree with the statement "I like the concept that a directory is good only if you would still want the link if it passed no link juice."

However... I have a bit of an issue with Best of the Web (and many other "quality" Directories). The only reason that you would want a link without link juice is if it was bringing in traffic.

We have been on BOTW for 3 years on 5 of our websites. I have just checked and we have received a total of 9 clicks (across the board) in those 3 years. Hardly worth writing home about.

I've never met a person that uses directories other than (yell.com perhaps). I have even forced myself to use BOTW for a week instead of Google and it only lasted 3 days before I gave up.

Am I missing something?

I also just did a search on BOTW for "Air Conditioning" and this result came up: http://www.kingair.com.au (just one example that took me 10 seconds to find)

Is this really "The Best of The Web". Why would Google trust their judgement?

I think EGOL makes a pretty decent point actually.

I speak from experience... once upon a time we hired one or two respected SEO companies to write content on our air conditioning site. The content included a lot of keywords but in the main was waffle and uninteresting.

We later got proper aircon engineers to help us create our content, this included great explanations, high quality diagrams and videos/animations. This practice massively improved the user experience and significantly helped our rankings.

SEO people don't know your industry, experts (in your field) do!

I don't think that is is much of an SEO problem as long as you are targeting business in the UK.

We have lots of high ranking .co.uk sites that are unaffected by the .com alternative. We have American suppliers of products who own the .com addresses and therefore we are not in direct competition.

The only time that it could be a problem is if you are physically competing the the .com version and they sell the same product and are targeting the same keywords as you.

Your potential customers may end up buying from the wrong company.

So in my opinion this is a branding issue rather than a Search Engine ranking issue.

You have an quite a bit of unnatural Anchor Text with the key phrase "lifestyle magazine"

Just 2 examples (but there are many more)

http://www.young-baby-how-to-succeed.com/One_in_Ten_Parents_Do_not_Sterilise_Their_Babys_Bottle.html (unnatural text only used to fool Google)

http://katyroofers.net/resources.php?cid=8&page=4 (spammy looking page)

I have seen much worse than this but it might be worth submitting a reconsideration request to Google to see if you have been given a penalty.

If this is not the case you need to "produce a magazine that is much more popular than the competition and acquire higher quality links."

I write linkbaits for my own websites . They often get picked up by big blogs and we get a lot of useful links out of them.

Recently the New York Times stumbled across my air conditioning blog and asked me to join their debate on air conditioning.

I'm used to making pretty boring topics fun.

Although EGOL might be right.... I'm usually busy and I'm not cheap.

Some Examples of posts that went viral:

http://www.rollaramp.co.uk/news/infuriating-wheelchair-ramps/

http://www.airconco.com/news/9-most-extreme-air-conditioning-repairmen-1243.html/

http://www.insuranceclaims.co.uk/news/freaky-car-crashes/

http://www.airconco.com/news/how-not-to-install-an-air-conditioning-unit-1190.html/

http://www.insuranceclaims.co.uk/news/7-strangest-places-that-people-work/

I also do infographics too if you are interested.

Firstly I have no proof of whether or not it is good for rankings so you may want to stop reading now.

Having said that... My personal view has always been that if the link is going off to somewhere that adds extra value to what you are blogging about then it is worth linking to.

I wouldn't just put a link to the homepage of a industry relevant website for no reason.

Wouldn't the internet be an awful place if posts didn't link off to other insightful or funny points of views or videos.

If I was Google I would want to promote sharing of useful information so I think there would be a little algorithmic boost for sharing other sites.

Google says design your website for users, so I think it makes perfect sense. Why would you be punished for supplying good information?

....And for some further insightful reading see this link I just discovered!: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/5-reasons-you-should-link-out-to-others-from-your-website

I know that I'm not directly addressing the question, however, you should really proof read your website!

There are countless grammatical / spelling errors on the homepage alone. This is on your testimonial:

| "I was searching online and found Singapore Dry Cleaning. Their price are very reasonable and also very efficient service. I am using them for quite awhile and i am very pleased and impressed with their service. Will recommend them to nayone who needs laundry and dry cleaning service." |
| Miss Cathy (Ang Mo kio)" |

I'm not saying that spelling is a big part of Google's algorithm, but it will make you look far more professional to your customers.

I can't see any reason why you would have a link penalty so it must be something else.

You do have one immediately obvious issue on your site. 95% of the text is an image so it cannot be read by Google. You have to fix this!

It may well be recent. Another possibility is that a trigger has been sent off because you have too many unnatural looking links (as a %).

Best thing to do is to have any recent spammy links to your website removed. Then post a reconsideration request.

Then you will know the situation that you are in.

Before removing links it is worth posing a reconsideration request to google. This will confirm if your site has been manually punished.

This removes a lot of the doubt out of the process so definitely do this first.

If you have lots more links like this http://kierszencweig.com/with-wordpress-website-design-to-make-websites/ (this is super dodgy!) then you may well have a unnatural link penalty!!

I think your site is pretty good but would also be nice to show-off some of the end results e.g show some great images that your students will be able to achieve. This is more of a salesy point rather that search engine ranking one, however, if you have some great images on your site you could start getting some real good natural links!.

Hi,

There are a few ways to go about this, but for the best results you have to use all the tricks in tandem.

1. Firstly the copy has to be really interesting, funny and/or look amazing.

Your standard boring 300 word articles do not cut it. There has to be something unique and offer extra value to other info on the web.

2. Promotion - There is no point in creating great content if it's not going to be found I have found 2 effective ways of doing this.

• Getting you post featured on famous blogs. Having great contacts in the blog world always helps, but is difficult to build up a quick relationships especially if blogging isn't your business. So I recommend finding someone with experience promoting content. I would to pay between £200-£400 for a good job. (I charge £400 but I'm sure there are plenty of people that will do it for less, just make sure to have proof that they can do it

  Examples:
  http://www.rollaramp.co.uk/news/infuriating-wheelchair-ramps/ http://www.airconco.com/news/how-not-to-install-an-air-conditioning-unit-1190.html

• If you are not looking to promote the content then it's important to write about something that people will search for. I wrote an article a few years back about the hottest cities in the world. It got no attention when it was initially published but now it ranks top on google for many search terms and always brings in at least 100 hits a day. Best tip is to use Google Keyword tool to find long-tail questions that people ask, then write about them.

http://www.airconco.com/news/the-worlds-10-hottest-major-cities-839.html

• The two options above are scattergun approaches that bring in traffic to your site but do not guarantee top quality links, however, they significantly improve your chances. For good quality links you need to hustle by going out to respected websites and ask them to publish your blog post. It's hard work but high value. For example find a college website that is teaching people about a specific subject that you can offer extra value on and ask them to put a link to your page.

• Finally, if you become an renowend blogger in your field you get asked to write things for newpapers etc. The New York Times found our blog (ranks first for air conditioning blog on google) and asked us to write a piece for them.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/06/21/should-air-conditioning-go-global-or-be-rationed-away/air-conditioning-made-this-debate-possible

Hope this helps a bit.