Table of Contents
Below are a many linking strategies, some you are aware of, and others that may be new to you. Some are white hat, some are blackhat and some are "Top Hat". These strategies should be part of your linking "mix", and you shouldn't depend too heavily on one or two strategies, but rather getting your links on a variety of other sites.
Some of these techniques will greatly enhance your SEO. And while others will have little, if any impact on your SEO, they can bring you direct traffic, branding and exposure.
Multiple Hosting - The Gold, Silver, Tin Strategy.
The more "sites" (web sites, blogs, etc) you have, the greater opportunity you have for linking. Not only can you link to "yourself", you have more leverage with many of the linking resources below. For example, instead of getting one link from a good directory, if you have a good site PLUS a decent blog, you can get two links from the same directory.
Multiple resources also make it easier to trade links, and to be more creative, such as three way links, or trading a few lower PR links for a single higher PR link.
Some people get carried away with multiple hosts, with the biggest problem being a desire to add Google Adsense to every page they create. This is a big mistake:
1. It tells Google all your sites are related. After all, if they see your AdSense ID on a page, they know EXACTLY who owns the page.
2. It also sets you up to have your AdSense account banned for being too "spammy".
There's also SEO concepts like "Hilltop" and "TrustRank" which come into play. Simply, if Google can tell two sites are "related" in any way, the links will count less, and could even cause a penalty.
This is why I recommend you use the Gold, Silver, Tin strategy to create your network.
Tin sites = Are low quality, semi-spammy pages that contain NO affiliate or sales links.
Silver sites = Decent quality content. Add secondary affiliate programs and revenue streams ONLY AFTER they are getting traffic. Never monetize a page before it gets traffic, just like in poker you don't show your cards until you have to.
Gold sites = These are your top quality, great content "money" sites. Gold sites can also be mini sites with sales letters.
You want to link:
Tins sites link to: Other tin sites, silver sites and gold sites. Often, tin sites use "spun" content.
Silver sites link to: Other silver sites and gold sites
Gold sites link to: Other gold sites (and an occasional silver site)
As you create your network of resources, I suggest you consider the "quality" of your third party hosting, which we can use PageRank as a (very) general guide.
Let's call Squidoo, Blogger (Blogspot), Wordpress.org and MySpace "high quality" sites. You will want to build high quality links to these pages, and consider these as silver sites that you'll use to point to your gold sites, which you host yourself.
For example, if you have a list of 300 directories to submit to, submit these resources, as well as your own main domains, to the high quality, paid directories.
Here's a graphic of some of the ways you can cross-link your own gold, silver and tin sites:
![[Image]](pict0.jpg)
And remember, always link "up", but rarely link "down".
Templates -
There's two chief benefits for creating free site and blog templates
to give away.
1. Submit them to various free template directories and get links to your site from the template directories.
2. Include your link to the bottom of the template. As others add use your templates on their sites and blogs, they'll be linking to you, unless they remove the link. (Rumors are Google is cracking down on this.)
Note: There are quite a few great CSS template directories to also take advantage of, if you use CSS in your template design.
Web Scripts -
Creating and submitting scripts webmasters can use on their sites also creates
two linking opportunities, similar to creating templates.
1. Submit to various script directories and get some links from them
directly.
http://www.cgi-resources.com
http://www.hotscripts.com
2. Add your link to the footer of the scripts, so as webmasters install your scripts, they also include links to your site.
Submit Photographs to the Top Photo Directories
Do you a site(s) where photos are relevant? If so, take some pictures and submit them to these directories:
Create screen savers and submit to the many screen saver directories.
Using your photos (or grab some relevant pics from the graphics share links above), make them into a screen saver and submit to the various screen saver directories. Be sure to check the licenses of the photos and graphics to make sure you're legal.
Use keywords as your business name, as this will be your anchor text. Also, 1 or 2 screensavers won't do much, you'll need to create and submit dozens, as not all directories will link directly back to you. But there are 100's of screensaver directories.
Screensavers can use graphics other than pictures...You can get creative and use textures, clip art, and even videos...ScreenSaver Factory will even let you use Flash files (I think).
Here, the primary goal is to build links, but if you create quality screen savers, people will use then and ScreenSaver Factory let's you add links to your pages from the screensavers so this can be another source of traffic. This is "PROBABLY" most effective for forums where you want repeat traffic.
I recommend:
Screensaver creation software:
ScreenSaver Factory 4
Submission software: PromoSoft (submits
software and screen savers to relevant directories)
Also, once you're done with your screensavers, it's pretty easy to use the same graphics to make videos using Camtasia that you can upload to YouTube, etc.
You don't need "video", to make a video. You can use still pictures to create slideshows. Add some royalty free music, quotes, jokes, tips, trivia and you've got yourself a video ready to be uploaded to tons of places.
Of course, if you have videos, even better!!!
Use these services/software to submit your videos to all the right places:
TubeMogul (free online service)
HeySpread (free online service)
Traffic Geyser (paid online service $47 per month)
Upload Video Pro (Desktop software. $47 one time purchase. I like this software so much, I bought rights to it!!!)
Also see below: 227 Video Sharing
Portals.
Very similar to the screensaver concept is to create a simple shareware/freeware program for your niche.
Then use PromoSoft to submit it to over 700 shareware directories.
Free/shareware can also be great link bait, as you post the download link on your site and others will link to it.
Create and Submit Widgets
Widgets are the "next big thang". To be honest, I'm just catching on myself...So
instead of giving you incorrect or incomplete info, here's Google's SERPs
for:
How
to Create Widgets
If you can't program and don't want to hire a programmer, you can quickly
and easily turn a blog into a widget:
WidgetBox.com
Then, submit your widgets to the following widget dierctories:
Google Widget
Directory
Yahoo Widgets
Friendster Widget
Directory
Netvibes Widget
Diretory
Snipperoo Widget
Directory
SpringWidgets
RateitAll
Widgets
WidgetBox
Widgepedia
Widget Gallery
Xanga Widgets
Next, turn your widgets into Facebook applications:
App
Accelerator
Link Bait -
The idea is to create page that is so entertaining or informative
that others will naturally want to link to it. This can also be a game or
online application/script. The "trick" is, you must get traffic to it in
the first place.
One way is to buy traffic from StumbleUpon for 5 cents each at:
http://www.stumbleupon.com/ads/
Send this traffic to your best link bait pages. As people see your page, and if it's good, they will "Stumble" it and your page can be included in the rotation. This can create FREE traffic for you site and traffic.
Most people think of RSS only as a way to grab content for our sites, but in this report we'll discuss how to use it for linking...
Submit to RSS Directories
Just like you can submit a web page to a search engine, you can submit an RSS pheed to RSS search engines. There's software that will do this and I've also included a list of RSS directories/search engines on the Web 2.0 Resources thread.
You need to learn how to create RSS pheeds just like you would web pages, and RSS is easier than HTML. You can do them by hand, which isn't very hard at all and you can use software such as blogs to create RSS pheeds.
And just as there are directories for web pages, there are also directories just for RSS pheeds. The more RSS pheeds you have, the more you can submit to the RSS directories, which should be a major goal.
You should constantly be thinking about how you can create more RSS phees so you can promote each.
