Thursday, December 18, 2008

Where Trust Lives - An Example

Sometimes when I'm giving a link building presentation, I'll show the audience a site like this: Directory of open access journals, and tell them it's an example of where trust lives. People look confused. Eyes glaze over. So what do I really mean? And what value would a site like this have from a link building perpsective? I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I will reply right here on this post again in a few days with my explanation of the many ways a site like this is incredibly important for certain link builders.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Revenge of the Librarians - Don't Hate me for Being Right

.
Revenge of the Linking Librarians

Today I saw the below announcement.

I-Schools Announce Reference Extract Web Search Project

If you're so inclined, I suggest you have a look at the RefEx site, and read the above article, because it will help you understand what I have been preaching about links for over a decade.

Some perspective is in order. I spent a couple years in Library School back in the early nineties under some amazing professors, Jose-Marie Griffiths and Carol Tenopir among them. I watched as the web seemingly came out of nowhere and in some ways snuck up more than a few library school's curricula. Jose and Carol were among those who did see the web of the future, and helped me tremendously (and boy did the web kill Gopher).

I left a few courses shy of my MLS degree to start my content linking and publicity company (dubbed NetPOST back then), and have predicted to whoever would listen ever since that underpaid and hard working librarians would one day arrive en-masse and help make sense of the mess that is the web. They've already been doing this on a library by library basis for years.

I've called it Revenge of the Librarians, and it's why for many many years I have been methodically reaching out to and building contacts and rapport with librarians all over the globe. I bet over half the links I have sought for clients over the years have been from librarians. True, this is easy when the content you are seeking links for is from PBS.org, or NationalGeographic.com, or Discovery.com, but that's the point. Meritorious content earns trusted links. You can't fool a librarian.

Back when I wrote columns under the pen name Linkmoses, I preached for years about meritorious content and earned citation trust, and most of you looked at me like I was an alien. I talked about etiology and trust flow, and you laughed. Called me old school or worse. When I told you your sites weren't good enough to earn the types of merit-based links that would then result in long term earned search rank, you hung up on me and hired a black hatter. For those of you who have heard me speak at conferences, you know that at the end of my sessions I am famous for taking a moment to predict where search is headed, and the potential implications for link building. I'd whisper just one word: Librarians. I think Shari Thurow was the only one in the room who smiled.

I hinted at this in an article a couple years back titled Where Is The Mother of All Links?

Back to RefEx. I don't know what the adoption rate of this new engine/tool will be. Ultimately it will depend on the value the search results offer to the searcher. Certainly there will be value to the academic side of the search world. Consumers may need a bit of help to find it, as the inertia of search habits tends to lead us all to Google. After all, if someone with the brand, clout, and pocketbook as deep as Disney couldn't make Infoseek work, can anyone really hope to gain a foothold in today's search world? I think yes, but people wont find RefEx on their own. We can help.

In my perfect future search world, RefEx results will become a standard toggle selection option for Google, Live, and Ask, giving all searchers exposure to RefEx results, without them having to visit the RefEx site and conduct searches there. The impact of such an integration would be astounding.

-Eric

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Paid Links from .edu's - Good, Bad or Ugly?

A reader asked...
"What about paid links from the school newspapers. Can those hurt your rankings?"
[Quick backgrounder - printed college newspapers sell advertising just like most newspapers do. The online version of those college newspapers also sell advertising, and since the online version of most school newspapers lives on a .edu TLD, a couple years ago this created a frenzy among Pagegank driven link chasers who (thought they) found a loophole that allowed them to buy high Pagerank links from trusted sources]

I always go back to intent. Why are you wanting to buy a link from a college newspaper in the first place? There could be many legitimate reasons why you would do so. A local bar with a web site that offers nightly specials to college kids would be a natural for such a link buy. Or a local store or salon or car repair shop. Nationally, it's logical that a beer company or even Nike or Doritos would want to advertise to a college audience and maybe even try to drive a bit of traffic to a web site by buying an online link in the school newspaper web site.

The motivations and intent in the above examples are fairly evident. Doritos isn't chasing search rankings via that link buy. Nobody is searching for "tasty triangular shaped snack chips" as you can see here. No, the motivation for the links buys from Nike or Doritos or the local bar are all simple demographically driven advertising in hopes of click traffic.

Other web sites have different intent when they choose to buy an .edu based link from a school newspaper. Take a look at the bottom of the main page for the University of Tennessee Daily Beacon. Here's a link to it, and below is a screen capture of the ugliness. Remember, all these paid links are located on a University newspaper's web site in Knoxville TN.


