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 *****Editor’s update: Rand has pointed out that I misread the bit about NPR. See below for amendment. *****

Did you ever think that you’d need permission in order to deep link to a site? And for those of you who don’t know, deep linking is the practice of linking to a page on a site other than the home page. It’s what we’re basically supposed to do, to have the most relevant links for our readers.

Apparently this is wreaking absolute havoc with several online publications. The Dallas Morning News has claimed that this practice has contributed to their quick downward spiral into the bowels of hell by “violating copyrights, depriving them of ad dollars, redirecting traffic, and generally confusing Web surfers.” That’s freaking Texas for you. They should stick to trying to find better bands than Coldplay to appear on Austin City Limits. (Obviously I cannot link to their terms of service so that you sweet readers could check this out since I don’t want to have a ten gallon cowboy hat of whoop-arse unloaded on me…)

The paragraph about NPR disallowing deep linking has been removed. This was an error on my part, which was kindly pointed out by Rand. I was going to just strike it through so that everyone could point and laugh at me, but didn’t want to further my badmouthing of them, since it turns out that they actually changed their policy to ALLOW deep linking. Amazing how I get through life…

As someone who is highly concerned about the limitations continually being placed on freedom of speech, this type of thing seriously concerns me. Will I not be able to link to a relevant page on a web site because my doing so may confuse someone? I mean I understand that making threats or shouting bigoted remarks in a coffee house isn’t something that you really should be doing, but CONFUSING SOMEONE ON THE WEB? I confuse people on a daily basis, online and offline. Confusion is good for the soul. It’s also a good New Order song.

Many people don’t take freedom of speech as seriously as they should, especially Americans in their comfort zone. If our online freedoms continue to be restricted in truly ridiculous ways such as not being allowed to link to a page that is relevant to what you’re talking about, what’s next? Will you not be able to use certain big words because most people won’t immediately know their definition? Will you be prevented from having an orange background because lots of people don’t like the color orange? Will Lisa have to stop all the Viking cursing on this blog? Will chocolate companies forbid Judith to mention their truffles? Will Adam Ant sue me for saying that I’m off him after seeing him cry in the “Wonderful” video? We’re all heading straight for hell you know.

Free speech isn’t the only issue with this either. Think about this for a minute (yes, just a minute): will Google be allowed to list results other than the home page of a publication that has these policies? Those are links, right? If the home page isn’t relevant for a certain term, then they’re gonna get screwed aren’t they? If you have a large site and you rank for 10,000 long tailed phrases that are relevant to all of your pages, if Google gets skittish and thinks they might get sued for violating your terms of service, because we all know how they love the terms of service, they could technically pull all results for your pages and your number of ranking phrases falls to 10. Google is currently still showing the dreaded deep links (their site links) for Dallas Morning News, by the way…so are they violating the terms of service here? I can’t be bothered to actually READ their terms of service to find out, honestly. Maybe they haven’t changed them, or maybe Google’s money and power was enough to get them to sign the permission slip. (Editor’s note: parts of this were amended after an error on my part.)

By turning off deep linking, you can decrease the overall link popularity of your site, too. Isn’t this shooting yourself in the foot? What about pissing off the people who don’t want to go and search for a story from the home page? If your search functionality sucks a duck’s arse on the site, you’re going to be seriously irritating these people. And really, if this is mostly about money, why can’t these people properly monetize the entire site and not just their home page?

As you can see, this situation is as fraught with peril as a trip to buy toilet paper and milk right before it snows in the South. We tend to take freedom of speech quite lightly, which is unfortunate. When you think about the greater implications of the continued clampdown on our online freedom, maybe you’ll realize just how critical it is to stay on top of issues such as this one and we won’t have anyone sporting a “Kill Your Deep Links” t-shirt in the checkout line at Wal-Mart.

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29th January 2008 | Comments (16) | Linking | by Julie Joyce.

when-is-a-link-a-paid-link

The current and perennially hot topic of PAID LINKS has had me thinking since the summer about the nature of payment for a link and how all links might be paid links.

I work in the media sector. As such, I get some freebies from the journalists or am sent things directly for review. I also go to drinks events, launches, conferences and other events as part of my job.

It was at the Moo Summer party that I began to wonder - if I blog about this party and link to it, is that a paid link? YES and NO.

YES it IS a paid link because with several thousands being spent on food and booze, any links were clearly bought. Even though specific links were not solicited at the party, packs of free Moo stickers, free alcohol and free food a paid link doth make.

