Assuming no one else decides to adopt my new made up word and use it, this post should require exactly zero links to rank for the phrase simply because the competition for the phrase is also zero. This post should soon be the only relevant web page for the query “grabandle.” No competition requires fewer, and in this case zero links to rank.

Now consider the phrase “real estate.” Google is estimating there are 549,000,000 results for the phrase. Looking at the #1 result for the phrase Yahoo shows 352,000 links into the site and 249,000 into links to the specific page ranking.

I won’t expect this page to rank for “real estate” any time soon and neither should you. More competition requires more links.

Competition vs. Links

If we were to graph how much link juice or linking power you need given the competition that graph might look something like:

Starting at the origin with zero competition you need zero link juice. As the competition increases so too does the link juice required to rank. While I’ve made no attempt to actually plot how many links (and the associated linking power) are needed for various phrases, I would think the link juice necessary would increase exponentially as shown on the graph. The curve, of course, might look different in reality. The main point to take is that as competition increases the link juice needed to rank well also increases.

Please note the use of link juice or power in the graph as opposed to the number of links. Links aren’t equal. Links have different signs of quality. A link from a forum signature is clearly less valuable than a link from the New York Times. There isn’t a 1:1 correlation between links, which is why the graph above refers to link juice instead of the shear number of links.

Strategies for Ranking

The above is all fine and good, but probably nothing earth shattering. Common sense alone should tell you it will take more links to rank when there are more sites and pages wanting to rank for a given phrase. So how can we use the information?

If you’re starting a new site in a competitive market such as real estate you should realize it’s going to take a considerable amount of time to rank for the more generic phrases on your topic. It’s going to take a long time to build the links required to rank for the most generic “real estate.” Knowing that you should understand that a long term strategy is going to be necessary to rank for that phrase. The tactics of the moment are not going to be your salvation. You’d sooner want to look at what will be working tomorrow or next year.

If your business model doesn’t allow for such long term results you’d need to look at other ways to market your site such as pay per click advertising. You’d also look for long tail keywords you could rank for much quicker.

On the other hand say you do have a site that’s acquired a good deal of link juice over the years. Even if you’re not already in a specific market you may be able to rank well for phrases simply by using them on the page. You already have the juice, or near the juice, to rank. If CNN covers a story there’s a good chance the story will rank for the phrases used in the article, based on all the links that site has.

Odds are your somewhere in between the extremes. You have some link juice, though not enough to rank for anything you want. You have enough to rank for some phrases, but not quite enough to rank for others. How can you tell what you can and can’t rank for?

Server Logs Reveal Link Juice

Your server logs will tell you what you’re ranking for. They’ll also tell you what you could be ranking for. As an example this post on centering with css routinely picks up search traffic for long tail phrases that include words like “css,” “center,” “centering,” etc. A phrase like “css center,” while not the most searched for phrase is likely a phrase the post could rank well for with a little optimization for the page. Not necessarily a great phrase, but one that has a little more competition and can bring a few more visitors each month.

My search logs tell me that I have enough, or close to enough, link juice to rank for the “css center” phrase should I want and some on-page seo might well be enough to bring in search traffic for the phrase.

Your real estate site might be ranking well for “San Diego, real estate for sale” and other similar phrases. That might also indicate you’re ready to rank for “California real estate” or something something somewhat larger with presumably more competition than San Diego real estate.

By showing what you’re ranking for now, your server logs are intimating what you can rank for next. Your server logs will tell you qualitatively what you can do with your current link juice.

Getting back to the original question, “How many links do you need?” the question again isn’t one that’s going to be answered by a specific number of links. You don’t need a specific answer to the question, though. Consider the competitiveness of the phrase and look through your server logs to determine if you potentially have the juice to rank for the phrase.

If you do, then start optimizing for the phrase. If you don’t look for phrases a little further along the search tail. Choose a phrase that is closer to the head than you can currently rank for, but close enough that you can rank for with a little work. Once you’re ranking for those somewhat more competitive phrases start the process again.

Do you use your server logs to tell you what you can rank for?

Each group of factors is categorized as being part of:

• Link Factors – factors directly related to the link itself
• On Page Factors – factors related to the page where the link appears
• On Domain Factors – factors related to the domain where the link appears
• Dampening Factors – factors that might lessen the value of a link

Take Aways

A few things to know about the link value factors. If you read through all the answers you’ll often find a lot of disagreement by the participants. Pay attention to the correlation numbers on the right to see where there is and isn’t agreement about a given value factor. Understand that the answers are still opinions and not facts and you should be ok.

Where you’ll likely find the most value is in seeing the different questions someone might ask about a link. Whether or not you agree with the evaluation of the participants, a read through the various factors should give you a greater understanding of how a search engine might view a link.

A common theme of all the participants is that none of these factors work in isolation. Don’t look at any one factor as something you now must absolutely do or not do. There’s a lot of art in determining the value of a link as there is in SEO in general. A large part of that art is gaining a sense of how things are seen by search engines and then maintaining a positive balance.

From the bottom of the link value factor post:

“Having built and studied thousands of links over the course of 15 years, I can say with 100% confidence that link value is and will always be relative. The links that are valuable to one site could be useless for another site. The approach that succeeds for one site can fail for another. The real art is in taking the science of link building and modifying and then applying it to each site as required for success.”
–Eric Ward

Spend time learning the possibilities so you can develop an innate sense of the overall value. Understand the possibilities to better apply them to your site(s).

Link Value Factors as Linkbait

One more thing to point out is how the whole link value factors article serves as linkbait. Regardless of the value you put into the results or the specific answers it’s easy to see how the article will gather links to itself. Each (or at least most) of the 18 participants will no doubt link to it, which will bring in different audiences to the post generating further links.

