Hey All

Couple questions for you. I heard that a while ago there was a bit of a change on the way Google rates links. I know that if they are relevent then they are obviously better, but has this gotten even stricter?

 

Also I have been struggling to find decent link exchange websites, anyone know of any good ones? I don't want spammy ones if I can avoid it!

 

Thanks!

Rich

Today link exchange may harm your website ranking, better is to create quality link by doing SEO activities such a PR submission, Article Submission, High pr social bookmarking.

 

Thanks Kevin

What is PR Submission? And what is High PR social bookmarking?

Article submission is tricky as my client is in a specialist field and I have trouble getting them to write anything for their website, let alone articles.

 

Would it be worth removing old weblinks that I exchanged in the past to boost their ratings? I know that their ratings are falling at the moment. Most of the the links are fairly relevent....

High PR Social bookmarking means to submit your website links on High page rank bookmarking website such as stumbleupon.com. reddit.com etc. And if your client releases any new product or services then you can submit (PR) press release on several website.

As per the Google algorithm update if you have non-relevant links then it is important to remove it either manually or you can go with Google disavow tools. Now onwards don’t’ publish your content on multiple website. And make unique and quality content. If you have any more confusion then let me know.

 

In the latest Google update, Google not priorities the link exchange technique. Its treated as a harmful technique. So my opinion is don't do that.. Go for other valuable link building methods..

Link Exchange itself is a spam kind of SEO as per google's guidelines. Go through it once properly. Hence its not at all recommended to go for link exchanges.

Good quality one way links are good we can go for Guest blogging, Press release and articles.These are the good source of one way links and give value to the search engine rankings of a website.

Edited August 30, 201313 yr by brainpulsetech

Hello,

Link exchange on the other hand is a link building technique where in an owner of a certain website communicates with other website owners so that they can "Exchange links" thereby promoting each other's websites.

It's 2013 and we are still throwing around phrases like "link exchanges", Just lol. Come on people.

 

"High PR Social bookmarking" - what an awful marketing term.

 

 

I know like Google is going to penalise websites for linking to each other. Google must expect related websites are going to to link to each other.

 

The point is its not about exchanging links, but who you are linking too. If you are linking to an unrelated website or one with too many outgoing links on a page, or one with a bad reputation then you may incur a penalty.

 

I have a directory specifically related to the web design industry and naturally the exchange of links is very common. Ever since I started it I have heard this nonsense without ever hearing any evidence.

 

My directory has been going for quite a few years now, is a PR6 and highly ranked in Google for Web Design terms and is there basically because my members (many of which are SEO companies) link back to the site.

I know like Google is going to penalise websites for linking to each other. Google must expect related websites are going to to link to each other.

 

The point is its not about exchanging links, but who you are linking too. If you are linking to an unrelated website or one with too many outgoing links on a page, or one with a bad reputation then you may incur a penalty.

 

I have a directory specifically related to the web design industry and naturally the exchange of links is very common. Ever since I started it I have heard this nonsense without ever hearing any evidence.

 

My directory has been going for quite a few years now, is a PR6 and highly ranked in Google for Web Design terms and is there basically because my members (many of which are SEO companies) link back to the site.

 

 

If you tweaked that home page, I reckon you would easily rank for "web design company"

Cheers Jason, I'll give it a go. I'm just working on a new re-design first, but I am going to take a closer look at the copy.

So basically its ok to exchange links with related websites still?

 

Are one way links worth loads more than reciprocal ones? Cos I could do a chain of links with some of my websites, as there are a couple in related fields, so they could link to each other in a circle (if you know what I mean). Would that be better?

 

With the articles one, where do you submit the articles too? How does that work? Its a bit tricky with some of my clients to get em to do stuff like that, they just want me to magically wave my SEO wand and get them on the first page. But some of my clients might be up for that.

 

Also where can you find Googles recommendations on how to rank well in it?