NO it ISN’T because this was a traditional PR party event.  Sure it was a PR event for bloggers but none were directly compensated for the link.  The money spent went to pay for the party and no one at the party had to link to Moo.  Anyone who did link to Moo (like me - I LOVE MOO!) did it because they wanted to - not because a request was made.

That’s nice and clear like mud. But let us look at the traditional PR party.  This event is usually held somewhere nice – a gallery, a swanky office, a nice hotel.  The event is catered and complimentary alcohol flows freely.  These events cost thousands to run and the people running them expect payment in some form – an article, a link, a favourable connection.  These parties are a way of paying for exposure.  Are links they receive through the year paid links?

I think what we may be seeing with Matt Cutts’ comments is Google’s recognition of the gaming of the system.  There may be a desire on the part of Google to make links a less important ranking factor because of the gaming, but they need to find relevance beyond the on-page content.  Links are votes and while I have always been an advocate of links for traffic, Google also counts links as a big part of rankings.

Google’s Matt Cutts says only editorial content should have “follow” links because it is the only content that would exist without payment.  I’m saying from inside the news industry that the news is paid for.

Agencies, PR machines, and companies themselves are showering journalists with gifts of concert tickets, hampers of food and drink, technology and more.  The so-called editorial content is paid for with food, drink and gifts.  Those editorial links are paid links.

Looking beyond the direct compensation of people, I can begin to make waters muddier still.  Is exemplary service purchasing a link?  The time required to provide the service has a cost attached.  Is getting a free gift with purchase paying for a link?  The product has a cost.

There is too much room for Google to interpret things any way they wish.  I can argue that almost any link has been ‘paid for’ somehow and would not exist without that ‘payment’.

This debate will rage on and on.  I’m cynical and evil and exist only to cause suffering and pain so I throw this out to you all – ALL LINKS ARE PAID LINKS.  Somehow, somewhere they have been paid for in service, freebies, parties, networking, community contributions, or whatever.

Perhaps instead of trying to castrate existing link love, Google needs to better filter weighting of links.

What do you think?

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31st December 2007 | Comments (21) | Linking | by Judith 'deCabbit' Lewis.

chocbait-miserable-failure

Chocolate makes me happy. It says so on my Moo cards and so I thought after seeing how much fun Chris Hooley seemed to have with drinkbait that I would shamelessly rip off errr… borrow that template and try and meet people by giving away chocolate.

Drinkbait was a fantastic idea specifically drawn up by Chris to achieve a particular end. He bought “nips” (which I only know another connotation for so am clueless about what this has to do with drink) and went off getting pictured with various SEOs. I wasn’t drunk when I looked at the images and I thought were great but now (also sober) I can’t find them. “Drinkbait” was followed up by someone with “hatbait” and now me with “chocbait”. I’m looking to meet people and get to know them – the love I want isn’t just from links… It’s in the hearts and minds of chocolate fans everywhere. Link building has never been more fun (or yummy).

Now, chocolate to a chocoholic like myself is a sacred thing. No cheap chocolate for me, I was going for French style chocolates which come in cute boxes and are about the price of a bottle of booze. As this is international travel we are talking about here, and chocolate had to travel with me, I needed to test the idea out and so the Ad:tech chocbait test was launched. Armed with high quality truffles, I went to the SEO chicks drinks thing after Ad:tech and sprung my trap. On an unsuspecting table of SEO people, I offered high quality cocoa dusted truffles.

No one liked my chocolate but other SEO chicks. Yep – you read it right… Chocobait was a miserable failure. How, in my wildest nightmares could I have possibly envisioned an era when chocolate would be REFUSED?!?! Yes – chocbait was not accepted when offered.

I was devastated. Returning home from Ad:tech with an untouched box of truffles in my cookie bag (hey – chocolate in all it’s many forms makes me happy – including chocolate chip cookies), I slumped on the couch and told husband I was going to rank well for chocbait and miserable failure because that’s what it was. He tried to console me with hot chocolate made from flakes of real chocolate in milk but I was inconsolable. The hot chocolate was good though :)

I’m a firm advocate of marketing techniques to test things out. For chocbait, this means an A:B test. Chocbait will happen again in a different way at a different venue in order to test alternates. Current chocbait, as it is in the testing phase, does not include “branded” link requests nor does it attempt to inspire linking (though friendship is encouraged). Final version chocbait, if it does indeed make it past the testing phase to PubCon, will involve photos, branded notes attached to the chocolate and lots of fun (I hope).