Also, using your own RSS pheeds is essential for publishing content across your network, as well as automatically cross-linking your own resources.
RSS Directories:
See "20 RSS Directories" below.
RSS Feed Submit (Desktop Software)
http://www.rssfeedssubmit.com/screen-shot4.html
RSS Submit (Desktop Software)
http://www.dummysoftware.com/rsssubmit.html
RSS is intended to be used for sites/pages/blogs/content that update. When an update is made, the RSS directories and engines can be "pinged" telling them an update had been made. They will then visit your site and check your RSS pheed and include any updates in the directory/engine. The more you can ping (without spamming), the better.
Simply, a ping tells the RSS directories your RSS pheed has been updated.
Many webmasters use these resources to gather RSS pheeds to use as content on their sites. We want our RSS pheeds to be used by other webmasters so we get one way links from their pages back to our own.
Ping Resources:
Ping-O-Matic
PinGoat
Pingz Tuel (My own desktop
application)
Tip: Many try to spam the ping resources by pinging too much. This is why building a network is so important. Instead of pinging one RSS pheed 100 times a day, ping 100 RSS pheeds once a day.
Remember, each time you ping a spider visits your site and grabs your newest content (links). The more you can ping without being banned, the better.
RSS Blackhole
This is a blackhat technique to make content look as if it is being updated so you can ping it...And pinging is a good thing. The goal is to exploit ping sites so that our pheeds have the best chance possible of being picked up by other sites.
I won't get into blackholes much in this report, but will say a blackhole is designed to create unlimited RSS "updates" using a variety of tactics. This allows the RSS pheed to be pinged over and over.
If you understand the concept of "doorway" pages, a blackhole is kind of a doorway page maker for RSS pheeds.
One of the main goals of a blackhole is to have your RSS pheeds constantly indexed in all the RSS search engines that the big time spammers/scrapers use. This means, they'll be using your RSS pheed (content and links) on all of their pages, possibly creating tons and tons of links to your pages, all on autopilot.
For more on RSS Blackhole secrets and techniques, join my BombSquad advanced SEO forum.
Directories
This topic is well covered all over the web, so I won't go into much detail here.
You will want to submit your sites to the various directories. Your gold/money sites can and probably should be submitted to at least a few of the paid directories.
Try to create some decent link bait/high quality pages for your tin/spammy sites, so that they can be submitted to some of the directories.
You don't need to submit every site to every directory, and you shouldn't. However, you should try to get as many of your sites a few dozen dozen directory links whenever possible. And try to mix up the lining footprint so that each of your sites isn't in the same directories.
Also, instead of just worrying about high PR (mistake), try to find some niche directories you can submit to. To do this, get creative with your Google searches:
Use broader, more general keywords for this...And just by changing keywords,
you should be able to find a number of niche directories, assuming you have
a semi-popular topic. This should help you find places to add your links
that are relevant to your pages.
Directory Submission Resources:
See "27 SEO Friendly Directories" below...
The Strongest Links - If you don't have any submission software, start here. Includes paid and free web
Free and paid directories including PR: - A good place to start looking for one way links.directories.
Directory Submitter - Semi-automatic software will submit to 350 directories for free, upgrade to 2200 directories for $47.
Directory Submission Tips:
Posting comments on blogs is a great way to build links.
One way to find blogs to post on is by using Google's blog search engine:
Just enter some keywords and Google will find relevant blogs that contain the same keywords.
Also, I like to click the preferences" link and make sure I have 100 results on each page. This is very time-saving...
Some people will only post on blogs that have a certain PageRank or that don't use the nofollow tag.
FREE Firefox plug in that reports the PR as well as highlights any nofollow
tags on the page:
http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/
Nofollow tags are usually hidden in the html code, but this plugin lets you see them without checking the page's code. Do note that you have to select this option...Right click on the plugin's logo at the bottom of Firefox and make sure to select "Highlight Nofollow Links". If selected, any links that contain the nofollow tag will be red.
Blog Comment Posting Software
Posting on other's blog can not only build links, it can give you direct traffic as well as branding.
One thing to note is that many blogs contain the "nofollow" tag on their links. This means, that in theory, you won't get "credit" in Google for the links. "nofollow" really isn't an accurate name, as Google does follow these links, it just doesn't count them...At least, that's the theory. There are more than a few SEOers that don't worry about the "nofollow" tag and claim they still pass link juice.
I recommend having some "nofollow" links...You can still get traffic by making good posts on popular blogs, plus not having any "nofollow" links at all just isn't natural.
There's some programs that will find blogs automatically for you, searching for blogs that meet a certain PR and/or don't use the nofollow tag:
Comment Hut $97
http://www.commenthut.com/
BlogCommentDemon $47
http://www.submittingmonster.com
Neil Shearing has released a FREE program to find blogs that have comments
and don't have the nofollow tag:
http://www.reallinkfinder.com/index.php
Comment Sniper (free - email registration required) You find the best and
most powerful blogs for your niche, add them to Comment Sniper, and whenever
a new article is posted, it notifies you so you can be the first to post
a comment.
http://www.commentsniper.com/
Comment Kahuna (free - email registration required)
http://www.commentkahuna.com/
Automatic Blog Comment Poster Software - Post Comments Automatically $150...This is more of a spam/automated version. It may be of interest to some...I don't recommend blindly spamming other sites, but it's good to know what's out there...Not only to protect yourself, but also to be aware of what your competition may be using.
PromoArsenal Suite Blog Posting Software Free one day trial - $60 per month - $297 one time fee...This is a suite of blackhat software that automatically makes blog posts and trackbacks. I haven't used it and don't know much about it, but am posting it here as an option.
Blog Farms (aka "splogs)
A while back, creating tons and tons of blogs on your own server/reseller account was big among hardcore SEOers. It's lost some of its steam today, but may still have some value, particularly for creating RSS pheeds for your spun articles so you can "ping" the RSS pheed.
Easy Blogger Creator Pro $197 EBC Automatically creates Blogger blogs and posts to your own network of Blogger blogs. You can host the blogs on either their servers and/or your own.
WP Auto-Installer $197 WP Auto-Installer installs and updates multiple WordPress blogs.
Exploiting social bookmarking sites is another essential linking resource.
It can be done "by hand", semi-automatic or automatic and the techniques can range from pure whitehat to blackhat.
The most basic way to use social bookmarking is to put icons with links to the major bookmarking services so that your sites' visitors can more easily add your pages.
There are services that will allow you and your visitors to bookmark more than one service at a time:
A common blackhat tactic is to use "proxies" (fake/multiple IP addresses) and multiple email addresses to create multiple bookmarking accounts.
There are also "trade" services, using the ol' "you bookmark me, and I'll bookmark you".
Piqq US : Used to be DiggBoss.com. By invitation
only. You'll need to search the web to see if you can find an invitation
link. Try posting at an SEO forum asking for an invite. Exchange Digg.com,
Stumbleupon and Propeller votes.
Social Bookmarking Software (semi-automatic) -!Delicioso! Social Bookmarking Power Submitter FREE Delicioso is a freeware program for submitting URLs to these popular social bookmarking sites: tagtooga.com, del.icio.us, furl.net, blogmarks.net, shadows.com, spurl.net, simpy.com, and netvouz.com.