The link Value Factors article will continue to serve as a valuable resource for many, which means more links over time. It’s not hard to see why this article will be easy for many to link to.

Note the idea isn’t completely original. The post clearly has its origin in the SEOmoz ranking factors post. You don’t need to be completely unique in your idea to develop linkbait. You can take an already successful linkbait and put your own unique spin on it to create something new. In this case Wiep went niche on the ranking factors and used the exact same concept to expand on one specific part of the SEOmoz post, namely links.

Keep an eye on your industry for content that draws links and think about how you can mine that content to develop your own linkbait content. I guarantee there will be a lot of SEOs this week thinking “d’oh, why didn’t I come up with that,” now that’s it out there it seems so obvious. Perhaps a Keywords Ranking Factors or Search Friendly Design Factors will be next.

Do give the Link Value Factors a read. I’m sure there will be a few factors you hadn’t really considered before and I’m also sure the answers given to each question will increase your understanding of links and get you thinking more about them.

Recent Link Building Opportunities

A few weeks ago I came across a contest at Blogging Experiment. One of the prizes Ben is offering is a free blog critique by Chris Garrett that likely comes with one or more links from Chris’s 4,000+ subscriber blog. To enter all you have to do is link to the home page of Blogging Experiments with the anchor text make money blogging or some variant and then send an email with the URL of your post.

Will you win? Maybe, maybe not, but look how easy it just was for me to enter. And as it happens that Ben writes a pretty good and informative blog it’s easy to feel good about recommending it.

Do you read ProBlogger? If you blog at all you should. Recently Darren’s been running a 31 Days to Building a Better Blog series. As part of the series Darren is asking for readers to write their own tips and advice and submit the URLs so he can link back to the post. Would you like a link from a blog that has over 30,000 subscribers?

Over the last few weeks I’ve submitted a few posts and each has been accepted and each has driven traffic to the submitted post. Along the way a couple of posts have been stumbled and I’ve picked up a few new subscribers. All for being a little more focused on writing about blogging for a few weeks and filling out a very simple form to submit the URL.

Shoemoney is at SES San Jose this week so last week he called for guest posts. It’s not the first time he’s asked for guest posts and it won’t be the last. A post on the home page of a 10,000+ subscriber blog that includes a link back to your site. Is that something you thought impossible to get?

Will Jeremy go with your post? If it’s a good one he probably will. Are there any guarantees? Nope, but the worst case is you’ve created some unique content for your site and the best case is a pretty good link. Sounds like a win-win.

Today Chris Garrett announced he was taking submissions for another roundup of reader’s posts. Submit your post on social media marketing and if Chris selects it you’ll get a few words why he liked your post along with a link to it.

Again will Chris automatically link to your post? Of course not. He’ll read what’s been submitted and choose the ones he likes best. But again the worst case is you’ve written some more unique content. You can even submit an older post if you have one.

Be Aware Of The Link Opportunities In Front Of You

Are these the best sites to give you a link? Depends on the topic of your site. All would be a link from a general authority and if the subject happens to be related to any of the sites the link would pass topical authority as well. Any of the above links would be a good one to have. They will be better for some sites than others, but they will all contain many signs of a quality link.

The point isn’t that these four specific link opportunities are the only ones out there. The point is that there are many more opportunities like these right now, including some within your topic.

By paying attention you can find opportunities everywhere. This post mentions specific linking opportunities I’ve come across recently simply by observing, but there are likely other opportunities in front of you right now. Opportunities to to make new contacts, opportunities to get people talking about you, and opportunities to get people to link to you. Opportunity is everywhere. The trick is in noticing and finding the most appropriate opportunities for you.

Is there no contest going on in your industry right now like the one Blogging Experiments is running? In that case start one. How many links do you think Ben will end up getting by the end of the contest. Is no one asking for tip posts on your topic? Be the one who collects those posts. Darren has already linked to about 400 posts. How many of those posts are also linking back to ProBlogger? When there doesn’t seem to be an opportunity in front of you the opportunity is to create one for others.

Building links into your pages and site isn’t always the easiest thing to do as I’m sure you’ve discovered. You don’t always know where or how to get them. Your requests may be ignored and your linkbaiting hook may not be as effective as you’d hope. But there are always ways to get links if you’re paying attention.

The more aware you are of what’s happening in your industry the more opportunities you’ll come across and the more you’ll be able to capitalize on the link building opportunities that are right in front of you.

A journey of a thousand million miles backlinks begins with a single step link
-Confucius (sort of)

I hope Confucius will forgive my changing his quote around, but if you haven’t heard SEOmoz recently moved past the one million mark for links flowing into the site. Congratulations to Rand and the rest of the Mozzers on their well deserved achievement. Rand posted today on how SEOmoz gained those one million+ links, all in under three years no less, and since I’ve been answering a lot of questions the last week on how to get links I wanted to add a few thoughts of my own.

First let’s put things in perspective. I just checked Yahoo Site Explorer for a link count on this site and I’m sitting at 15,183, of which a very large part are undoubtedly from forum posts and blog comments, so I’ve a long long way to go to even get to 100,000 links, let along a million links. On the other hand that probably means my links are more on the order of yours as I’m guessing you need a lot to get to a million links too.

In his post today Rand outlines the keys to how he got all those links and I take heart in the knowledge that my strategy for growing this site since day one is in line with much of what Rand discusses. I still need to get better at a few things, but it’s confirmation I’m doing things right. Hopefully you are as well.

The keys according to Rand are Content, Community, and Timing.

Content

By now you know that content is important to your success. If you don’t then here it is again. Content is important to your success. Reread that a few times until it really sinks in. Yes, there is more to generating traffic and success than content, but this is where it all starts. If you don’t have something worth linking to why would you expect to gain links.