I’d love to hear some ideas about how to improve chocbait or ideas you might have about how chocbait can successfully leave beta and emerge at PubCon in final release version.

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12th October 2007 | Comments (4) | SEO Events & Photos, Linking, ChocBait | by Judith 'deCabbit' Lewis.

We have been getting a surge of comment spam that is obviously being done by very apologetic individuals. As a good Southerner, I appreciate the manners involved but let me list out a few things that won’t get you the links you want…

Saying something like “I like site give me link!” This is definitely to the point. I appreciate that, seriously, but at least give me a reason! Liking a site isn’t a good enough reason for us to allow your comment through. And of course you like our site. It rocks. Join the fanclub (cough).

Adding in a frowny face emoticon. While this always makes me laugh since it expresses the utter anguish of link building and the despair of everday life, it’s the equivalent of me letting my giant bloodhound take a dump in your yard and putting a bright orange flag on it that has, as does your comment, a little frownie face on it, instead of cleaning it up.

Writing the pitiful words “I’m sorry.” This makes me sad and that’s not good since I make others sad by moaning and groaning to them. If you do this, you are responsible for black clouds forming wherever I go. I’m in London at the moment so it’s not too tough but please, try and let me have ONE good day.

Making a comment about how “wow we have the same name!” Jules Joyce, this doesn’t apply to Facebook. That friend request was awesome! I’ll accept any friend request usually, since I’m needy, but I’m not dragging down my site with an outbound link just because you’re Julianne Adair Joyce Jr.

Saying something negative about anything that we have written. Ok this is a joke. Contrary to what you may believe, we have simply never received any negative comments (more coughing.)

Things that WILL get your comments posted include being a mac daddy black hat spammer with excellent taste in music, complimenting us on being attractive and well-mannered and clever and having good hair and smiling nicely, referencing a particularly good point that we made and seconding it, listing out how you once thought something but the SEO Chicks changed your mind and now you’re a fully functional human being who gives money to charity and keeps a clean house, and/or sending links to photos of your private parts.

So please, if you’re going to comment, follow these guidelines. I could be spending that blog admin time surfing porn. I wouldn’t, but I could.

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11th October 2007 | Comments (2) | Linking | by Julie Joyce.

Weddings weddings weddings…it’s all the London SEO crowd can think about now that my lovely Viking Lisa has apparently agreed to marry Rob Kerry IF, and it’s a big IF, the monkey can get a top rank in Google for the term ‘weddings.’ She obviously doesn’t know that I went out with him last night and will be seeing him again tonight though.

I have always wanted to be a bridesmaid in Vegas. Anita wants to be the flower girl. This is big stuff for the SEO Chicks so please, digg and sphinn til these two are forced to let me buy a lovely silk dress with a matching parasol. Like I don’t have that already but still…

You can read more about this as Rob attempts to lay blame on the Nottster for the wedding.

Update: please note that I have refrained from my usual “why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” question here. I’m trying to show a bit of class while I’m in London this week, in order to prevent the Brits from staying red with humiliation the whole time I’m here.

SEO Chick to Marry Evilgreenmonkey

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10th October 2007 | Comments (3) | SMO (Social Media Optimization), Linking | by Julie Joyce.

It’s common practice to formulate a link development plan that includes tasks such as “build relevant inbound links” and “use relevant anchor text” when putting an SEO strategy together. I have even been guilty of making this recommendation without adequately qualifying it, and I expect to have my backside smashed about it soon.

Relevancy is, unfortunately, a concept that’s bandied about without most people actually taking the time to think it through.

The problem is that relevancy is not a black and white matter. We’re kind of told that it is when Google dictates that relevant links are ok, but when you examine the very nature of relevance, you’ll see that it simply cannot be this or that. It’s just not a discrete concept. What I think is relevant to a topic at hand may indeed be relevant in MY mind, but not in yours.

You know how you read a really good blog (like the SEO Chicks, perhaps) and someone’s talking about something and kind of goes way off topic (doesn’t happen here, though, so stop thinking about our posts damn you!) and then makes the seemingly irrelevant points finally connect…and you realize that, Julie is actually doing this intentionally and that yes, The Clash really do have something to do with search engine optimization. At first glance you think “Jaysus what’s she on about NOW, the freak?” and that (hopefully) soon turns into (hopefully) “well by god she actually does have a point that’s relevant to the topic at hand.” Indeed.