Social Bot - Inexpensive,
very whitehat. $19.95
"SocialBot is a Windows Program that’s easy to use and performs all
of the mundane tasks that are involved in Social Bookmarking. In a nutshell,
you enter a domain, SocialBot spiders it and builds a list of web pages to
bookmark and then it submits them to the Social Networking services you’ve
got accounts with. At the present time, we support 19 social Bookmarking
Services..."
For hard core bookmarking, I recommend: Bookmarking Demon - $97 More powerful than the free/inexpensive applications above:
Social Bookmarks Submitter - Automatic Social Bookmarking Software $150 Server-side script (install on your sites) The most hardcore option - For aggressive, risk-taking SEOers ONLY. 100% Automated Multiple Accounts Proxy Support
Auto Social Poster $197 This is a WordPress plugin that will submit new posts to a number of bookmarking sites.
Here's a list of active link exchange "clubs". I don't recommend using only these services for your linking, but if you use them in combination with many of the other strategies listed here, they are a potent part of your marketing mix.
There's also reciprocal link software like SEO Elite and IBP/Arelis that will seek out link exchange partners, but I've found this to be too labor intensive...
LinkVana
Here's a resource from SEO expert Dave Kelly that I highly recommend:
LinkVana
LinkVana lets you add posts containing a link to your site(s) across a vast network of blogs. You can write your own post or pay for someone else to write it for you Dave Kelly is an extreme SEOer and you're gaining access to his own network that took years to create.
Trade blog reviews and links: Interview well-known
bloggers and post the interview on your site. The bloggers will link to your
interview.
ReviewBack
Find
more blogs willing to trade reviews here...
I'm not real big on article directory submission to create links, as I believe most of your content should be used on your own sites/domains.
However, I do believe that it can be a helpful part of your linking mix and adding a few articles to the major article directories is a good addition to your linking mix.
IMO, you're probably best off just submitting to the top 3 article directories and spending the time saved using other linking methods:
My own experience has been that you need to submit to these 3 major sites:
Of course, if you have your own favorite(s) or have had success using more/other article directories, keep doing what your're doing.
Article marketing is well covered in many other places, so I won't spend a lot of time on it here.
For more info, google:
"bum marketing"
"article marketing"
"submitting articles"
Top/Table of
Contents
Convert your articles and blog posts into iPod
audio automatically with Odiogo.com.
Host your Podcasts on 30 Podcast Hosts listed below.
Now, submit your podcast to the 93 Podcast
Directories listed below.
If you have an free ebook, submit it to the various
ebook directories:
Ebook2u
Ebook Jungle
Ebook Palace
EbookTags
Idea Marketers
Jogena
Mind Like Water
Published.com
Post PDF versions of your articles to:
Scribd
FreeIQ
Write guides and "how to's" and submit them
to:
Work.com.
Tip: If you submit articles (Bum marketing), compile them into an ebook,
submit to the ebook directories, convert them to audio, submit to Podcast
directories, and then to the PDF directories, plus the "how to" directories.
This is one example of "re-purposing" content to greatly expand your reach.
Selective Article Submission
By this I mean that instead of posting articles to directories, you look for high quality, well-known and respected sites and offer guest articles. You give the site free content and they give you free, high quality links back to your site.
To find sites that accept guest articles, try searches such as:
"keywords" + "guest author"
"keywords" + "submit articles"
...etc.
Here's a more comprehensive Google query I "borrowed" from Planet Ocean. Just paste the whole thing into Google, and change "your keyword" (in red) to your keywords:
"your keyword" "submit * article" OR "submit * articles" OR "add * article" OR "add * articles" OR "featured writer" OR "featured writers" OR "featured author" OR "featured authors" OR "featured contributor" OR "featured blogger" OR "guest author" OR "guest writer" OR "guest blogger" OR "guest post" OR "submit * tutorial"
Getting some links from highly respected authority sites in your niche can do wonders for your links and your rankings and is a linking method without a footprint.
A major part of your linking strategy is to create your own M A S S I V E link network.
By creating tons of pages across many hosting platforms, not only are you creating linking opportunities, you're also creating more pages, which means more words, which means more opportunity to get more pages ranked for more keywords.
FREE Third Party Hosting
- See below for 250 free blog hosts and
46 free wikis.
Free Hosts
Here's a review
of 100+ free hosting services. While these can be very undependable,
they can be of great help in expanding your network. Throw a few pages up,
then link in and link out. Remember: If you don't FTP to your domain at least
once every 30 days, most free hosts will disable your account.
Again, just 20 pages on 10 different free hosts is 200 pages. If you put 20 links on each page, that's 4,000 more chances for you to create links to all your other resources.
Cheap Secondary Hosting
As soon as you can afford more hosting, you should always be looking to expand,
especially while building your linking network.
It isn't as easy as it seems, as both Top Hat and I have had a less than 50% success rate with hosts. This means anything from not getting log in passwords to cgi and or php not working, etc. But it's still a good way to increase your network exposure.
Again, the point here is that hosting 50 pages on each of 10 cheap hosts, with 20 links on each page is 10,000 link opportunities...
With this network of links, you'll be able to dominate long tail niche after long tail niche, often within a day or two of adding a new domain. And, you'll be very active in the "semi-competitive" niches, as well.
Suggested Googles: (Note: Don't limit your searches to only Google.
Try all the engines to find cheap hosting.)
"Discount hosting" (cheap, budget, etc)
"cheap hosting + free set up"
"cheap hosting + free set up + $3.95" ($4.95, $5, $3.97, etc. The point
is, add some common low prices to help find low cost hosting. If you
want to pay $3.95 a month, search for "hosting + $3.95 a month".)
Press Releases -
Best used with link bait type pages. If you can come up with a "newsworthy"
and interesting article, a press release can be very beneficial. Most major
news outlets sites are very well respected and getting a link from one of
them can drive major traffic as well as give a high trust link.
Also, you can gain some links just by having your release included in the press release directories.
See: "67 Press and Media Release Distribution Centers" below.
I'm not an expert with online press releases, but they can play a vital role in your own linking campaigns.
Google:
"press release tips" (guide, info, for newbies, etc)
"writing press releases"
"press release templates"
"press release submission"
Purchase Links -
You can always buy links....But Google's really cracking down on this. I
suggest you avoid link selling sites and instead approach the site directly.
Be careful, there's a lot of fraud concerning the real PageRank of a page.
To buy links, check webmaster forums such as
www.digitalpoint.com and
www.webmasterworld.com .
If you do decide to pay for links, insist that you get a contextual link and not a clustered, "sponsored" link.
See "Contextual and Clustered Linking" below.
This is a bit sneaky, but we can clean it up a bit...And you need to be aware of this concept, as many, many blackhatters exploit this.
Have you ever seen a site or blog the displays the "top referers"? A referer is another site that links to the blog or site. If your link sends the most traffic, then your site's link is listed #1.
By using a "descriptive search" (I won't give the specifics, you'll need to figure it out) locate sites and blogs that display the "top" referrals. There are even some popular server log/stat programs that give the general public access to these stats. Find these pages indexed in the engines and you can get a link...
On a page of your's that gets good traffic, use an iFrame with the dimensions of 1 pixel by 1 pixel so that their page is accessed every time your page is, but isn't visible. This will appear to make seem you are refering them traffic.