What’s worked for SEOmoz?

1. Don’t be afraid to try something new
2. Be timely & topical
3. Make it usable & attractive
4. Present something different
5. Writing quality

I’ll let you read Rand’s post if you haven’t already for the details on the above, but I would like to call your attention to the last item on the list, writing quality. There’s a good reason why people like Brian Clarke and Chris Garrett are on my daily reading list. Both help improve the quality of your writing and over the months I’ve incorporated many of their ideas.

Not every post I write today is better than every post I wrote a year ago, but overall, by focusing on quality, this blog has improved. A better blog is more likely to build links into itself. Improve quality and you’re more linkable.

The quality of your writing goes beyond knowing the rules of grammar and being able to put sentences together well. I think it’s important to develop a writing voice. Your voice is everything about you coming out in your writing. It’s your experience and your thoughts and your beliefs and so much more. By all means research what you’re writing about and spend time learning what makes for good writing online, but develop a unique voice above all else. No one can replicate your unique voice.

Look back up at the five points listed. All are about being remarkable. New and different is worthy of comment. So are timely and topical. Consistent quality is remarkable and attractive packaging is remarkable. Remarkable gets talked about and online that means links. Remarkable goes above and beyond. Remarkable is not safe. Remarkable pushes boundaries and tests limits.

Community

A link is a line of code on a web page, but it’s real people made of flesh and blood that write that line of code and give you links. Every time someone asks me how to get people to link to you, I suggest getting to know them. Businesses have been benefiting from social networks since the very first business. Since it’s people that will link to you make people aware of what you have to offer.

Once again from Rand

1. Don’t pretend to care, actually care
2. Follow up by email
3. Stay out of gossip
4. Use some personal branding
5. Strategic name recall
6. BONUS – Involve your connections

I was surprised to learn that Rand needed a few years to learn the first one. It’s the most important thing on this list. Faking interest is obvious. It won’t win you any friends or links. Take the time to genuinely know people. We all have something in common so find that something. You can start with the idea that you both have websites likely on similar topics. Help someone out if you can. Share a tip you learned to bring someone else more traffic. Helping others is a good way to gain their trust and start building a relationship with them.

Participate in the community. It’s amazing how many people create spam posts and comments on forums and blogs thinking the goal is to get the easy links. Those links aren’t worth much. The value in forums and blogs and any other social community is to participate in the discussion and add something to the conversation. Honest participation gets you noticed, grows your network, and gains links.

Rand’s bonus tip is pretty important too. One of the driving forces of web 2.0 is interaction. Web pages and sites are no longer static things meant to be read only. The goal is to get people to interact with you and your site. One of the greatest strengths of SEOmoz is the community it’s built around itself. It’s one of the few blogs where I’ll actually read most every comment. Interaction brings people back more often and familiarity in this case doesn’t breed contempt, it breeds links. More familiarity with a site brings it’s content to mind when you’re thinking of where you can link to. It also creates loyalty among your community. I know I’ve linked to SEOmoz more than once and I’m sure many of the other members there do as well.

The more interaction you have with others in your community, the more likely others in the community will link to you.

Timing

I admit I haven’t always had the best timing in life and some of what I’m about to say is as much a reminder for me as anything else. Not listening to Rand I started a blog mainly about seo and marketing at a time when the market for both is pretty saturated. It’s going to be harder to get those million links now than had I started a few years ago. The vacuum for information about seo has been filled. But that doesn’t mean it’s hopeless. Far from it.

Timing is also about playing it smart, though. Our blogging and articles and tools have changed over time to reflect where we believe search marketers’ interests lie.

Look at where things are going to find a new vacuum. Watch your industry and listen to people asking questions to see where and when their interest is shifting. Then time it right to get there just before they do.

You create your own opportunities by preparing for their eventual arrival. Opportunity is always right in front of you. The trick is seeing it and capitalizing on it at the right time. Timing is all about being ready for the next opportunity that reaches out to you. Pay attention to what’s going on in your industry. Follow how it’s evolving. SEO today is not the same as it was 10 years ago or even a year ago. If you pay attention you can see where your industry is going Before everyone else and you can get there first.

Timing sometimes means holding on to something you create and waiting for the right moment to release it. Hollywood does this all the time. A studio make a movie, but when it’s ready they realize the zeitgeist of the day is looking for something else. They hold back the movie and wait for the cultural climate to change before releasing the movie.

Timing can turn something that would be a failure today into a success tomorrow. If you’ve written something that doesn’t seem like it would go over well when you write it you can hold on to it longer and make it better and when the climate changes and the timing is right you can publish it. Be careful, though, because if you wait too long someone will get there first and you’re back where you started. Timing is everything.

A million links is a lot to get. It’s hard to even fathom how you and I could ever get that many, but it all starts with a single link. Each new link opens a new avenue for someone to discover your site. One link leads to two, which leads to eight and beyond.

Build something worth linking to, connect with the people who who will link to it, be prepared so when the opportunity is in front of you, you can capitalize on it. If you do all three you’re well on your way to a million links.

Today CopyBlogger’s Brian Clark asked what people think of the term linkbait. Not the practice itself, but the term. Does linkbait suffer from a poor brand? Is the term fine? Do you care one way or the other? Why not share your view and let Brian know.

Brian is taking a poll through the comments on his post and shamelessly asked for links and votes. Here you go Brian. I’m only too happy to provide the link given all the good writing advice I’ve taken from you.

Linkbaiting: Vote Yes or No This Week Only

You can vote until 5:00 pm CST this Friday, January 26th 2007 and there’s already a healthy debate in the comments so have a look and leave a vote. I’ll be adding some of my thoughts following so if you’d rather not be influenced by me prior to voting go ahead now and come back when you’re done. I’ll still be here when you get back.