Now you tell me the intent of these advertisers. When was the last time a college kid in Knoxville needed to rent a limo in Orlando? Buy an artificial Christmas Tree? Use a Restaurant Supply firm? Subscribe to US News and World Reports (which they can read free already)? How about never? I went to undergrad and graduate school at the above school, and I can pretty much remember most of those days. I never bought one single kitchen sink in all my years in college.

Shocking.

So why did these companies buy these links? Bad intent. Intent to game search rank via buying links on (potentially) trustworthy content. But remember, it took my average brain all of 60 seconds to find these same advertisers and links on plenty of other school newspaper web sites. How fast does the world's most powerful brain (aka algorithm) notice them? Pretty Damn Fast.

But the question was will your site be penalized for engaging in this approach? Probably not, but the larger point is the approach itself wont work, and by participating in it you send plenty of other signals to the bots that you might be very unhappy about. Why cheat in such an obvious and silly way? Why cheat when the bots are seconds away from finding it? Why cheat at all?

As I wrote in .edu Inbound Link Fallacies, all TLD's have crap, and all TLD's have gold. Paid links on a school newspaper in Tennessee about limousines in Orlando. That friend, is pure crap.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Backlink Research Best Practices - Linkscape

(updated August 24, 2009)

My silence regarding Linkscape has been mistaken by several people as meaning I don't like it. Quite the contrary. I do like it, and I'll post here what I've posted on a few other blogs, almost verbatim.

Over the years I have lost count of the 3rd party link building and link analysis tools and software I've tried out, many of which are long gone. What is most telling to me is that I abandon them when it comes time for
heavy lifting deep vertical link target ID and evaluation. I wont go so far as to say "All you need is Google and your brain", but it's close to being true, at least for the type of client content I work with. Linkscape is outstanding and useful for a very specific set of metrics and measures, and for a certain type of link builder will be quite helpful. I commend Rand for it and I will use it to augment my own personal approach to the link building research process when I feel it will help me.

Old School Link BuildingOn the other hand, I'm old school and have never been a big user of any tools other than my own privately created (and really simple) scripts. As much as I want and look forward to every new tool, I keep thinking about Rocky IV, where Ivan Drago was using every cutting edge tool and training method available, while Rocky Balboa ran around in the snow with a log on his back. The savviest link builders know how and when to use tools and logs.

Lost in all this tool talk is that it doesn't matter how rockin' your link intelligence is if you don't have meritorious content that can earn the types of links that matter in the first place. I have my own methodology to ID the exact set of targets that will allow just about any site in any vertical to rank extremely high. But this information is useless unless it is used by a truly meritorious site that also knows how to seek and get those links. No tool can finish this journey for you, and like Rocky in the snow or a marathon runner, the first part is easy. It's the last few miles that are hard, and where the battle is won.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Joe The Plumber and Link Building Best Practices

Right now, tens of thousands of Americans are searching for Joe The Plumber. You can thank John McCain for this, though I'm not sure Joe will in the long run. SEL is live with a post about the search impact. See Joe The Plumber, The Presidential Debates & Search.

The sudden spike in searches for JTP (That's my shorthand for ole Joe), can help illustrate the Search Flow Link Building model. Yesterday, nobody had heard of Joe. Today, everyone knows Joe. While this will bring out the worst in the SEM world, it can also bring out the best. So what's the best? What's a 100% white hat method of taking advantage of Joe's good fortune?

The obvious beneficiaries are Joe himself, or this site http://joetheplumber.com (ironic isn't it that the Joe mentioned during the debate is not the Joe who owns JoeThePlumber.com). But, other sites specifically devoted to plumbing, like this one Plumbing Supply.com have much to gain, if they know what to do and how, when, where, and why. And I don't mean the thousands of soon-to-be-issued press releases that will have the "Joe The Plumber" phrase all over them in deep anchored glory. Not at all. And I don't mean the thousands of blog posts, just like this one, that will use the phrase "Joe The Plumber" in their titles. That's just pandering to the search flow, rather than utilizing it strategically.

One way a plumbing supply site could take advantage of the Joe frenzy is this. Set up a Google news alert for the phrase "Joe The Plumber". Toggle to by sort by date. If you are confused, here you go http://snipurl.com/4ewqi.