To clean this up a bit, actually include a link to them on this page. However, it's still blackhat as you will be inflating the REAL traffic you send as the iframe will load each time your page is accessed, however this doesn't translate into a click on their link each time.
There's usually a big difference between pages views and click throughs, so you'll get "credit" from their site each time your page is viewed.
Again, you want to be aware of this technique and make sure you tighten your
own sites' referral leaks. Do you have a Top Refer script on your site or
blog? Are your top referral stats available/indexed in the search engines?
Promote Your Referrals - AKA promote the pages that link to you.
Make sure any page that sends you traffic is indexed. It's one thing to get a link, it's another to make sure that link is indexed.
Look at your site stats and make a list of every URL that has sent you traffic. Create a page on another site/blog containing all the links and submit it to the search engines, ping it, etc.
This is particularly effective with older sites. It's possible you already have tons of links from other pages, but those other pages aren't indexed. Make sure they are.
This is a major advantage for those that will take the time. If you have an established site, I'll guess that 30-50% of your links aren't indexed and it's probably easier to get those pages indexed than to go out and try to get the same number of links.
Also, if you submit a press release or an article to a directory, find those pages/URLs and link to them from your own pages you know get spidered and are indexed.
Create something like, "see our keyword press release" and/or "see our syndicated keyword article.
Apply the same strategy for any photos, software, templates, screen savers you submit. Find the pages that link to your stuff and grab those URLs and add them every place you can, including your "One Big RSS Pheed" .
You want to link to your links as much as possible.
Instead of putting all of your effort into building links, ration some of your time making sure your existing links are actually indexed and you are getting all the link juice you can.
In some cases, a few links to your articles on an article directory can give THAT page a good boost in the engines. Optimization and linking isn't just for your own sites, but for any and all of your assets.
Also, sign up for Google Alerts and any time you find your site mentioned
/linked to in a good way, add links to those pages to your network.
Everyone likes to be a winner!
Instead of requesting a link exchange, notify (quality) sites they have won your "best <keyword> site" award.
Send them the code they need to put on their page to display the award, including a link back to your site. Because of "ego", many webmasters will add the link (I mean award) to their sites.
Giving an award is far more effective than asking for link exchanges. And all you need to do is spend just a little time to create an award graphic (or have it done for you).
Also, put a form on your site to have folks submit their site for your award review. If accepted, send them your award code, containing a link back to your site.
If you're selective, you'll have high quality sites linking back to you.
Awards can be as simple as adding some stars or smiley faces before the link. You can rate them by giving 4 or 5 stars/smileys, etc. But be sure to give them a good rating.
Check your clip art collection for qood looking award graphics...Or, here's some places to get free award graphics:
For $1, you can get a high-quality graphic from I-Stock without having to
link back to the graphic site:
iStockPhoto:
Trophies
Create lists of useful resources (including a
couple of your relevant link bait pages, screen savers, videos, freeware,
etc) for your niche and submit them to the "list" sites:
Listible.com
Listverse
ListafterList
Listphile
OnmyList
Whatali.st
- Post Legit comments and include your sig containing a link...Problem is, many non-marketing forums don't allow sigs or even outside links in posts.
However, most will let you add a link in your profile...Then link to your profile page a few times from your network. Many forum profile pages allow you to add a lot of content and links. Make sure you make a few legit posts and don't just create profile pages. Some forums will delete users that have no activity.
Search google using:
"keywords" + forum
"keywords" + phpbb (or SMF or vbulletin or other popular forum software name)
Omgili Forum Search Engine -
This can be helpful in finding related forum posts.
Also see 25 Forum and Message Board Directories below
- Xrumer (forum post spammer tool) This is more of a warning than a recommendation: Xrumer is a hard core blackhat program responsible for a large part of forum spam. It's like $500 and very secretive. They don't sell to everyone...And probably wont' respond to your emails, either for sales or support.
Submit Your Cool Site - If you have a really good site, submit it
to Cool Sites of the Day type sites:
Cool Site of the
Day
Yahoo Picks
AskMen
Blackstump
CSOTD
TopsiteoftheDay
Read
Michelle
MacPhearson guide to using torrents to generate
links.
Network Building - A reminder about your Gold - Silver - Tin network building...
We want to create our own network of sites that will exploit RSS pheeds.
When searching out third party hosting, you want to give a preference on those that create RSS pheeds so that you can use your own content on your other sites, and this will create links back to the original site automatically.
As you set up third-party blogs, social memberships, bookmarking accounts, etc, you want to make a list of those that offer RSS pheeds and focus on these resources.
Also, when you make pages you will want to create your own RSS pheeds that include links to your pages.
As you create more and more blogs, SB profiles, bookmarking accounts, etc, you grab the RSS pheeds from each and combine them into one main RSS pheed.
I prefer using my own web script BlogBomb to combine all my pheeds. You can use other sources like www.feedburner.com to combine all your pheeds. Just remember, www.feedburner is owned by Google, so it isn't the best if you really want to be stealthy.
| RSS Pheeds | Combine | Export |
| Blogger WP Blog Bookmarking Bookmarking Social Network |
=> |
One Big RSS Pheed |
Now, any time you add a new resource (blog, etc), add it's RSS pheed to your "One Big RSS Pheed" . Then, just access your "One Big RSS Pheed" and you'll be cross-linking all your sites automatically.
Simply:
1. Every time you create a new resource, add the RSS pheed to your
One Big RSS Pheed.
2. Every time you create a new resource, add your One Big RSS Pheed to it.
This automatically cross-links all of your resources, without you having to go back and modify each one every time you create a new resource.
Again, you want to concentrate on finding third party resources that generate RSS pheeds...You can submit them, ping them, blackhole them, and network them.
Example Link Network:
Create 20 screen savers.
Put some on different tin, silver or gold sites, including squidoo etc.
Submit the screen savers to various directories.
Let's say you put the 20 screensavers, 5 each on:
Each site above can be submitted 5 times to 300+ screen saver directories.
20 screensavers x 300 directories is 6,0000 links to OUR pages, lenses and blogs.
It also creates pages on other IPs and hosting containing your download link and often, a link back to your network.
The big impact isn't from SEO or PageRank. It's that you can now link to your own specific pages within those directories all across your network.
Here's thousands of links to various IP addresses that you can add to your pages that all point back to you. Links to you will be everywhere.
And when folks download your screensavers, you can use follow-up marketing, both in "readme file" and in the screensavers themselves.
Now, take the same stuff you used for screensavers and make videos.
Upload and submit the videos to all the different video directories.
Gather links to your pages in the directories and add to your RSS network pheeds...You link to pages containing your videos, which lead back to your network.
Of course, your videos also promote your gold sites, using your URL.
Next, we create some video "blogs" using our own videos hosted on various video directories as content.
This creates another link pattern in ADDITION to your screen savers.
Repeat with a few articles submitted to various directories. Link to the pages containing your articles, which link back to your network.
Summary:
Look for ways to get links on other folks' sites using automation by creating screensavers, videos, software, articles, etc...
Across your own network, link to the pages on the other folks' sites that contain your stuff.
LSI is a complex, technical SEO subject. Instead of geting into every detail here, just understand what it really means is that search engines may look for other words in a page to help determine what the page is about.