The crux of the question from CopyBlogger

…link attraction is crucial. But is “linkbaiting” bad branding for an important skill? I prefer to call what I do viral copywriting, but no one asked me.

I don’t think viral copywriting is necessarily the best term since linkbait isn’t limited to words. Think of any free application like these or this or even something like this.

Words have nothing to do with any of the above drawing links. Brian of course is naturally going to be biased in favor of terms related to writing, but the written word is only one way to linkbait.

Again we’re not talking about the practice of linkbait itself, though some have argued developing content with the purpose of attracting links is ruining the web. My own thoughts are exactly the opposite and that linkbait will ultimately lead to an improved web.

I do think the term suffers from poor branding as a result of a poor name. Bait in the context of marketing simply has too many negative connotations. It calls to mind ‘bait and switch,’ the practice of drawing people in for one thing and then selling them on something else that they didn’t really want. And in truth some linkbaiters do approach the art of attracting links in this way by sensationalizing titles and offering little in content once the title hooks you in.

Bait also brings up images of worms on hooks and some may see linkbait as a view of your readers as little more than fish to be reeled in. Not exactly the way you want to think of your customers. I’ve even noticed anytime I refer predominantly to link bait in a post as two words AdSense delivers all kinds of ads relating to fishing. Last time I checked I even rank #1 and #2 in Google for a term relating to fishing lures.

The term though, is too ingrained in the community and is going to be with us for awhile. At least until something else comes along that works better in attracting links or the practice gets turned on its head in some way. It probably won’t be any time soon and even then people will still refer to linkbait.

So what do you think? If you haven’t already check out Brian’s post and leave a comment with your vote and thoughts. And while you’re there check out some of CopyBlogger’s other posts. I guarantee reading Brian can improve your writing.

It’s only been a few days since John Scott and Jeff Behrendt opened the new V7N contextual links to publishers and already the frenzy has begun with bloggers unable to sign up fast enough for the program. On the surface there’s a lot to like about the new V7N system for both advertisers and publishers. Yet I still have reservations about the system in general for both those buying and selling links.

Why the Program is Good

The system is pretty simple and could described as a cross between Text Link Ads and Pay Per Post. An advertiser pays $20 for a link and a blogger gets paid half of that to place the link on their blog. Advertisers get the benefit of the link being a contextual link and bloggers get paid for simply adding a link to a post.

Some of the advantages of the system to advertisers according to v7n:

• Contextual Links @ V7N provides contextual links
• Contextual Links @ V7N are undetectable to search engines
• Contextual Links @ V7N are purchased, not rented – the links are permanent

All good things and at $20 a pop the kind of links being offered are certainly a good seo spend. These are the kind of links we all want. They display many of the signs of a quality link. Most site owners are aware of the difficulty of find links and now for a reasonable cost you can have as many as you want.

v7n seems in no danger of running out of buyers or sellers, something that programs like Pay Per Post and ReviewMe are reportedly having trouble with. With the numbers of potential advertisers and bloggers v7n has access to they should be able to match links with posts for maximum benefit.

The main advantage for bloggers would seem to be a very easy way to monetize a blog. You sign up for the program get contacted when an advertiser fits your blog and shortly after publishing the link are paid. Nice and easy and certainly why people are lining up to be included as evidenced by these threads on Digital Point and V7N.

Look through the DP thread and you’ll even see publishers being paid within minutes of adding the link.

John and Jeff are two bright guys and know a lot about what makes for a good link. They seem to have set up a program that can bring many quality links to a site for a reasonable cost.

Why All isn’t Good

So if the system seems to be so advantageous to both advertisers and publishers why do I have reservations about it?

From the perspective of an advertiser I’d like more control over where my links end up. $20 is not a lot of money to spend for a link, but still I’d like to have the option of being able to say no to certain sites. For now you pay for your links and they end up where V7N decides. You have to trust their quality control in choosing bloggers.

The V7N response to this question is on the faq page for the contextual links program.

Only high quality web sites are accepted into the V7 Contextual Links program. Our staff review publisher web sites for number of outbound links, types of outbound links, PageRank and search engine saturation. If a site is selling links to bad neighborhoods, we do not accept that web site into the program.

I do question that only high quality sites will be accepted. I’m sure many will be great blogs, but I’m also sure there will be less than quality blogs that find their way in. There will be a good deal of disparity between the highest and lowest quality blog that is accepted yet the price of links on all sites is still $20. And while V7N can sell the links as permanent there’s absolutely no control over the permanence of the links. Nothing could stop a blogger from selling thousands of links over the next few months and then closing shop.

From the perspective of the publisher $10 isn’t exactly a huge payout. It sounds like a lot compared to contextual advertising where payouts per click are often under 50 cents, but getting $10 for a post with a link is not a lot of money. Create a new post every day of the month and you’re talking 30 posts or $300. That’s good money to some, but hardly the stuff of a successful business model. A well trafficked blog could more easily sell space in a sidebar and get paid $300 or more per month.

Another thing I can think of is having it discovered you are selling links where it had been assumed you were giving honest recommendations. For some that could break the trust a site has worked hard to build with its visitors. You could say who’s ever going to know and you may very well be right, but read on.

Dare I Mention Ethics?

Talking about ethics in the context of seo has become a touchy subject. There are some who think unless you’re squeaky clean and wear a sparkling white hat you’ve broken rules of ethics. There’s an opposite camp who now wants to attack anyone who even raises the issue of ethics in the context of seo at all.

However, V7N itself raises the issue by stating:

Contextual Links @ V7N is ethical. By selling link placement instead of paid endorsements, we sidestep the moral issues and bad publicity that follows with paid blog posting.