Now, as those alerts arrive, visit the sites found and look for a contribution opportunity. If the site is the New York times and the article allows for comments, you go in with this one or something more to your own opinion.
Listnening to the candidates say Joe The Plumber over and over in many ways demeaned Joe and for that matter the plumbing industry. I know I felt sorry for Joe after the 18th time McCain said it. Our industry is not a bunch of idiots. We know when we are begin used like a volleyball for someone elses purposes. Exactly like what I'm doing here. Regards, the staff at PlumbingToolsAreUs.com
Before you jump me about nofollow and linkjuice, I know this type of link is not going to help your rank. I'm not after rank. I'm after the traffic flow. Publicity driven link building. If I wanted links that would help rank, I'd use a different tactic, and I know what it would be. Do you? I'll follow up with it here soon. Eric

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Outlinking Best Practices - Rule 1

Some people hesitate to link back to a site that is of really high quality, out of worry that by adding a link they create a recip loop, which they think devalues that high value link in the process. I look at it another way. There are many reasons why you might link out to another site that's linking to you. For example, what if my site at EricWard.com was mentioned in The New York Times, and they linked to me as well. I'd be insane if I did not include a blurb about this on my site, with a link back to it where readers on my site could go see it. When I do this, it is no different than any other reciprocal link loop, except that the two sites doing the linking are of highest quality in their respective niches. There is no reason to let any engine dictate high level linking like this.

Rule of Outlink #1 is...

Link freely and often, but first apply a degree of scrutiny similar to that used when selecting a new suit, engagement ring, or proctologist.

FYI - The Great Link Race Has Begun, But To Where?

I'm getting some amazing private feedback about my column from yesterday at SearchEngineLand

The Great Link Race Has Begun, But To Where?
http://searchengineland.com/the-great-link-race-has-begun-but-to-where-15003.php

Monday, October 13, 2008

Link Building Podcast and Transcript with Eric Ward

Thank you to Jerry M. for alerting me to this podcast transcript. It's a couple years old but still 100% on target.

On April 5, 2007 Eric Enge and Eric Ward, aka Link Moses, spoke about some of the latest events affecting the world of link building. Here is the transcript of that podcast.

http://www.ericward.com/link-building-podcast.html

Here is the original audio
http://www.stonetemple.com/podcasts/Eric-Ward-Podcast-040507-Transcript.shtml

Friday, September 26, 2008

Answer to: After The Basics - Now What?

TravelingNinja asked...

I've taken a new site from 1 backlinks to 350 in five months of hard work. I've done the basics: submitted to niche and free mainstream directories, posted in forums, exchanged some links, and requested some links. What can I do next?

Link building for a new site with no links is my perfect scenario. You don't have to worry about previous mistakes or link spam, and you have a clean slate on which to work. But, as TN notes, after the basics what do you do? Two word answer: vertical publicity.

What's the subject of the site? You mentioned you submitted to niche directories, but depending on the niches these are just as notorious for junk and swaps as the wannabeeyahoos. I suggest you compile a list of the top sites that appear in a both the regular and blog search results for your most important phrases. Look for common citations A site that is showing up in both results, even on page two or three, is doing something right. On the blog results, bookmark every site that has mentioned the site that is also ranking well in regular search. Also compile a list of every niche content site and blog that is not a competitor. This is the start of a publicty and public relation driven link building campaign. You aren't after niche directories here. You are seeking editorial mentions or blogroll inclusions from the key influencers in your niche.

This is just a scratch at the surface, but a good scratch.





NOTE: To ask a link building related question, click the Comments link below, or the link at the bottom of any individual posts

New Link Building Boot Camp

I just finished teaching a one month link building boot camp, which was a custom training project I created for a specific client in a tight vertical. During the course of the month, it became obvious the boot camp was working very well, the client was learning, becoming self sufficient at link building, and most of all getting results. They told me I should offer the boot camp to other clients...

Hmmm. Now why didn't I think of that?

After reverse organizing the previous boot camp into a service description, I'm happy to announce ...

30 Day Private Link Building Boot Camp with Eric Ward

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

UPDATED: .edu Inbound Link Fallacies

One of the bigger link building hot topics is the impact that IBL (inbound links) originating from .edu locations can have on your link popularity and search rankings. Lost in the discussion is that the quality of IBL's from within the .edu domain varies significantly.

Rather than making this concept more complex than it needs to be, let's boil it down by example. A link from a student homepage or school paper web site isn't as valuable as a link from a professor's page, or better yet, the University library site. Why? because it's easy for those who are into black hat stuff to buy links from students, wheras a librarian isn't likely to be bought. Thus the content EARNED the link, and the source and citation can be trusted. Engines know this and will tweak algos until they get it right. I hope, anyway. Give me 10 library links instead of 100 student page links any day.