For example, let's take the word "apple" used on three different pages:
apple => mac, iPod, iPhone, Steve Jobs, OSX
apple => records, Ringo, Paul Mccartney, Liverpool, John Lennon, Hey
Jude
apple => fruit, pies, brown betty, food
You should be able to see how all three pages about "apple" are all actually about different subjects, based on other words used on the page.
Simply, this is LSI. And LSI isn't limited to just pages, either.
When trading, posting or creating links in any way, you want to use LSI keywords in your anchor text so that all your links on OTHER sites don't link to you using the exact same phrase...Having 100 sites use the exact same text to describe your site just doesn't look natural and likely reduce the value of the link.
"Anchor text" is the words in the CLICKABLE LINK, like this: Click for the Google search results.
"Google search" is the anchor text in the sentence above.
After you do your keyword research, you'll want to use your best keyword about 25% of the time, and another 9-10 phrases the rest of the time.
For example, LSI related anchor text may look something like this:
apple pie recipes
how to bake pies
dessert recipes
baking tips
...etc
Simply, mix up anchor text on OTHER SITES, using related but different keywords.
To find LSI related keywords:
Keyword Browse
Quintura
Link Velocity - How Fast Should I Build
Links?
There's a concept called "link velocity" and it concerns how fast a site
gains links. The faster you gain links, the higher you rank. It's possible
Google sees a site that's getting links quickly as a site that's "hot", and
you get rewarded. Gaining links very quickly can often be "natural" and a
sign of popularity.
Then, your site quits getting links, or gets them much slower and your ranking drops accordingly.This could be mistaken for the infamous "sandbox", but it's more of a glass half full/half empty point of view. Your site isn't being penalized, instead it is no longer being rewarded for having high link velocity.
The general wisdom was to create links slowly, over time. The thinking is that you should be links slowly and surely. If you go to fast, your site will end up the the Google "sandbox" (disappear for a few months).
One more time, link velocity is just a theory...But it is something to think about. And, the more sophsticated the SEOers, the more likely they discuss link velocity.
We talk all the time about getting links "naturally". But what is natural? Isn't it natural for some sites to get exposure on national TV, then get flooded with traffic and links in a short time? Or written up in a major magazine or newspaper? Wouldn't links gained from these events be "natural"?
Why is it natural for a page to get links gradually, at a steady pace, over a period of time?
It's just my opinion, but it would seem that the "natural" way sites and pages get links is that they'll get more links when they are first posted, with the "link velocity" declining over time.
With everything considered, my advice is to get links as fast as you can, assuming you can maintain that pace for a period of time.
You also need to get links from a wide variety of sources and blend many other strategies to make them look more "natural". Most webmasters seem to rely on only one or two linking strategies, which may be the real problem of the "sandbox".
Whether valid or not, you should at least consider the theory of link velocity. Build sites, blogs and Squidoo lenses and test the principle of Link Velocity. Build links at different speeds to different network resources of your's and test it for yourself...Just don't accept that building links slowly and surely is the "best" route to take, without checking it out for yourself.
This is why we build gold, silve and tin sites...We use the tin sites to test (in addition to building links).
You can increase your links, traffic and reach this way without worrying about if you're getting links to your original site too fast or too slow.
TrustRank
Trust Rank is how Google determines the value of a link. How well respected
are the sites that link to you?
Every link to your pages doesn't have the same value. For example, links from domains using .gov or .edu were thought to be more highly respected by Google than links from other extensions. Google's logic was that links from .gov and .edu aren't available to everyone and therefore have more "trust".
(This is further blurred by the possibility that SEOers have exploited this, so the value of .edu and .gov links may not be as powerful as they once were.)
Other sites may also be "whitelisted" and thus their links carry more weight, such as respected sites like cnet.com, Yahoo's paid directory, DMOZ/ODP, etc.
Other factors that could determine "Trust" that are "on site":
How long ago was the domain name registered?
How many years in the future has your domain name been paid?
Is the whois info hidden? If yes, what are you hiding?
How long has your site been up?
How long have the pages been published?
Do you have 50,000 pages all with the same creation date and time? How'd you do that?
Hilltop is a complex system believed to be used by Google. Without going into the gory details, understand the concept that the relationship between two sites can influence how much impact linking between the two sites has.
For example, the links between two sites that are known to be "affiliated" won't/shouldn't count as much as a link from a totally "unaffiliated" site.
"Affiliation" in this case is simply any biased relationship. This relationship can be determined by:
When building your network, try to understand the basics of Hilltop and link "unaffiliated" pages together. Try to be "stealthy" and not put affiliate info on everything you own.
This is another example of why third party resources can be so powerful. Try to play a little "spy vs. spy" and keep who owns the sites and pages as secret as possible.
Also understand that if you log into your Blogger account and your AdSense account on the same PC, Google probably knows you're the same person. So, if it's a Google property, play it straight and don't be as aggressive.
The use of third party hosting, such as free blogs, Squidoo, Hubpages, etc, are great for helping you hide your "affiliations". All of your resources don't share the shame host, IP or name servers. And, you don't need to register domain names, which use your personal info.
Plus, you save tons of money on hosting and buying domain names!
Deep Linking
Deep linking is the ratio of links to a site that link to the homepage or
to interior pages.
For example, if half of all the links to your site link to your home page and half link to your other pages, you'd have a deep link ratio of 50% to your home page.
The more pages on your site, the lower the deep link ratio should be to you home page and higher to your other pages.
It's important that at least 50-70% of your links are deep links and point to pages other than your home page.
Clustered vs Contextual Linking
A contextual link is like the one below:
"Hi, my name is Kurt and I have an internet marketing
software site
with tons and tons of great application."
It's "contextual" because the link is contained in the content itself.
Here's an example of "clustered" links:
link 1
link 2
link 3
-OR-
link 1 | link 2 | link 3
See how clustered links are all "alone"?
You'll usually see these links all by themselves over in a side-bar, navigation table, or at the top and bottom of web pages.
Contextual links probably give a lot more value than clustered links. When using your network, use contextual links as much as possible.
If you pay for links, INSIST on contextual links...
Link Co-Citation and "Sacrificial
Links"
You know the old saying, "You're known by the company you keep."? This applies
to links all over the web.
You've probably heard that linking to "bad neighborhoods" (spammy, low ranking pages) is bad. If we agree with this, then logically we may think that linking to good pages is a good thing. And it is very likely we inherit some of the good or bad from the pages we link to.
Not only that, we may also inherit the good/bad of other pages by merely sharing the same page. This is the main concept of Co-citation.
Let's say SiteC links to both SiteA and SiteB. Even though SiteA and SiteB are NOT directly linked, Google will use this "citation" and say the pages are probably related to some degree, simply because they both have links from SiteC.
I suggest you take advantage of this by using what I call "sacrificial links". These are links to pages on sites that are so big and have so much authority, trust and link juice that adding a few more links won't change anything.
Our goal is to "sponge" some of the "good" these sites have created and spread it to my own sites and pages.
For example, I have a site about pets and wildlife at www.lizardz.com . There's a few sites in this niche that are so big and powerful, I will never over-take them. Sites like NationalGeographic.com, AnimalPlanet.com, etc. These even have their own TV stations in the US.