Since search engines consider anchor text to be an accurate representation of the link to which it’s attached, technically it should be very difficult to determine whether or not a link itself is relevant. It’s quite easy to be a bit manipulative here isn’t it? Sure, a human being doing a review can detect irrelevancy if it’s blatant, but if you’re at least partially clever and can cross the street on your own, you should be able to find a way to gloss over the irrelevancy in some way. If anchor text is what the engines look to in order to see that yes, this link is indeed relevant, then there you go. Make your anchor text relevant.

The main issue is that big engines like Google can’t control every tiny aspect of linking but, if they admitted that or stopped doing the omnipotent act, you might just be onto them and maybe, if you were prone to backing down quickly, you’d stop trying to exploit links for your own good. Sugar Rae had a great post about the links that Google could never identify as being paid links. It’s all a giant scare tactic to help them reach their supposed goal of making life on the internet only about the end user. They can’t catch half (or more) of the paid links out there, and they can’t tell whether or not your links are relevant, without a human review. They might not be able to catch you then either.

On the SEO Theory site I found an excellent recent article entitled “The measured nonsense of SEO relevance.” Here, Michael Martinez states that “Search engine optimization has to respect the limitations of search algorithms and it needs to put a limit on the credibility of unreasonable expectations. Relevance is not determined by links but by text.” That’s pretty much dead on.

If you think you might be prone to a human review, then have your inbound links structured in such a way that they do, indeed, become relevant to what’s being said somewhere. It’s not too tough unless you’re a complete and utter moron. A site about how Mrs. Fish Palace really makes a good fried catfish platter (gag) really may have need of linking to your site about dancing cats, such as when they say something about how “the dancing cat sweatshirts that we sell at Mrs. Fish Palace really are hot!” An example that makes me shudder certainly, but still, you can see that even though these two sites should technically have nothing to do with one another, this is indeed a relevant link. Usually you won’t have people randomly linking to your site if it’s not relevant, because what purpose would that serve for them?

Wikipedia has a fascinating entry about relevance, with this quote being the most interesting to me…”It is elusive, because the meaning of relevance appears to be difficult or impossible to capture within conventional logical systems.” The algorithms, although they don’t always seem to be, really are built on a logical framework you know. Therefore, how can a machine-built system, based on logic, determine meaning? We’re back to the whole issue of machines making judgment calls. It’s impossible for them to understand meaning because they cannot infer.

In discrete mathematics you learn about finiteness. To grossly summarize this, it means that you have all these little 0s and 1s, off and on switches, yes and no. There’s no in-between. Something is, or it isn’t. This makes perfect sense to a machine, and possibly less to a human being. However, as you may have ascertained, relevancy cannot be lableled as a 0 or a 1. I found another great quote on an old Search Engine Watch post that equates the attempt to measure relevancy to “asking people to eat different types of cakes and answering whether each cake is simply edible. Edible is fine in some instances, but what you really want to know is who serves the best cakes consistently?”

I could, and do, say that The Clash is the best band there has ever been. To me, that’s completely true and really, I have been known to crack open a large six-pack of whoop-arse on anyone who says something stupid like “hey didn’t they do that ‘Dance Hall Days’ song?” So let’s say that there’s a question of “who’s the best band ever?” and I said “The Clash.” Well obviously I am RIGHT, but you might think that The Sex Pistols is the best band ever. I’ll give you leeway because really, let’s face it, they were a damn fine band too.

However, both of our selections are right in our minds, but they aren’t in agreement with each other. Is my choice more or less relevant? Well, more relevant obviously since The Clash really IS the best band ever, but there’s an obvious gap here in who thinks what. Can we even accurately answer a question like that? What do you mean by best? Most talented, most records sold, best lyrics, most enjoyable? Impossible stuff.

So can an algorithm really assign a true measure of relevancy to your inbound links? There is no freaking way on earth it can. It may try, and I’m not denying that it does, but with a fluid concept such as this, there is no way that you can work to gain favor in this aspect. You can throw in 10 keywords into your meta keywords tag, if that’s what the engines want. 10 is 10. What I see as a relevant link may not seem relevant to you. Considering the way I think, god only knows what’s going to seem relevant to me anyway. I can draw a perpendicular to anything.

So, for those of you who are only concentrating on trying to get RELEVANT inbound links to your site, please calm down, have a Mike’s hard lemonade (or three), listen to someone other than Enya, and just take a Zen approach to boosting your links. You can, after all, make just about anything relevant if you try.

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1st October 2007 | Comments (12) | Linking | by Julie Joyce.

Jim Boykin has an utterly fantastic new SEO tool that lets you view your outbound links. I have been on it like a hobo on a ham sandwich.