Edited October 12, 201312 yr by AblazeRich

 

A link exchange also known as a banner exchange is a group of websites that operates similarly to a
web ring. Webmaster's register their web sites with a central organization,
that runs the exchange, and in turn receive from the exchange HTML code which they
insert into their web pages. This benefits both web master's sites by
increasing the number of inbound links to their sites. The more inbound links,
the better their sites rank in organic search. It is purely illegal and does not follow the white hat techniques of Google..

Ok thanks for that.

On another SEO related question:

 

I am working on a website that has multiple web names for it.

If the main one that is linked to the hosting is:

http://www.touringvanhire.com

 

Does it matter if I use the company name:

www.alongthehighway.com

In all the link exchange programs I am using?

 

I ask cos that second name just links through to the first name. I decided to use the first webname as I felt it would be more likely to come up well in search engine searches.

 

Any views on that?

Thanks guys

Well if you have done 301 redirects through each of the domains pointing to the main one then the link juice does get passed through, however it will not be quite as effective.

 

I remember when I changed the name of my directory a few years back and did a 301 redirect. The Page Rank dropped down by one and there was a dip in the search engines for a while.

 

Personally I would try and get them to directly link to www.touringvanhire.com

 

Also some people might ask why you want them to link to one domain name, when they get redirected through to another. It might put them off.

Thanks Neil

With the hosting my client has I can also purchase webnames.

So I just setup all the webnames to point to the same hosting.

 

But the initial hosting package was setup with the webname touringvanhire.com

I figured that one would be best as it has a few of their keywords in it. Do you think that I would be better off going with the webname that is the actual name of the company (www.alongthehighway.com)? Cos I reckon I could get it changed, but if I'm gonna do it, I need to do it ASAP, as the website is due to be launched and I am about to put a load of effort into getting quality links exchanged with other related websites.

Edited October 18, 201312 yr by AblazeRich

Good question. I know having keywords in your domain name use to help quite a bit. I have used it myself and B&Q who must have spent a lot of money on SEO opted for the domain name www.diy.com so it must have been worth doing. You can also see those words boldend in the search results, so by that you can tell Google recognises those words. You can also argue that by having those keywords in your domain name is the ultimate commitment towards those search results.

 

However Google have tried to get more natural results over the years and by looking at this logically, Google may have given this less of a ranking factor over the years as a result of trying to stop people manipulating the system and skipping to the top of the search results.

 

So my opinion is that it may help having keywords in a domain name, but probably not by much. Jason Dexter maybe able to shed more light on this and give a more definate answer than me.

 

Personally I would go with the company name, as clients or customers looking to find the company are more likley to remember that domain name, but I'm sure others may think differenlty.

Thanks for your reply Neil.

I think it may be worth asking this as its own thread/question, as it is quite a pertinent question.

If you're gonna do link exchange, make sure it's three way.

I've been doing a mix of reciprocal link exchanges (not banner swaps etc) with related websites. And 3 way ones through an Indian SEO company (they approached me). It seems to be ok and these sites are coming up ok now.

 

I've been gathering some links through this organisation:

http://www.linkmarket.net/

 

Also noticed that some of my sites with a PR of 0 come up better than others with a PR of 2.... Why would that be?

Edited February 18, 201412 yr by AblazeRich

I'm not stalking you, but...

 

Everything about "3 way link building through an indian SEO company" makes me cry. They approached you? I imagine it was a mass-blasted spam email. But hey, they can do "SEO" for $50 per month!

 

Whats the website, out of interest?

 

You're doing okay now and to be honest you might even slip under the radar for a little while but when Google does a big refresh of it's filters you'll feel it then. Either that or you'll just get by, fluxing between positions and ranking for low volume keywords.

 

No offence, but it seems like you think *that* is link building but it's really not.

Its free, they specifically wanted to swap related links with one of my websites (well two in the end). They need to use some of my websites to do the 3 way links with. I know what you mean about it sounding dodgy, but it seems to be working, I've tried to make sure that the websites are related in some way.

the websites are www.phoenixayahuasca.com

and

www.elpurguero.com

both of which come up ok for 'ayahuasca centers iquitos' (and there is a lot of competition)

 

How would you build these links then that is different from what I'm doing?