Likewise with .gov and others. Any TLD has crap, and any TLD has gold.

Another linking topic that gets folks excited is geographic IBL variety. This is another way of saying you need links from a bunch of countries. Not true. Links from around the world may not matter one IOTA for your particular site.

More fallacy regarding directory inclusion. I can say with complete certainty that the older the site the more useless those directory IBLs are. I rank 1st for all key terms and I'm in only two directories. Why do I rank? Simple. Because a). I never went after rank, and B). I stayed true to my content and expertise. That said, since I do rank high I can reverse analyze my links and learn why, but just because I can tell you doesn't mean you can get those links. You have to earn them via meritorious content.

For a newer site, the game changes. The new site's IBL profile or "link transcript" or "link signature" needs to slowly percolate towards becoming something that looks natural and trustworthy. I see evidence every day that the links that help me rank 1st will not help every site site rank 1st.

So what works for one site WILL NOT work for every site, which is why it's such a challenge to create software/tools that can analyze links with any degree of confidence. In the end, a human still has to make some very tricky decisions about whether or not ANY link is worth pursuing. The answer will be different for every site, and thus the potential link target sites need to be different as well.

----------------------------------------------

Eric's Note: I included the updated version of the above article as it appears people are as in love with .edu based link targets today as they were many years ago. I base this on several inquiries I received, the last one of which I have included below.

Dear Mr. Ward,
We are a manufacturer and seller of high end playgound equipment designed for municipalities. Our site is http://xxxxxxxx. We would be very interested in a quote from you for the following...
- obtaining 100 .edu based inbound links
/snip

NOTE: To ask a link building related question, click the Comments link below, or the Post a Comment link at the bottom of any individual post.

Monday, September 15, 2008

LBBP - The Weekly Delete - Avis Edition

You would think the fine folks at AVIS would know better. Once upon a time Avis used the tagline "We Try Harder" in their TV ads. I wish that ethos carried over to their online marketing efforts. The below link request from AVIS's SEM firm is truly insulting. It's a great example of the Lying Link Building Liar approach (Apologies to Al Franken). Why? First, within the first 25 words they lie. After a dehumanizing greeting, the parade of lies starts with I have visited your website. No, No you haven't. Nobody could visit my site, see my picture, see my name appearing 10 times before the scroll, see that my site has nothing to do with Israel, or rental cars, or travel, and then think they could reach me via an email address with the word webmaster in it. That is, unless they never looked at my site in the first place.

You are a liar. Lie lie lie, you good-intentioned but nonetheless lying liar.


The kicker is after all that, they then write
Competitive compensation is offered. Nice. So here's what this email tells us about Avis: They are willing to buy a link on a site that they have not even seen, have no idea what the subject matter of that site it is about, and are so eager and willing to do so they will offer top dollar to whoever runs the site, which again, they have no idea who is.

All this, and we haven't even touched on the comically-long-and-strategically-kiss-of-death URL they are seeking links for in the first place.

Below is the full email, and I close with DELETE.
__________________________________
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Placing our link in your website
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2008 23:38:44 +0300
From:
Reply-To: lxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxractive.com
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Dear Webmaster,

My name is Xxxxx and I am a member of online marketing team who handles Avis Israel.
I have visited your website and would like you to consider placing our link in your website. We are open for other options as well.If you would like to take a look at our website please do so and let us know what you think.


http://avis.co.il/avis/site/local/avis/english/Israexxxxxxxxxxxx.jsp?

Competitive compensation is offered. An answer would be greatly appreciated. Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Best Regards,

Lxxxx

Avis online marketing team

Lxxxx@xxxxxxxxxractive.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


NOTE: To ask a link building related question, click the Comments link below, or the Post a Comment link at the bottom of any individual post.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Reply to Link Building Best Practices Question: How do I determine good link targets?

Asked by Steve...

"What signs do you look for to determine what a good link is?"

First my generic answer then I'll be more specific. Generic answer: A good link target will be different for every site you are seeking links for. Specific answer: For example, let's say the site you are seeking links for is devoted to everything about the history of Jazz music, like this one http://www.apassion4jazz.net, then an example of an absolute highest quality and trusted target site would be
http://www.wku.edu/Library/dlps/rsrchguides/dept/html/music.html

Why? Many reasons. First, always look for the INTENT of the target site. In my example above the intent of this library based music web guide is pretty evident. That site isn't there to sell links, barter links, swap links, trade links, triangulate links, or any other silly link scheme. The intent has nothing to do with any search engine. That site exists as a resource to help people. And whether or not this target site EVER sends even one visitor to apassion4jazz.net, really isn't important from a link building standpoint. What's important is that a link from that site and others like it send incredibley powerful signals of trust to the search engines.