This was of such interest to me because I honestly have not paid all that much attention to my outbound links. Obviously I try to use credible sources and only link to sites that I trust (except for ones in which I link to sites because people bought me a drink/threatened my life/asked me to nicely), but in terms of working this into my overall strategy I admit to being somewhat out of the loop here. But no longer…I’ve seen the light.

Normally inbound links are my focus, when I’m not searching Google images for photos of Gang of Four or trying to figure out how to work Adam Ant into another post in hopes that he will find me one day and reveal that he’s a fan of my search engine optimization efforts and actually had me in mind when he cast that librarian-looking girl in the Goody Two Shoes video. OK yes, I was maybe 5 then but still. I try to keep to a formula of continuing to gather good inbounds (those should drop dramatically after this Adam Ant nonsense wrecks my reputation) while still referencing outside sources that are relevant to the topic at hand, with the inbounds obviously (hopefully) being higher in number than the outbounds.

The outbounds, however, are really worth noticing. I did use Jim’s tool (ahem) and, even though I wasn’t really surprised by any of the links that showed up in the results, I was somewhat taken aback at seeing them all neatly listed. You can see the title tag of the page you’re linking to, whether or not your link is reciprocated, and whether or not the link has potential problems. You also get a handy dandy list of your potential link problems so that you can print it out, give it to your friendly neighborhood assassin, and have things remedied lickety split, no shi…you know what I mean. Just go try it out for yourself so that I can quit telling you how cool it is.

So how can a bad outbound link hurt you? For a concise explanation on this, something I can’t usually give, here’s what Rand Fishkin says on an older post on SEOMoz:

* You might be perceived as part of a spam/link network and get penalized or banned
* Your outbound links might have their value cut off if you link to too many bad neighborhoods (or even just a few if you’re a smaller site)
* Your site’s overall authority or quality might be perceived as lower than you’d expect, causing crawling, indexing or ranking to suffer

What makes an outbound link bad though? A site that is part of a linking neighborhood that would make Mr. Rogers shudder and snag his cardigan is a potential problematic site. Sites that are part of link farms or massive link schemes aren’t sites with which you want to be associated unless you’re up to some bad stuff, you black hat monkeys. It’s like hanging out in the bathroom with the kids who smoke and beat up smaller kids. You also look like a kid who smokes and beats up smaller kids. This is part of the whole reputation management and credibility thing that is kind of important. You really can be lumped in with the bad seeds you’re associated with. I’m not talking about Nick Cave here either. Those Bad Seeds would actually be quite cool to be associated with you know…

So in closing, your outbound links really are something that you need to carefully consider. If you don’t want to pass on your authority to a site you’re linking out to, use a nofollow. It’s all really quite simple isn’t it?

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7th September 2007 | Comments (6) | Linking | by Julie Joyce.

if-you-link-it-they-will-come

Just as keywords are about what your searchers are actually looking for (not what you think they should be searching for), links are about driving relevant traffic to your site (not manipulating search rankings). Now the furore around paid links has died down, I’m starting to see a few articles poking their heads up above the throng and reminding us that while it may not be 1996 anymore, we should be linking like it is.

Links are the ties that bind the web together. They create relevant internal navigation within a large site to help users find what they are looking for. Links create a larger network of relevancy for users. Links lead users from relevant content to related content, blazing a path of relevancy through the myriad of sites populating cyberspace. OK, possibly not that dramatic… but linking is still one of the best ways to drive traffic to your site when used properly.

Link building has become big business. I know of companies who have whole networks of websites, each with a speciality, and they very carefully scrape a wide range of changing content, never link to unrelated sites they own, and work hard to create sites that will provide quality links over the longer term. However these companies ultimately aim at manipulating rankings and not always driving traffic.

If I imagine a world where Google goes offline for a day (or excludes links from their 200 ranking factors), where else am I getting our traffic from? Site stats showing how important links are for us with a substantial amount of users and traffic coming in from links. Links can and do provide valuable traffic for us - not just elevated rankings.

Looking at the site I work with, links in from Wikipedia lead users from wiki pages to relevant articles on our site. Fan sites and newsgroups lead people to our site when links to our articles posted there by other fans. StumbleUpon has helped people find us. Link building is not just just basic SEO. Linking needs to be approached like it is 1996 again – for driving traffic.

Link building is about traffic, not rank. Focus on quality, relevant link building to drive traffic to relevant, quality landing pages and the users will come. And you’ll make me smile.