Methinks the fact that V7N feels the need to tell us the program is ethical and that they sidestep moral issues might be an indication that they themselves question how ethical and moral it might be.

Questions of seo ethics often revolve around the idea of doing something against what Google would like us to do. Google does not own or control the web and no one is bound to do what Google would have us do. There’s is nothing wrong with buying or selling links. It’s certainly not any more or less ethical than paying for a full page ad in a newspaper or buying time for your commercial on one of the tv networks.

Google does however, have every right to determine what will or won’t carry weight in their algorithm and like it or not Google will continue to be part of the discussion over paid contextual links. Jeff Behrendt himself is billing the new system in part as a Google Killer and almost seems to be saying that taking Google down is one reason we should all sign up for the contextual links program.

We all know the Google stance on paid links. They don’t like them. Google has been recommending for some time that site owners add a nofollow to paid links on their sites. If it weren’t for Google would there be a reason to hide who is and isn’t in the program? I could argue that the entire worth of the V7N system hinges on the non disclosure agreement that advertisers and publishers enter into. One does have to call into question the ethics of a program where you can’t ever admit to being a participant. Nondisclosure doesn’t automatically make something wrong, but it does allow for the questions to be raised.

Virtually Undetectable

V7N says the links will be undetectable as being paid links. I’d say they’ll be virtually undetectable.

How hard will it be for a search engine to find out if the links are paid links? Very difficult. How can a search engine tell that an ordinary link is there only because someone paid for it to be there? It’s just a link after all no different than most other links they’ll encounter.

Difficult does not mean impossible, though it can probably never be determined with 100% accuracy if a link is paid. However pretend for a moment that a site is found to be part of the program and is selling links. A search engine might decide that all links leaving that site are to come into question. It could de-weight every link out of the site.

And even with a nondisclosure agreement it won’t be all that hard to find sites participating. Again I call into question how high quality the sites accepted as publishers really will be. People can’t figure out not to click on their own AdSense ads, you think they’ll get the concept of not letting it be known they’re selling links? Most will keep the secret and many others will be scared by the $1,000,000 penalty for letting the cat out of the bag. But people have done much stupider things and how about the first angry publisher who feels John and Jeff aren’t getting them enough links. Will that $1,000,000 threat hold up in court?

Search engines collect a lot of linkage data. With a few seed sites they can probably track many of the sites on both the selling and buying side. And both the V7N and Digital Point threads where people are lining up to get in are already giving hints at the seeds. True the specific URLs aren’t being mentioned, but how many of those same people will have the blogs in their forum signatures?

NDA or not in time some of the publishers participating will be found out and once they are so will some of the advertisers. The larger the network of advertisers and bloggers the harder it will be to find most, but harder does not mean impossible. Sites that link to each other do begin to form neighborhoods that can be detected.

Final Thoughts

You might think after the last few paragraphs that I’m against this program. You’d be wrong if you do though. I think John and Jeff have launched what will prove to be a highly successful system for buying and selling links. V7N Contextual Links is a brand new system and as with all new systems has some bugs that will need to be worked out. In time they may very well give advertisers a little more control over where their links end up. They’ve already hinted that they will raise prices and thus the payout to publishers.

I also won’t judge this system based on an ethical debate. I think it’s fair to raise the issue, but there’s nothing wrong with buying or selling links in spite of what a certain Mountain View search engine would like us to believe. People were buying and selling links before Google and they will continue after Google. It’s a very natural part of marketing a site.

But again though Google may be misguided in thinking the practice ethical, they do have every right not to place value on links that are purchased. It does go against the idea of considering a link as a citation or vote. And Google has been pretty good and discovering most linking schemes that have come before. They may not be able to tell right away whether a contextual link is being bought and sold, but I see no reason to think they never will. As much as V7N is going to try not to leave one there will be some kind of footprint with the system.

My guess is this system will work for a few years which is more than enough to make it worthwhile to anyone joining. In time it may not work as effectively or even at all, but by then someone will have developed another system that will. One thing is already certain. People can’t seem to sign up as bloggers fast enough and V7N has already raised a lot of money from advertisers wanting to participate. Time will tell how effective the program is, but it’s off to a good start. And since I happen to like both John and Jeff I wish them good luck with it.

Links to More Thoughts on V7N Contextual Links

Announcing Contextual Links @ V7N
V7N Contextual Links : Link Buying Service for SEO & Bloggers
V7N launches Contextual Link Ad Network
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Aaron Wall often mentions links as currency for a website. Links into a site help build equity for that site enabling it to leverage things like more links. Add a solid business model behind the site those links will directly convert to money. Since it’s such a good analogy why not expand on it.

A few days ago Jane Copland one of the newest mozzers posted The Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know on the SEOmoz blog. It’s a post about some of the things Jane has learned since joining Rand and company. One of the things she learned makes for a good description for the value of links.

Some links are Benjamins. Some are Washingtons. Some are pennies that, even after a year, a whole collection of them will only get you a couple of bucks at CoinStar. It isn’t hard to tell the difference.

Links are also Grants, Jacksons, Hamilton’s, and Lincoln’s. They can be two Hamilton’s and a Lincoln or a Grant, a Jackson, and a couple of Washington’s. The point is different links carry different values. And Jane is right, more often than not it is easy to tell the difference.

If I showed you two piles of money, one with $37.23 and the other with $35.97 and asked you to choose one after only a quick look you might end up with just under $36. Not the choice you’d want to make, but would it really matter. How much more are you going to buy with that $1.26 you lost out on. Now if I showed you two piles, one with $450 and the other with $22 all in singles, you’d probably pick the right pile every time. It’s easy to tell when there’s that much of a difference.