The beauty of this is it doesn't take many such signals/links to get to a point where the engines will then, by extension and association, trust apassion4jazz.net as well.

And as this search result shows, they obviously do.

Eric Ward
Link Building Best Practices


NOTE: To ask a link building related question, click the Comments link below, or the Post a Comment link at the bottom of any individual post.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Link Building Best Practices - How Failure Makes You Better

Life here is good again, and I'm taking new business in selected verticals. I'll also be speakng at SMX East in New York, in October.

However...

When I don't manage my business well, I admit it. When I fail my clients, I admit it. And I also send them money back. And it hurts.

This past April, May, June, and July, were torture. The scheduling challenges posed as a result of assorted family emergencies really came home to roost. I take the blame. The idea that I could keep clients happy while going dark as I tended to family matters across the country was foolish.

I should have pulled down my site, or at least the paypal buttons, until I was ready for new business. The bottom line has two parts. Part One is I let too many client communiques slip through the cracks. Part Two is I refunded many clients for consulting calls that have not been able to happen at the speed and depth with which I'd hoped. So I've lost income and annoyed clients at the same time. Ouch.

Lesson after lesson after lesson learned the hard way. I have failed wide and deep for three months running.

But...I'm back and I'm not budging until I make it right. That's how you do it. So come back. There's a bonus in it for those who do.

Eric


NOTE: To ask a link building related question, click the
Comments link below, or the Post a Comment link at the bottom of any individual post.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

LBBP - The Weekly Delete - Back with a Vengeance

After nearly a month away from the blog, I'm not necessarily back to where I want to be, but it's time to be done with the pity party, kids gotta eat, mortgage(s)(s)(s) gotta get paid. First, thanks to you all for the many kind words, plus the excellent link building questions. I will answer them one by one starting tomorrow, but for today, I begin a new feature here at the Link Building Best Practices blog, called the LBBP Weekly Delete.

The Weekly Delete will feature a real link request email that I received in my own inbox, which in and of itself is just idiotic, but I get them every day. Some are priceless. This one, pasted below for your pleasure, w
ith exact formatting intact, is so bad it hurts. The saddest part of this to me is that someone somewhere was able to be convinced that this approach was worth paying for. It isn't.

Have a look and tell me, if you could give the very eager but misguided Rakesh one (and only one) piece of advice, what would it be?

__________________________________
------ Original Message --------
Subject: Regarding Link Exchange With SITE-XYZ.com
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:23:33 +0530
From: Rakesh

To: eric@ericward.com


Dear Web Master,

We are in process of link building of our site to increase its relevancy and traffic with the top SEO Company’s. I am sending you the request for becoming link partner.

As you can see my site ranks highly in Google with many keywords.

Title: Link Building India
URL: URL removed to spare them the indignity

Description: offers Professional link building services and link popularity building solutions. We offer reciprocal and non-reciprocal (one way) link building services, delivering high (PR) page rank and relevant links.

I will place your link here:-

URL removed to spare them the indignity  (2 PR)
URL removed
(2 PR)
URL removed
(2 PR)
URL removed
(1 PR)
URL removed
(1 PR)
URL removed
(1 PR)
URL removed (1 PR)
URL removed
(At any category)
URL removed
any category)

Send your text link details to be added on my site, your link will be added immediately.

I will welcome any hearing from your side.

Regards,

Name removed to spare Rakesh the indignity
__________________________________



NOTE: To ask a link building related question, click the Comments link below, or the Post a Comment link at the bottom of any individual post.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

What is the meaning of life, and link building?

It's been an eventful Spring and Summer. In April my father David Ward passed away, in a miserable sort of slow-motion way, and on his birthday of course. Dad had a great life, considering it ended -and started- terribly. (that's him below on an airplane somewhere over America, circa 1960)

Dad was from Duluth MN, and had polio as a child. He finished high school from his hospital bed, then found the means to flee the frigid Duluthian tundra and make his way to college at the somewhat less fridgid Northwestern, where he was determined to make something of himself. He did so. In fact, my Dad's marketing savvy for Shulton in the '60s and '70s is one reason Old Spice is a National Brand today. He didn't get rich, because back then you didn't get rich by being a loyal company man, but he was good at what he did, worked hard at it, took nothing for granted, and probably deserved better than he got.