Edited February 18, 201412 yr by AblazeRich

IMO 3 way is sketchy at best; especially off shore 3 way. It you look at a link as a vote of confidence (if followed) then why would A vote for B, B vote for C and C vote for A?

 

I think the swap reciprocal could be making it's retro comeback. If you look at the shape of how the Google grinder has moved on it knows so much more than we think. And here's how;

 

Site A: Overall keyword importance #1 wedding #2 dresses #7 Nottinghamshire

Site B: Overall keyword importance #1 flowers #4 wedding #15 Kent

 

See Site A does Wedding Dresses and Site B does Wedding Flowers, both have locations from the UK. This mutual exchange holds benefit for the user plus direct referral potential. Also the Google machine can fathom why a wedding dress maker and a wedding florist are in bed together and can make a topic relevance.

 

Now look at a 3 way link;

 

Site A: Overall keyword importance #1 real estate #2 canada

Site B: Overall keyword importance #1 shoes #4 buy #6 Austrailia

Site C: Overall keyword importance #1 restaurant #2 menu #24 Gujurat

 

The odds of a good 3 way with relevance is much harder than a reciprocal. This might be a bit simple but you can see where I'm coming from.

Relevancy doesn't mean much if Google picks up on it and determines that these are forced links. The problem is, it will seem to work for a little while, so why stop? I get that but trust me, it's not worth it in the long run. I'm not on some sort of mission to stop bad link building, because it's not my website so it doesn't matter to me.

 

Link exchange is okay if you have an awesome website linking to you. Not ones where it's forced through some website and you're treating it as "a link is a link" and certainly not where it accounts for more than 2% of your link profile. To be honest, I wouldn't even have it that high.

 

Market the website. Use analytics to see how people are finding your website. Maybe theres an opportunity there.

 

Reach out to related websites and write content for them.

Blog on a regular basis and use social media to push it out to influences.

Create good, quality directory links.

Comment on blogs to drive traffic to your website.

 

Ron Wheelock has some great links from natural websites like http://realitysandwich.com/85319/wheelock_interview/

 

Ron Wheelock is also mentioned on the following websites without a link:

 

http://www.ayahuascaretreats.org/Staff%20and%20shamans.htm

http://dawnontheamazon.com/blog/2011/02/12/another-iquitos-evening/

http://www.londonreal.tv/episodes/ayahuasca-my-heart-of-darkness

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/iquitos-peru-ayahuasca-part-133.html

http://www.dosenation.com/listing.php?id=7591

ayahuascarecipe.org/gringo-shaman-ayahuasca-recipe-ingredients/

http://psypressuk.com/2011/03/29/literary-review-aya-a-shamanic-odyssey-by-rak-razam/

http://jungle-love.org/2010/07/27/ayahuasca-a-love-story/

 

Thats form the first two pages of Google just for his name. Get a branded or naked-anchor text to his website.

 

That should get you started

Relevancy doesn't mean much if Google picks up on it and determines that these are forced links.

 

It's the determine of forced links really. 10 mutual rel follow site relevant links will work wonders; I've seen long term strength, one dating back to 2009, still #3 of 12m pages - penguins can whistle.

With the 3 way linking it doesn't go ahead unless I agree to it. I check out all the links and make sure they are all relevant. I also try and get one way incoming links as much as possible, but as we all know, these are trickier to come by.

 

What is a ' naked-anchor' ?

Naked anchor is where there is no anchor text; so off an image or generic url e.g. www.thedomain.com

yep PR submission plus Blogs are great for links! the more great content, the better!

Edited February 24, 201511 yr by webdesigner93
Link removed

 

Also noticed that some of my sites with a PR of 0 come up better than others with a PR of 2.... Why would that be?

 

Google has said they won't be updating the metric and they probably won't update it in the future.

 

This hangout recording with could be interesting for you, he talks about Page Rank at the 53:16 mark : http://youtu.be/BvQZxxzQbLY?t=53m11s

No matter how good is the website, the link exchange will ultimately lead you to penality. Avoid this practice. The only way to use it safely is by keeping this 10-15 of your total links.