So what I want to do is add links to these highly respected sites all over my network, and at the same time include links to my own www.lizardz.com at the same time.
This will give my own site "co-citations" with the heavy-weights. It will also give the pages containing links to the heavy-weights the ability to inherit some of the "juice" those pages have earned. Again, if linking to bad sites is bad, let's assume linking to good sites is good.
Not only can we inherit many of the SEO benefits, we are also branding our own gold sites. If my www.lizardz.com site is listed next to NatiionalGeographic and AnimalPlanet and plastered all over my network, then people will start seeing my site as an EQUAL.
This is heavy stuff...
Some links are considered better than others. For example, getting a link from a page with a PR6 is better than a link with PR0...And it probably is.
Also, links from sites hosted on .edu and .gov are considered to be "good" links, and it's quite possible they are.
There's a lot of webmasters that only seek out high PR links. However, getting only "good" links isn't the optimal way to get links.
I know a very hard core SEOer that constantly tested and researched everything he possibly could. What he found was that a natural pattern was FAR BETTER for getting links than was just concentrating on "good" links.
His tests showed that have a ratio of ABOUT 40-50: 1 was optimal.
This means that for every "good" link, such as .edu, .gov or PR5+, you should have about 40-50 links from pages with low PR, such as PR1, PR2.
And this makes sense...How natural is it for a site to only have PR5+ links
pointing to it? It smacks of SEO manipulation.
Be a Chick
This same hard core SEOer also reports that you will double and even triple your link exchange sucess if the person contacting other webmasters is a woman.
As a matter of fact, this person hires a number of women that do nothing but call webmasters in order to get high quality links.
His advice is, if you exchange links, either pretend to be a woman or have a woman do it for you.
Controlling PR/Link Juice -
NOFOLLOW
You can control and manipulate link juice on your own pages through your
link structure.
For example, if you have the following pages:
TOS | About us | Contact | Disclaimer
You may not want to pass on link juice to these pages and save that juice for your real money pages. All you need to do is add the NOFOLLOW tag to the links of pages you don't want to pass link juice to:
A typical link to your TOS page may look like:
<A HREF="TOS.html">TOS</A>
Just add the nofollow tag like this:
<A HREF="TOS.html"
rel="nofollow">TOS</A>
Same thing for affiliate links and other similar links...
...And you can conserve your link juice to pass on to other pages.
Also, you should structure your site to take advantage of this concept. After doing your keyword research, you should have a list of your "best" keywords. Build pages focused on these keywords, then create other pages to build links to these pages.
You want every page (or as many as possible) to point to your "best pages". But, you only want as few links as possible to point to your "other" pages, focusing all the link juice possible onto your "money" pages.
Just structuring your own internal linking strategy correctly can give your "money" pages a nice boost in the Engines.
Use my Followz Tuel to control and maximize your PageRank.
Canonical URLs
This concerns that URLs can be written differently, even though they all
point to the same place. For example, all of the following are the same
page:
That's 6 different URLs that are technically correct, that all point to the same page.
However, Google will see these as 6 different pages, although Google has been trying to correct this for years.
This means, any links you get can be divided between all 6 variations, diluting any link juice you're trying to build.
To some degree you can control this by always using the same formal to link to your sites and pages. If you use www. once, you need to use it every time.
Problem is, you can't control how others link to you. This means you may not be getting all the link juice you could be getting from the same number of links.
There's a couple of technical solutions. But if you are technical enough, you don't need my help. If you aren't technical enough, I'm not techy enough to help you.
What you need to do is ask your admin or host to either set up a "301 redirect" or create an .htaccess file for you that accounts for "Canonical URLs".
If they are good, it should be easy for them and shouldn't cost more than $10-20, if they won't do it for you for free. This should create an .htaccess file which you can use for your other domains on that same host.
If you want to try and do it yourself, you can google the following:
While a little techy for most, it is a great advantage for the linkers/SEOers that take the time...
Special Feature: Hard Core Guide to Trackback Linking - by Top Hat Bob
1. Intro
Trackbacks are simply signals sent out to other blogs telling them that there is information on another blog page related to one of their blog entries.
It's just another way to get backlinks to your blog pages.
Trackbacks help get you deeper backlinks to pages and increases your potential rankings in the SERPS.
Most trackback tools are automatic unlike blog comments.
The better mass trackback tools conduct a live search for trackback url's containing your keyword so that the link is targeted to your niche.
If you make your query specific enough and put a nice twist and some thought in the comment, trackbacks still work fine. Just be careful to use proxies or different IPs.
As an extra protection to yourself, you are much better off using free subdomains until you know what you are doing.
2. Problems
Some of the problems associated with trackbacks and in particular, automating trackback link building.
2.1 no-follow
You can only legitimately trackback blogs and most blogs have nofollow by now unlike forums and article directories.
2.1.1 Note
Yahoo and MSN may not pay attention to the nofollow tag. Google just makes sure you don't get the benefit of whatever PR the blog has. It still sends its spiders to follow the links.
2.2 sales pitch
Most trackback spam tools look like an interesting piece of software. If only you could trust everything software developers said on their sales websites.
2.3 hosting
Trackback scripts are notorious for getting hosting accounts shut down due to complaints about "BLOG SPAMMING". Squidoo will also cancel accounts promoted with trackbacks if they get complaints.
Adsense and some affiliate programs are not friendly towards advertisers that employ trackback techniques.
2.4 no referer
If there isn't a referer from your blog to the trackback comment, most anti-spam tools will automatically filter the trackback as spam and blacklist the domain and IP as spam if continuously repeated.
There are scripts that spoof the referer but they only work if the script and target domain are on the same server.
2.4.1 fake referer
I tested javascript referer scripts that display the last visitor. If the blog owner checks the blog promoted, it will have his link listed.
Prefix it with something like "Most recently visited page:" and stick it in the sidebar or footer. It might pass a quick manual check or automated checks for urls depending on the page accessed from.
Couple problems I had when testing the php referer snippet:
Rule of thumb when trackbacking - be prepared for complaints.
2.5 caveats
2.5.1 anti-trackback plugins plugins
There is no greater challenge than trying to fly under the radar so to speak - sometimes literally.
To get a better handle on how trackbacks are handled by your blog, be sure to trackback yourself with the various tools and manually.
To paraphrase one of Kurt's gospels about the best way to understand search engines is to run your own. Likewise, with any tool you use - direct it to your sites first, even if you have to make up throw away sites.
Always test before going live or believing in some iffy sales copy.
Simple Trackback Validation Plugin — Direct quote from their software guide
"When a trackback is received, this plugin checks if the IP address of the trackback sender is equal to the IP address of the webserver the trackback URL is referring to.
This reveals almost every spam trackback (more than 99%) since spammers do usually use bots which are not running on the machine of their customers.
It retrieves the web page located at the URL included in the trackback. If the page doesn’t a link to your blog, the trackback is considered to be spam.
Since most trackback spammers do not set up custom web pages linking to the blogs they attack, this simple test will quickly reveal illegitimate trackbacks.
Also, bloggers can be stopped abusing trackback by sending trackbacks with their blog software or webservices without having a link to the post.