(SIDE NOTE: When I was 15, we moved from New Jersey to Tennessee, and I was not happy about it. Dad was smart enough and gentle enough to wisely convince his skeptical and snotty son (me) to go to high-school here, which cost Dad a fortune, instead of where I wanted to go, which would have cost him nothing. He was generous even when I didn't deserve it)

After Dad's death, and after putting up a brave face for several weeks, my Mom was admitted to the hospital . She ended up staying in the hospital for over a month, which necessitated several additional trips out and back to Phoenix. Each of these trips have the unintended consequence of causing my older brother and hero Steve or I to stop work quickly and mobilize for travel cross country. During these times I can lose touch with clients, they can get (rightfully) annoyed , and I can end up making the whole world mad, losing money in the form of client refunds along the way. I have a 6 year old (Noah) and a 1 year old (Abram) at home that I also have to say goodbye to for these trips, and that's no fun for me, or my wife.

As a mid-Summer-bad-news-palate cleanser, in early July our 3 year old golden retriever Izzy was killed by a reckless moron driving way too fast for the road in front of our house. Izzy had gotten out of the backyard, ran into the road, was hit, limped home, and collapsed. Dead. The rest is just too sad to write about. She was the most gentle animal I've ever met.

You know what's more fun than a barrel-o-monkeys? Explaining to your son that his dog is dead. After the initial shock and tears, the conversation goes something like this:
NOAH: "Daddy, when I die will I get to see Izzy and Grampa again in heaven?"
DAD: (to himself) "There is no god Noah, because if there was a god none of these things would happen and Al Gore would have been our President.

DAD: (out loud) "Yes Noah, we will all be together again one day in heaven and it will be awesome, and we know this because that's what they teach us in Sunday School, right buddy?"
NOAH: "Right Dad!"

SHOOT. ME. NOW.

If there has been one positive thing to happen this Summer, it was my wife Melissa urging us to give the boys (and ourselves) a Summer so good they'd have a chance to forget the bad. So off and on we've spent most of the Summer in a house a couple blocks from the beach next to Seaside Florida. People like to make fun of this area, but they don't get it. It is a wonderful place, and I get to watch my son thrive in this not-of-this-world idyllic bubble, just as Truman Burbank did, only for me it's by choice, and I get to play with Noah doing things like skim boarding, surfing, trail mountain biking, hanging at the ocean, and just trying to provide a sense of normalcy during a time that is anything but.

I'll wrap this up with a note aimed at anyone who has been trying to do business with me over the past 4 months. I'm here and working, just not as much as you'd like. Parents come first, wife and kids come second, myself third, and you, patiently waiting client, come fourth. It has to be that way, for now.

I'm working a few hours each day, as well as late in the evening when the kids are asleep. In mid-August, when school starts and we're back in Knoxville full-time, I will be back providing link building services, strategy, and training, working longer hours, as usual. I have to. I'm going to buy that place at the beach and semi-retire by gosh, and you, my new and existing clients, are what will make that possible.

Thank you for your time and patience.

Eric


Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Updated - Farewell LinkMoses, Hello Link Building Q&A

Regular readers know I've been building links since the launch of TheTitanicJustSank.com, or close to it. This wasn't by design. I just had the bad/good luck to lose my advertising job at the right time; Early nineties. I needed something new to do, I went to grad school, and the Internet fell into my lap. The full story of the early years of ericward.com is yet to be written, but I hope to get to it this Summer.

The whole LinkMoses shtick was also an accident. A few years ago someone at a conference made fun that I was still link building, like it was a disease. So I made lemonade out of the joke and turned it into a few thousand new inbound links. Don't mess with a link builder...

I've never intended to be an expert at anything, and the only reason I know so much about link building is that I had the sense or stupidity to stay focused on just that one skill as the web exploded around me. I could have done a thousand different things, but I stayed the link building course. I passed up a $1.3 million buyout offer from BCentral. I ignored Overtures from Overture. I didn't move to San Francisco, Seattle, or New York like everyone thought I should. I stayed right here in my garage office. I didn't write a book when the publishing houses called. Instead I kept doing what I liked. Studied web sites and links. Watched how content gets known, linked, found, by who, when, and where. I did a few industry shows back when just us geeks went. Back when real talent like Danny Sullivan was working his rear off at his kitchen table for just a couple hundred appreciative readers. Somehow my business strategy resulted in other authors writing about me in their books. Again, accidently successful. I was and remain to this day very happy doing what I do. I hope to continue being a content publicist/link builder for many more years.


For several reasons I'm a bit reflective right now. I'm also worn down a bit due to criticism, some deserved and some not, from folks who have have taken issue with my contributions to several link building expert articles. They say I don't give up any secrets. I don't provide worthwhile advice. My answers to link value factors questions are too vague.