And so it is with links. Different links carry different values with them. Sometimes two links are very similar in value. Other times they are not. A link from from the DMOZ might be worth about the same as one from the Yahoo directory. A link in a forum signature is worth less than a link from an article in the New York Times. A forum signature link might be worth a nickel in comparison to the Times $500 link. You’d need 10,000 links from forum signatures in that case to equal the single link from the Times.

Many people bill themselves as SEOs by trading in penny links. The kind of SEO that will submit your site to 1000 directories for $100. Spending ten cents a link sounds like a good deal until you realize each of those links is worth a penny. Yes those penny links count. And yes they are easy to get, but in the amount of time it would take to get 1000 penny links you might be able to get a $100 link and five $20s.

No one can tell you exactly how much a single link is worth. The measure of that currency changes from site to site. A link from Home Depot might be gold to a site selling home remodeling services, while that same link might only be worth $1 to a site selling books. A link from CNN might be worth millions to either.

Though it may be hard to put an exact value on a link or sometimes see the difference in value between two links there are common signs of a quality link that can be used to help determine the relative worth of different links.

The links as currency analogy is a good one and if you can wrap yourself around it you can see that’s it’s not all about having the most links. It’s about having more of the links that carry greater value.

Yesterday Jennifer Laycock of Search Engine Guide posted about the right way to ask for a link in Link Building As Relationship Building – A Great Example. I thought I’d go the opposite way and share by way of an an example of how not to ask for a link.

As this site has grown in visibility so have the requests for link exchanges. Here are a few don’t from a request I found in my inbox a few days ago.

1. Don’t send an automated request. When I get email that I didn’t ask for from an automated source I immediately think spam. You’ve lost me before I’ve gotten past your first sentence. And if you are going to send an automated email, don’t send two copies to every email address listed on the site in the span of a minute. Personalize your email by showing me in some way you’re familiar with the site and me. As Jennifer points out in the title of her post build relationships. The web is a social place and you’ll do better by building relationships instead building links with strangers.
2. Don’t require me to visit your directory to submit my own site. Remember you’re trying to convince me to do something for you and making me work to do you a favor isn’t going to score any points. A better approach would be to add the link to my site first. In fact your whole email could simply be to let me know you liked my site and linked to it. If you did I would certainly look at your site. And if I like your site I’ll link to it without you having to ask. That’s how you benefit from a social network. You do without asking for anything in return. Oddly enough when you do for others they’ll often return in kind.
3. Don’t expect that I’m going to add a paragraph of description to your link. I have no intention of creating a new page on the site just for your link. Send me the url and that’s it. If you have to, tell me your preferred anchor text for the link, but I don’t need a lengthy description. While you’re at it don’t send me your information in the format you would use to submit to a directory. Do you see a directory on this site? Oh that’s right you used automated software to request the link. I forgot you’ve never visited the site.
4. Don’t tell me the kind of links you will and won’t accept from me. Again you’re the one doing the asking and hoping I’ll say ‘yes’. The more demands you make the less likely a ‘yes’ will be forthcoming.
5. Don’t ask unless our sites are topically related. You might have heard that Google frowns on mass link exchanges between unrelated sites. That kind of link exchange can hurt a site more than help it. And why would my visitors find your site interesting? If my visitors won’t find value in your site then no link for you. If our sites aren’t related in some way then stay away from the send button on your email. It’ll save us both some time.

All of the above occurred in a single link request email. An email I get each and every month. I guess one more don’t would don’t send me the same request monthly and require me to opt out if I want to stop receiving your request.

Now compare all of the above to the link request Jennifer received and see if you can tell why that request is a much better approach than the one I received and why it’s more likely to receive a link and perhaps more.

Ask enough questions about how to build links and you’ll inevitably hear the answer that you should look for quality links. Just as inevitable will be a lack of explanation about what makes for quality in regards to links. So how do you determine which of several links is best? What are the signs that a link is worth pursuing? How do you recognize a quality link?

Quality can be slippery to define, since in many respects quality is subjective. What looks good to me may not look so good to you. Since Yuri has posted recently on Incoming links value factors, I offer his post as a somewhat different perspective from my own.

Factors In A Quality Link

Instead of trying to define in absolutes what a quality link is I prefer to think about some of the factors that would be included in an ideal link. Most links back to your pages will not have every one of these factors, but by understanding what to look for you can better decide which links might hold more value than others and when it’s ok to go after a link that may seem to go against common wisdom.

In no particular order I might look for the following:

1. Links from related or topical sites – This site includes the topics of web design and search engine optimization. When I look for links I would prefer them to come from sites or pages on similar topics. I would prefer a mention and a link in an article about web design or seo than I would a link in an article about mountain biking trails in Colorado.
2. Links from trusted sites – Trust has taken on an increased role in search algorithms. Much as with everything else in seo, links have been manipulated to artificially increase the perception of a site’s importance. TrustRank (PDF) is one idea in the battle against spam. Links from .edu and .gov domains may be seen as more trustworthy than a link from other TLDs. A link from CNN will carry more trust with it that a link from John’s Blog of Rumors. A link from a trusted site will bring more value than a link from an untrusted site.
3. One way inbound links (IBLs) – Speaking of trust. When two web pages exchange links do they really think highly of each other or are they exchanging links to raise the count of their backlinks? Search engines likely place more value on a link that is not reciprocated. Matt Cutts provides the official Google stance in his Indexing Timeline post. It’s perfectly fine to exchange links with other sites. Regardless of how a search engine views the link if it brings targeted traffic then it’s a link you want, but if given the choice I’d rather not reciprocate most links.
4. Links from authority sites – We all have friends with opinions and we all have friends who seem to know a little more about a particular subject than some of our other friends. You’d sooner ask your more knowledgeable friend when you have a question in their area of expertise. That friend is an authority on the subject. Websites too can be authorities. Search Engine Watch has long been considered an authority on the world of search. I’d rather have a link from most any page on the Search Engine Watch site than I would from the home page of a site brand new to the field. When your expert friend makes a recommendation you tend to listen more. Same thing for a website. When an authority site makes a recommendation a search engine will usually listen more than if lesser known and respected sites in the same industry had made the recommendation.
5. Links that can be crawled – Some links can’t or won’t be crawled by search engine spiders. Spiders are tripped up by JavaScript so a link embedded in JavaScript isn’t worth the effort in getting. Similarly for a link embedded in a Flash application. In both cases a search engine might not even know the link exists. Many blogs are adding rel=”nofollow” to links within comments. The nofollow is meant to tell search spiders that the site in question is not editorially approving the link. The site is saying this link isn’t a vote for the web page on the other end of the link. Some search engines may still count these links, but they should be considered less valuable than if the nofollow wasn’t there.
6. Links with relevant anchor text – If you need to be convinced of the power of anchor text have a look at Google’s results for the search click here. A page from Adobe is likely the top result. That same page doesn’t include the text ‘click here’ anywhere on the page. What it does have is many other web pages linking to it with the anchor text ‘click here’. Ideally you’d like to get some keywords in the anchor text of the links pointing to your pages. You won’t be able to do this always, but you can sometimes. You always can in your internal links. It’s also part of what makes article writing a popular tactic for link building since you can control the anchor text within the article.
7. Links that can send direct traffic – Sometimes a link isn’t about search engines at all. Sometimes a link can carry little weight in a search algorithm, yet it can send a great deal of targeted traffic to your web page. That link embedded in JavaScript may mean nothing to search spiders, but if a lot of people click it and go on to make a purchase would you really care what the spider thinks?
8. Links to deep pages – Not all links should point to your home. They should point to the most targeted page for the given anchor text. It would make no sense for me to use ’seo’ as anchor text in a link and point it to my design portfolio page. Your home page will probably get more links than any other page no matter what you do. It’s the easiest page of your site for most to link to and many directories will only link to it. When you have the opportunity try to link to deeper pages within your site.
9. Links that are contextual – I can’t believe I forgot to add this one the first time out since it may be one of the biggest signs of quality for any link. Search engines love links that they find within your content. Contextual links are the most natural and should be the most relevant given they occur right in the middle of what you happen to be saying. They also tend to get clicked more often than links at the edges of your page.

The list above is hardly exhaustive, but it’s some of what I look for in links back to my pages. You shouldn’t expect to find every factor above in every link, but you can use the list to decide which of two links might be more preferable. If you’re thinking about exchanging links with another site at least do your best to make sure that other site is related to your site and carries some trust or authority. If a site won’t let you link to a deep page on your site see if you can write the anchor text for the link. If getting a link means getting no quality factors with it you may not want to spend the time getting that link.

Quality Is More Difficult To Get Than Quantity

One additional consideration is that quality usually takes more work than it’s counterpart. If a link is very easy to get it probably isn’t very high in quality. The DMOZ gets a lot of flack about its directory, but the reason being included there is coveted by so many is because it’s difficult to get a listing. The difficulty of getting in helps make the link higher in quality than a directory that accepts every site that submits.

Links in forum signatures are relatively easy to get. You sign up for the forum add your link and create some posts. You can build a rather large quantity of links through signatures, but given the ease in getting them they are probably not considered high quality by search engines.

Quantity is easy to replicate. Quality is not easy to replicate. We can all submit our sites to a seemingly endless supply of directories. So can our competition. If there’s a link that’s very difficult for you to get then it will likely be difficult for your competition to get as well. If you can work hard enough to get that link you’re a step ahead of the competition that hasn’t done that same work.

Articles have long been part of a link building strategy. Many see submitting articles to a site like Ezine Articles as a great way to build links. You submit an article which is related to the page or pages you link to and use relevant anchor text in those links. As people download the article and add it to their site you might build a quantity of links quickly.

Many articles submitted to article directories aren’t the best articles in the world. They typically don’t have to be. A better strategy for article submission would be to write a well researched and well written article and submit it to an authority site. It will be more work to write that article, but having those links on one trusted authority site will prove to be more valuable than having those same links on dozens of less trusted sites. It will also be much harder to replicate.

Summary

Quality can’t always be measured in absolutes and most of the time links to your web pages won’t include every possible quality factor you would look for. Knowing some of the factors that go into a quality link though, can help you create a better overall link building strategy and help you determine which links are more desirable. Quality factors can also help you see which links aren’t worth spending the time to get.

When thinking about quality links try to think of your ideal link and why it’s an ideal links. Think about the factors that make your ideal link ideal and think about the factors a search engine algorithm might consider important in a link. The more of those factors you can get in a link the more quality that link should have. Also look for links that are difficult to get. They will require more work and take more time to get, but they will be worth far more than hundreds of low quality links and they will be hard for your competition to duplicate.

Two posts about linkbaiting caught my attention last week and given there are still many questions about linkbait and it’s relative worth, I thought I would add a little more to the discussion.

Does Linkbait Need Categorization?

The first post, The Two Kinds of Linkbait, comes from Rand Fishkin. Rand argues there are two completely different types of linkbait each requiring its own definition.

• Link-Worthy, Linkerati-Targeted Content, which boils down essentially to creating valuable content that others link to because of its value
• Attracting Link Attention with Controversy, which tends to be more of a derogatory piece designed solely to provoke a reaction just for the linkbait

I’ll let you read the SEOmoz post linked above for Rand’s full definition of each. I think Rand is has the right idea, but I’m not sure the two definitions above are quite adequate. Valuable content can certainly incite or provoke an emotional reaction and there can still be value in a derogatory piece. But Rand is right in that there are different kinds of linkbait and having different terms for each, at least within the industry, is probably a good idea.