See related topics and documents
http://sw-guide.de/wordpress/plugins/simple-trackback-validation/
Defeat attempts
Tried trackbacks to 7 different blogs with this plugin. Submitted directly from a blog but without linking directly to their post.
No successful results yet and my test trackback to both my own hosted blog and wordpress.com blog ended up in the moderation queue and not Akismet's spam filter. If Akismet traps it before this plugin, then it defeats the purpose of the test.
I took care of the IP issue but not the direct link to the post I was trackbacking. I was hoping the snippet of php code that displayed the referer would suffice. The test now is if the blog moderator will pass it.
The other option is to go to a database option or even a manual list of actually posting the links of the 50 sites that I want trackbacks on under the guise of "Sites I visited to write my last post"
If it stops trackbacks from getting flagged as spam, it is worth it.
There are a lot of other blogs that don't take any anti-trackback measures. It may be easier to target them.
The caveat is that the more trackbacks you send that fail, the greater the chance your domain and IP will get blacklisted.
Dave’s Blog » Spam Karma 2.3
"Spam Karma 2 (SK2) is an anti-spam plugin for the WordPressblogging platform. It is meant to stop all forms of automated Blog spam effortlessly, while remaining as unobtrusive as possible to regular commenters.
See related topics and documents
http://unknowngenius.com/blog/wordpress/spam-karma/
Defeat attempts
I have this installed on a test blog and I am trackbacking it from my hosted blogs as well as wordpress.com blogs.
I am actually testing two things out:
1. determining what it considers spam and trying to bypass it
2. testing the use of some plugins and permalink settings that are SEO "must haves" and seeing if they trigger a spam filter due to words they put in the url, like porn, casino or viagra. I know those are the obvious ones but the list of flagged words is likely large enough to trigger some false positives.
My first trackback just landed in the Recent Spam Harvest basket with a -7.87 rating:
Comment has no URL in content (but one author URL)
-7: Trackback Source Site (http://domain.com/in?;dex.php/archives/2)? does not contain Blog URL domain (domain.info).
-1: Severity settings adjustment.
Now to fix it. I'll put the php referer script in the blog footer and tried again.
Still didn't work. It is obviously checking for the url from a different server or requires a html link.
I added the URL to a post (not a link) and tried again. This time it worked and was automatically approved.
The comment stayed on the blog after I removed the link which is understandable. I also added the url as a tag and the trackback got approved.
This leads to a couple interesting ways to automatically bypass the url filter that I will test later. Using plugins that can be turned on and off easily that can correspond with batches of trackbacks being submitted. If done in moderation on relevant blogs the other spam triggers might not be tripped.
2.6 unnecessary submits
The only trackback tool that can be considered effective would be the one that actually checks if your trackback has been posted AND appears on the targeted blog.
It should modify its database of URLs to exclude those that do not display your trackback so you don't keep submitting to the same blogs that moderate your trackback out and risk being blacklisted by spam filters.
2.6.1 Trackbacks disabled
Many sites now disable trackbacks and comments on posts older than XX days. There are still lots of blogs out there.
3. Products
3.1 manually
For manual submitting trackbacks you can find blogs in several different search sites.
I prefer to search for keyword related blogs in Technorati.com.
Append your search with "trackback" to find the posts that make it easier to submit to them by posting the uri.
Be sure to use the search in entire post settings in the "Blog Search settings."
If you are getting lots of results, you can narrow it down by choosing sites with a lot of authority.
This is a quick way to find some blogs suitable for trackbacks that are relevant to your niche and recent (less chance of trackbacks being turned off due to post age).
I haven't found the limit in WordPress yet of how many trackbacks can be entered.
If you have a favorite post, just open it in the WordPress Dashboard edit tab, add your list of trackback urls and save. Keep repeating.
Remember, your trackbacks will not show up on most blogs immediately or ever on some. When in doubt, set up a free WordPress blog and send a test trackback to it. Check the comments tab in the Dashboard for it's status.
3.1.1 YouTube - Blog Marketing With Trackbacks
Good video overview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCCq3K7XpEI
3.2 web based
There are a variety of web-based trackback forms.
I have tested a couple of them. Their usefulness is in sending a trackback from a blog you don't have admin access to.
Why would you want to do that? Several reasons:
1. You forgot your blog login details
2. There is a link on the post that you want to promote on someone else's blog
3. Your blogging tool doesn't support trackbacks
4. Because you can.
Kurt always wonders why it takes me so long to write a "short" description of something. It's because I don't write anything I haven't tested or researched for a few hours. Often times it involves a credit card. Luckily this time it didn't.
Let's test reason #2. As I am doing this think about ways it can be semi-automated or further exploited (in a nice way, not abused) with parasite hosting.
I go to Technorati and search for "seo trackback"
I find an interesting article that I would like a link on:
http://blog.yourwebsiteprofit.info/2007/11/5-
reasons-to- share-the-link-love.html
...So I grab the trackback uri:
http://blog.yourwebsiteprofit.info/2007/11/5-
reasons-to- share-the-link-love.html/trackback
Now lets say you have a favorite blog post that has some links to you or an article you wrote posted on someone else's blog that makes you an authority or perhaps a blog post that picked up one of your black hole rss feeds that had your affiliate links or . . . (use your imagination).
Here is a good example (I just picked a random one from the Technorati search
results):
http://junkspotnews.blogspot.com/2007/11/how- to-build- traffic-to-your-blog.html
So now you want some traffic and link love for this post.
1. Open up a web trackback submitter in the list. I haven't tested all of them but I prefer Wizbang.
2. The trackback uri from the page that I want a link on goes in the first box.
3. The URL of the post you are promoting goes in the next box
4. Your blog name and title next.
5. You can use an excerpt from the post with a link in like: "You'll find
an extensive list of article directories here
http://ebizwhiz- publishing.com/write-articles/submit- articles.htm
That's not my link or blog. It some random blogger's lucky day. They can delete it if it's a problem. (And it was deleted when I went back to check my links - the drawback of links on other's sites)
This was what the result looked like:
Trackback by Junk Spot News
2007-11-06 19:18:11
How To Build Traffic To Your Blog
You’ll find an extensive list of article directories here http://ebizwhiz- publishing.com/write- articles/submit- articles.htm
Reply to this comment
You see the possibilities. I also managed to get 2 links on this blog to 2 different sites but targeted to the niche I am in. You can have a lot of fun with this. I am not sure if the web service checks if you used an exact excerpt or url so there are some things to test further.
This is a good way to distance yourself from some of the problems that can arise from trackback linking.
3.2.1 Simpletracks Adam Kalsey
http://kalsey.com/tools/trackback/
3.2.2 Wizbang Standalone Trackback Pinger
http://www.aylwardfamily.com/content/tbping.asp
3.2.3 reedmaniac.com - Trackback Form
http://www.reedmaniac.com/scripts/trackback_form.php
3.2.4 Trackback wizard - web.forret.com
http://web.forret.com/tools/trackback.asp
3.2.5 TrackBack Display
http://www.oreillynet.com/cgi-bin/tb/tb.cgi?__mode=send_form
3.3 server based products
3.3.1 Submit Trackback URL - Post Trackback Entry with Blog Trackback
Submitter
http://www.submit-trackback.com/
$150 one time cost
Recent October update might be worth trying again
Tried an earlier version and didn't like it.