Fair enough. This month I begin Link Building Best Practices - Q&A With Eric Ward.

I'll take questions from all comers and turn the best of them into posts where I provide my opinion on what the best practice should be for that particular topic. Send them to lbquestion@ericward.com. I don't pretend for one moment to believe that my best practices should be your best practices. I'm just using this avenue as a way to provide very specific advice and opinion developed over the course of building links for 1,000+ new and old sites from 1994 til today. Here's the link to the Link Building Best Practices RSS feed

Link well friends!

Eric Ward


Thursday, April 10, 2008

Anchor Text Best Practices - Update 8-24-09

I've contributed to several Link Value Factors type articles, including SEOmoz's and Wiep's, and was glad to be included by Rae Hoffman in her awesome Link Development Experts Group Interview. I always have a tough time providing the kinds of answers that would be useful without being so long as to put people to sleep. I can't sum up my own best practices for something like link anchor text in a few words. But I can try to do so here. If it bores you then think of my words as a cure for insomnia.

Here are several anchor text BPs that I hope do a better job of explaining the challenge and nuance of link text.


1). The most trustworthy pages will NEVER let you control your own anchor text, and it is obnoxious to ask. Case in point. See the below site.



Here's how they link out...
The Queen of Trees view more info comment email item
Website for a program that looks at the relationship b
etween a Kenyan fig tree and the wasps that pollinate its flowers. Includes background about fig trees in general and about sycomore figs trees in Kenya, a photo essay on sycomore figs and fig wasps, video clips, and related essays and links. From the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) show Nature.
URL: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/queenoftrees/
Added to LII: 2006-06-08
If you were the link builder for the site being linked to above, of course you'd be thrilled if the above link instead had words like Kenyan fig tree or wasps or pollinate flowers. But that's not going to happen, because every content editor has their own fairly evident method for how they link to other sites.

Asking someone who has put a lot of time and effort into finding great sites to change the protocol they use for outlinks, just for you and your site, is not very polite nor effective. Be happy you got a link at all. This doesn't mean you cannot ever get the exact anchor text you want, but let's be real. Anyone willing to grant you that kind of control over what's essentially part of their content must not have too stringent a requirement for what they call "content". As Groucho Marx once said, "I would not join any club that would have someone like me for a member." If Groucho were a link builder today, he'd say "Any site willing to give me a link plus whatever anchor text I ask for is not a site I'd want a link from in the first place".

2). As much as you might want to include HTML code in the email you send to the target site editor, don't. Why? Same as above. And don't you love it when you get email from someone you don't know telling you what to do?
"Dear webmaster, please add the below code to your website..."
Any site that will do that for another site based on receiving that type of instruction is nuts.

3). The fastest way to create a suspicious looking inbound anchor text profile is to pay too much attention to it. There are some sites that rotate the anchor text using random generation tools in hopes of approximating a natural looking anchor profile. Yes, and Burt Reynold's plastic surgeon is approximating the way Burt looked when he was thirty. See for yourself.

Yep. No doubt about it...perfectly natural...

4). Start with your own on-site anchor text first. By that I mean the anchor text YOU use to link to YOUR OWN PAGES from your own pages. This is especially true for sites that are already ranking fairly well. Here's an example that illustrates the power of on site anchor text.

Do this Google allinanchor search: allinanchor: link bait strategy

Of Google's
27,300 results, the first page listed is mine. See below.

Results 1 - 10 of about 27,300 for allinanchor: link bait strategy.
Expert Link Bait Consulting and Link Bait Content Strategy Plan...
Eric Ward . com -
My approach to link bait is based on nearly 15 years of successful link building and publicity generation for timely or new content. I use my experience to perform a link bait analysis/audit of any existing linkbait in your niche, to determine what role link baiting can play in your online marketing strategy. I then work with you by phone to concept the types of linkbait/content you can create for the best strategic effect. www.ericward.com/linkbait-services.html- 21k -Cached - Similar pages
Here's the kicker. That page from my site ranks first out of 27,300 pages, but there is only one (that's 1) page linking to that page, and it's from my own site's homepage. Let that sink in. No other sites or pages are linking to my page using that anchor text, except my own, and Google has plenty of other pages they could rank ahead of me, but they don't. The primary conclusion I draw from this is Google has a great deal of trust for the anchor text I use to point to my own pages. It's true that the trust I speak of comes from the overall collection of inbound links I've earned over the years in the first place, but the point lost in this is once you have such trust, don't ignore it as a driver of rankings for...yourself.