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2nd August 2007 | Comments (3) | Linking | by Judith 'deCabbit' Lewis.

I wrote about this topic recently for Anita’s site, Reviewlicious.com. However, I had a discussion a few days ago with another SEO about this and the person was unaware of the “old site” angle so I thought I’d do a little more on it for those of you who haven’t thought too much about it.

Old sites are, many times, valuable goldmines. They’re like Terrence Stamp in that black jumpsuit. Here’s why you should never discount an old site.

Best case scenario…
1. They’re listed in critical directories.

2. They will give you links for free.

3. They may sell you the domain for cheap.

4. They’ve got age on their side in the databases.

5. They have nice backlinks.

Worst case scenario…
1. The site is not listed in critical directories.

2. The site owner is too savvy or misanthropic (ever met the vegetarian-hating evilgreenmonkey?) to give you a link for free.

3. The selling price they offer for the site would buy you a lovely used Toyota and a latte a day for three months.

4. Age hasn’t been good to the site and it is the equivalent of Debbie Harry with no makeup on in the SERPs.

5. The backlinks are either tiny in number or there are none.

Here’s how to find quality sites that you can use in your quest for world domination…

Go through a directory. Simply hit Dmoz.org and drill down into a category, visiting some sites. Chances are you’re going to see some really horrible ones that are about as far away from Web 2.0 as Elvis Costello is from Sid Vicious. I know these sites exist. Just recently, I worked on some of these sites. These are the sites that are so hideous, you have to look away and count to ten before you can calm down. These sites scare small children and make the meekest among us fly into homicidal rages. If someone has a site like this, there is no telling how nicely you can abuse them. Think free links or a seriously cheap site buyout.

Go through the SERPs and click on the listings that appear to have no meta tags in place. Sometimes you’ll hit on something good that hasn’t been optimized at all because the site owner has no clue. Check the backlinks and see if the site is listed in a few good directories. Exploit site owner to your advantage.

Dumb luck is also a good way to find these old sites. You do your search and click on a result that actually looks promising, then you notice that the site has a copyright of 1998, there are banners flashing everywhere and gifs rotating around like chickens on a spit, and everything about the site screams “I’m lonely, seriously socially inept, and I live/work in my parents’ basement whilst listening to Metallica and playing Nintendo all day.” In a case like this, try bartering for a free link, especially if you have some old Metallica bootlegs on cassette.

A few things to keep in mind when considering the value of old sites:
The cache is critical with old sites. If the site hasn’t been crawled in a year, you probably don’t want to mess with it unless the site owner simply hands it to you and goes on his merry way. You’re not going to immediately reap the benefits by working with a site that doesn’t get a regular crawl.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you can rely only on domain registration for a site’s age, since that is no predictor. A domain could have been registered years ago and the site could have just gone up last month for all you know, so check for that.

Overall, I am not recommending that you cease to buy new domains and add to the joy that is the overpopulated internet, but old sites really are quite valuable in many ways. Go buy some and 301 them at the very least. Or get rid of the ones that have flashing banners and neon green text. That will help me and I’ll be a nicer person to my master and commander, the lovely nutbrown hare Mahoud Ashgar.

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1st August 2007 | Comments (0) | SEO, Linking | by Julie Joyce.

link-love-from-delicious

Perusing webmaster tools, as I am wont to do of a lunch hour, I noticed that del.icio.us seems to be giving us some links love.  Now, as loved as the B2B marketing, advertising and design site I work for is, it does not tend to attract del.icio.us bookmarks.  Imagine my joy on finding out that while they may not pass on much juice, there is love flowing from that piece of the Yahoo! pie.

While the thoughts started spinning through my mind about using all those del.icio.us accounts I had for some good (because I forgot my passwords… errrr… ya…), I had to step back and think for a moment – surely Google won’t be passing along much juice from this link…?

Whether Google passes juice on or not, as I’ve said in other* articles*, link building is about traffic, not rankings.  This method of linking also highlights title tags and how important they are.  While the title bar cannot display the heart icon I see in one users bookmarks, on her page that link stands out among all others.

Back in the day, it was just title tags and a URL in your search results.  As a search marketer you had to capture your audience in that small amount of text.  Those are good times to keep in mind when optimising now – think of del.icio.us and how you only have the title to hook and reel someone in.

How is del.icio.us working for you?

* - While these articles do require you to log on, the registration is free.

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8th July 2007 | Comments (6) | Linking | by Judith 'deCabbit' Lewis.



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