- difficult to install
- proxy problems
- adding my own trackback urls didn't work properly
- very spammy results
3.4 desktop products
3.4.1 Trackback Spider
Trackback Spider - Home- Waiting list sign up page
http://www.trackbackspider.com/
$97 monthly
Sold out and not available
Many affiliates have "special links" to get you in
Worst trackback tool I tried.
- difficult to set up
- monthly fees
- need to edit page codes
Disappointing since the creator is also the developer of Domain Dashboard
which is one of my favorite tools.
3.4.2 Link Whore Software News
http://www.link-whore.com/news.html
Software manual for tools
http://www.link-whore.com/manual.pdf
I wouldn't use it even for free.
3.4.3 TrackbackGenerator
http://www.trackbackgenerator.com/blog/
Sold out and no longer available at author's website. Sold for $147 to $97 one time cost (previous customers)
Trackback Generator from Joseph Tierney works the best for a commercial tool.
Only had one operating system error and that was due to using my own spider tool and not checking the urls that I saved. It does take a bit of practice to find the right timeout settings.
Works with text files and stores a list of urls that it considered successfully posted. In reality, only a small portion of those make it on the blog due to spam filters, vigilant webmasters, etc.
You are limited to promoting a single url at a time nor can you randomize the anchor text unless you start a new project.
It is very easy to over do it with this tool because it actually works.
It takes some practice to know how many trackback links are needed to get your site indexed versus how many before you piss off the wrong webmaster and get complaints and hate comments in return.
Best to practice on throwaway subdomains from wordpress.com for the first couple days.
The tool can gather about 1,000 backtrack target urls per hour and post about 400 per hour. About 5% of them will stick at least long enough for one pass of the spiders. Your mileage may vary.
WTFIsATrackback - A good report by the vendor
http://www.josephtierney.com/WTFIsATrackback.pdf
BankWithTrackbackGenerator - How to make money with trackback links
http://www.josephtierney.com/BankWithTrackbackGenerator.pdf
(Just a personal observation - Squidoo will close your lens if they get complaints.)
3.5 private services
3.5.1 Squirt members trackbackpro tool
Looks like it has potential but gave up on it
3.5.2 PG Insider Magic Builder
Included as part of the Magic Promoter suite
Overall effectiveness of the Magic Builder suite is questionable
3.5.3 Roll Your Own Scripts
You can find snippets of code on most black hat forums to create your own or hire an outsourcer
Apparently it's not a difficult process if you are a programmer. It's adding all the "must have" extra features that cause problems.
- Top Hat Bob
Thanks Top Hat Bob!
Everyone...Blackhatters use Trackbacks as a major part of their linking strategy.
With trackbacks, it's possible to get 100's of links per hour. Think about this for a second.
There's too much BS for me to fully exploit trackbacks, but these blackhat trackback spammers are getting thousand of links in the time it takes you and I to get 1 or 2.
This is our competition.
I've tired a couple of the resources on Top's list:
SQUIRT Forum - $100 a month - They give away a trackback script. I couldn't get it to work and it has poor documentation. The members that did get it to work were programmers, and they reported complaints from bloggers.
TrackBack Spider - $97 a month. I joined and downloaded the software, read the "read me" and canceled my membership right away. I don't know if it works, but it was so complicated to set up, I didn't bother going any further.
Question for Top Hat
Kurt: It seems to me that doing trackbacks the legit way using Technorati is an option that should be explored further.
Do you think that using Technorati in legit ways is an efficient way to get
back links?
Top Hat Bob:
There is room for improvement in the efficiency of using manual trackbacks
by two ways:
1. Make your posts more generic so that you can trackback to a greater number of other blogs.
The "Top 20 . . . (in your niche)" type posts work great since it looks like you have done a lot of research, thus a lot of trackbacks are merited.
I know this sounds backwards, but you should find the blogs that you want to trackback or comment on, then write the post based on a common theme.
2. Technorati is only one option of locating blogs, but some of them may not even be indexed in the search engines. If you are using trackbacks to get spiders to visit your blog post, then you may want to look for higher ranking blogs that get more frequent spider visits.
I did a test today with Comment Hut to locate higher PR blogs in a niche. I visited each blog it found. In one window I had my WordPress dashboard open to write the post - I jotted notes as I went along in the editor box. I also copied the trackback uri to the dialog box in the post editor.
Eventually I determined a theme - "Best blogs for ATV parts and accessories" which fit the theme of my blog about ATVs. It was a one paragraph post about an ongoing search for ATV blogs.
Over half of the high PR blogs accepted my trackback and I don't think they will delete it. Some of the others should approve the ones in the moderation queue over time.
If I find more blogs related to my post theme, I can add trackbacks at any time by opening the editor window in WordPress.
You can search Google also with a search string like:
trackback+url+OR+uri+blog+comment+October+2007+niche+keyword
Change niche keyword to your actual niche and use a date in the last 30 days to get more recent blogs but not the most recent. This will give you a good selection of blogs to target.
This system will also work with existing posts but you have to ask yourself why would another blogger approve a trackback submitted from a post written a month or two ago?
So to recap, manual trackback linking can be a very efficient WH linking strategy if you gather the urls first and then write the post.
Tons of FREE Linking Opportunities
Misc. FREE Linking Tools and Resources:
Backlink Builder - Enter a keyword or phrase, and Backlink Builder will search the web looking for relevant guest books, add URLs, etc, based on your keywords.
Back Link Analyzer -Here's a 100% FREE tool similar to Opti Link and SEO Elite, but it is free.
Backlink Watch - Builds a report of all the backlinks to a page. Good for seeing why certain pages rank highly. Sometimes it's slow or doesn't work.
Future-pagerank: Get an educated guess as to the future PR of your sites.
GoLexa - "The Search Tool with Complete Page Analysis for each Result".
SEO SpyGlass is an extremely powerful competition research tool designed to let you see exactly how your competitors got to the top in search engines — so you can mimic their winning linking strategy, improve on it, and blow right by them in Google, Yahoo! and MSN! Free trial download or $87 for full version.
Quick Indexing Tool - QUIT utilizes tons of techniques to get your site crawled and indexed VERY quickly. Probably not as effective as it used to be, and may have some risk. I suggest you test it out on lower quality sites and resources.
Smart PageRank - PageRank Checker For Your Backlinks. Checks the PageRank of your backlinks and includes: Show PageRank, Show nofollow, Anchor Text.
LivePR - Spiders your site's pages and reports the Google PageRank multiple data centers for each page it finds.
Hub Finder - "Hub Finder looks for sites which have co occuring links to related authoritative websites on a particular topic." Useful for finding the most strategic hubs to acquire links from.
AddUrl.nu - A list of 300+ free directories to submit your domain to.
QuidProQuoTM Reciprocal Link Checker Software - QuidProQuoTM is a free utility that enables webmasters to improve the efficiency of thier reciprocal linking campaigns.
Need a Daily Linking Plan?
Here's an excellent daily plan that focuses on the many Web 2.0 and social
bookmarking sites from Michelle Macphearson:
http://www.socialmediadaily.com/
It's free, just sign up for her newsletter.
Follow her daily plan, mixing in the strategies, knowledge and resources
you've found here.
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