The question then is how to categorize the different kinds of linkbait. Nearly a year ago when I first wrote about linkbaiting as a way to build links to your site I had found five accepted categories for linkbait.

• News Hook
• Contrary Hook
• Attack Hook
• Resource Hook
• Humor Hook

I’m not sure the above five categories are the best way to define linkbait either, though each is certainly an example of a different kind of linkbait. Still an attack post is just a contrary post taken further. And humor can be injected into any type of linkbait in order to make it more baitworthy.

Is Evoking Emotion Enough To Define Linkbait?

The second post that caught my attention was Aaron Wall’s Linkbaiting or Link Baiting? Aaron’s view is that both of Rand’s definitions belong in the same category, that of evoking emotion. When you evoke emotions you make your content more remarkable and more likely to garner links.

Aaron too makes a lot of sense, but again I’m not quite sure the emotional angle describes all linkbait. I’ll use Aaron’s own Search Engine Marketing Glossary as an example. The glossary itself is clearly linkbait. I’ve linked to it a few times myself already and expect I will continue to link to it for quite some time. I’ll add Rand’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO as another example of what I see as unemotional linkbait.

Neither the glossary or the guide has ever evoked any emotion in me. I just find both very useful and worthy of any links I send their way. The glossary is something I can go to if I’m at a loss to describe a particular aspect of search marketing. It’s easy to point others to on forums since it answer their questions and Aaron has made it extremely easy to link to the specific definition that’s in question. I wouldn’t say I feel any emotion for it, though. At least no more so that I feel for a dictionary or encyclopedia. Similarly for the guide.

The Reaction Against Linkbait

Yet both Rand and Aaron have some valid points. When linkbait first came onto the SEO scene it was hailed as a wonderful thing, but more recently a backlash has risen due to some of the more sensational type of linkbait that’s been appearing. So much backlash in fact that I lashed back against it and discussed why I thought linkbait would ultimately lead to a much improved web.

Much of the reaction against linkbait is really against the kind of linkbait in Rand’s second definition, thus his desire to give it a new name and place it in its own category. Aaron offers up some good advice in his post on some common linkbaiting techniques most of which can be used to make any content more link worthy. They don’t however require the need to categorize the underlying content into different categories.

Linkbait Extremes And The Gray Across The Spectrum

I think anyone in the SEO industry can easily see there are differences in the types of linkbait being created. And again the problem is how or even if those different types should be categorized. The way I see it though is there’s not always a clear demarcation point with one type on one side and another type on the other. It seems to me it’s more of a spectrum with two very distinct extremes.

For lack of better terms I’ll call the two extremes ‘valuable content’ and ’sensationalized content.’ Highly valuable content needs no sensationalism to gather links to it and highly sensationalized content can draw links to itself regardless of its merit. Most linkbait though will have a measure of both.

Pretend for a moment that I could create a tool where you type in any URL and the tool would instantly tell you exactly how to optimize that URL. It would tell you how to rewrite the page and exactly how many links and from where that your page would need to rank #1 on all search engines. Impossible yes, but we’re pretending. If that tool could exist it wouldn’t need to be sensationalized in any way to gain links. As soon as a handful of people tried it and found it to be accurate word and links would spread quickly.

Still it’s quite possible that the first person who found it simply didn’t use it. What would be so compelling about a search box asking for a URL? You’ve seen a lot of them before and I’m sure there are plenty you pass by quickly. Even if I told you what would happen if you did add your URL and click the submit button you might not believe me. For all I know you wouldn’t click on the result when you saw SEO tool in the search results.

But if I sensationalized things some, maybe with a title like “100% guaranteed #1 ranking with this SEO tool” you might click on the link in the results if only to find out who would be so bold to make that claim. And it might get you to try the tool even if just to prove me wrong. The tool itself may be link worthy, but the sensationalism got you to find out how link worthy it was.

On the other side consider the SEO Black Hat site. Quadzilla can seemingly turn any post into linkbait. Often it’s the sensationalism kind of post he specializes in and on the surface they may not seem to provide all that much value beyond the immediate entertainment. And yet the subtext in some of those posts has taught me more than I would have ever thought. There’s some great value behind that sensationalism.

Most linkbait will have components of each. A high quality article, while link worthy on it’s own, will still spread faster with the right title. It will still spread faster by targeting specific groups of people and altering its content in a way to attract more people and make them want to link to it. When someone writes an article on how to create linkbait they’re often advising on how to do these things better.

Even the most valuable idea can profit from some of these artificial means and become more linkbaitable because of them. And because valuable content can still benefit from these more artificial techniques many valuable linkbait ideas will include a measure of artificiality. It makes it hard to find a demarcation point since likely it’s less of a point and more of a fuzzy gray area in between extremes.

Genuine And Artificial Value In Linkbait

Rand is right in that there are two different categories of linkbait. They are the extremes on the spectrum and it’s not always clear where one type moves into the other. Aaron too is right because any idea can be dressed up and made more linkbaitable. Any idea can evoke more emotion and it’s certainly one way to draw reaction and links. And it’s hard to categorize that dressing up since it can be applied to any type of underlying content.

Yes I’ve seen two clearly different types of linkbait, but they often defy categorization. I’ll settle on ‘genuine value’ and ‘artificial value’ as the best way I can think of to define the two extremes, though ’sensationalism’ still works for me on the artificial side of the equation. I can’t help but think of the spread of yellow journalism at the start of the 20th century and that sensationalized linkbait often seems similar to me.

But in truth much linkbait will include components of each side of the spectrum and it’s the amount of each that determines which type of linkbait some given content belongs to. I can tell you which category a given piece belongs to when I see it, but I don’t know if I can define a clear line between the two.