Over a year ago I wrote a related piece for Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land called
Are You In The Circle Of Link Trust? The point of that column?
"In the course of seeking new links and publicity for new content on an existing site, don't ignore your already trustworthy content as a driver of reputation for the new content. If you are in the enviable position of already having high rankings, if you're in the circle of link trust, leverage it"
5). There is no perfect percentage for keyword anchored vs. non-keyword anchored backlinks. People want to hear me say something definitive like you should try to keep your off site inbound keyword anchored backlink profile to no more than 20% of your overall IBLP. If that makes you happy, go for it.

I wonder what percentage of Adobe Acrobat's backlinks say "click here" in the anchor text? Looks like more than 20%


NOTE: To ask a link building related question, click the Comments link below, or the Post a Comment form at the bottom of any individual post.

To request a private
Link Building Strategy Session, Analytics, and Blueprint read more here.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Yahoo Directory Paid Link Best Practices?

If your site is listed in the Yahoo directory, and you didn't pay for it or you got in back before they charged the review fee, then IMO you leave it alone. Make no changes and enjoy the free ride. I have two Yahoo directory links for two of my sites, both grandfathered because they are ancient. If I was asked by Yahoo to start paying for those two, I'd probably drop them both. On the other hand, there are instances where I do recommend paying the review fee. A new site in a very competitive topic may want to pay, because commercial sites already listed in the Yahoo Directory to can then also receive enhanced placement (for another fee) in certain commercial categories in the directory. Read more about the Yahoo Sponsored Listing options here. FYI, tried this program out a few years ago and in my case chose to stop after three months.

-Eric

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

What are the best practices for submitting to directories?

It will depend on whether you mean directories like Yahoo or directories like the hundreds listed around the web that nobody ever heard of and nobody ever uses? Seriously, when was the last time someone looking for a new bicycle started their search at link-a-pa-looza.biz? How about never?

The best practices for directory link building depend on several factors all driven by the site you are seeking links for. If you are seeking links for a brand new site at a brand new domain launching for the very first time, then you have nothing to lose and a few decent links to gain by submitting to the many non-descript directories available. Just don't expect much. Now, if the site you are seeking links for is CNN.com, then there is zero value in submitting to directories. So, what I tell clients is to think of their web site as existing on a continuum. On the far right are sites that are well known already, that have many good links, that rank well. On the far left are new sites with no links at all. Where does your site reside on such a continuum? The more your site falls to the left side, the more those directory links might be worth chasing. The more your site is falls to the right side, meaning it's already established and pretty well linked, the less likely it is that directory links -even Yahoo- will help you, and the best practice would be to ignore general directories altogether. I have a site that ranks 1st, 2nd, or 3rd for my most important search terms, and I am not listed in any directories other than Yahoo and DMOZ. You will never convince me that all that stands in the way of bumping my 14 year old well linked site up to position one is a few new links from marginal non-subject-specific directories.

-Eric

Link Building Best Practice Labels, Tags, and Categories

Link Building and content publicity takes place in many ways and in many venues. For example, it's in vogue right now to talk about "link bait", and link bait itself has evolved to the point where some people have strong feelings about best practices just for link bait. Link bait best practices will be different than backlink analysis best practices, which will be different from social media link building best practices, which will be different than .edu link seeking best practices. Thus a "best practices list" for link building needs to encompass as many of these venues and approaches as possible. I'll use the built in functionality of this blog software to assign keyword "labels" for each post. That way as time passes if you only want to read posts about a specific subject, you can do so.

How The Link Building Best Practices Q and A Works

First Post - April 2, 2008, by Eric Ward

To ask a link building related question, either use the POST A COMMENT link at the bottom of any post, or email it to lbbp@ericward.com. Feel free to post as anonymous, and ask me anything you want about link building or content publicity. I moderate these questions so you wont have to read 8 million questions about how to rank first at Google for viagra.

I'll take your questions and turn them into posts where I provide my opinion on what the best practice should be for that particular topic. I don't pretend for one moment to believe that my best practices should be your best practices. I'm just using this avenue as a way to provide very specific advice and opinion developed over the course of building links for 1,000+ new and old sites from 1994 til today.

Empirical data is used infrequently to support my answers and opinions, and double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled studies were not conducted. I base my answers and best practice advice on what I see has worked (or not) for me.

I'm not doing this in place of my paid consulting and training, so if your question is about a specific web site or a sensitive subject that requires significant time and research for me to thoroughly answer, you might be better off trying my fee based service here.