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A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around which tools you should consider using to make the link building process easier in 2012.
With Yahoo Site Explorer dying int 2011, what other options do we have.
Here are the tools I pulled out of the WebmasterWorld thread:
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A WebmasterWorld thread has a bunch of long time link builders sharing some of their new link generation ideas and concepts in the open thread.
I love these threads, cause sharing these ideas, lead to others to share and then new ideas can come out of it that isn't communicated in the thread.
Here are a few select ideas from the thread, but make sure to go to the thread and participate.
There are dozens of ideas being shared and I don't want to copy them all down here.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Image credit to ShutterStock for link image.
Earlier this month, we polled our readers asking how worried are you about link spammers.
The response was pretty across the board, some are worries, some are not - isn't that just how people are?
When I asked "Do You Worry About People Link Spamming You?" the responses we received include:
Personally, I am a worrier but I am not worried about link spammers hurting my sites.
Forum discussion continued at Google Webmaster Help.
Note: This story was written earlier this week and scheduled to be published today.
A Google Webmaster Help thread has one webmaster upset about someone trying to link spam their site in order to downgrade their rankings.
Even though Google has been back and forth saying bad links can't hurt you and then saying it is possible links can hurt you, SEOs are not sure what to make of them.
We ran a poll and most SEOs believe competitors can hurt you with links but still, many do not believe it. And that is the overall opinion in the thread. Most are saying, the links won't hurt, the links will just be devalued by Google.
What do you think? Not do you think they can hurt but rather, do you worry about it?
Do You Worry About People Link Spamming You?
In fact, I had a case where Square Peg Web Design was so upset with me that they tried to do all sorts of things to hurt my company, including building nasty links to my site. I wasn't too worried about it, although it encouraged me to keep my post up about what they did to my company and clients.
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.
A WebmasterWorld thread has a post from a member I trust. The post is about TripAdvisor's listing policies requiring those who want a listing to link back to TripAdvisor's web site.
He wrote:
I run a website for a small hotel that has just been fully refurbished and they applied to TripAdvisor UK today to be listed/linked etc.
That's fine, they said, however they would need a reciprocal link from the hotel.
It's a non-issue and has already been done however I was wondering whether this is their new way of building backlinks as a defense against current and future Panda updates.
It would make sense, has anyone else heard of such requests/demands?
TripAdvisor has a linking information page with detailed instructions on how they want you to link to them. Clearly, there is no nofollow attribute in there.
Tnooz ran a story showing that most of the listings on TripAvisor do not have links from TripAdvisor back to the hotel.
In any event, requiring a reciprocal link, if true, is a bit risky for TripAdvisor.
We know TripAdvisor and Google have had their fights in the past - will this lead to one more?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A WebmasterWorld thread talks about a link building tactic that more often than not is very successful. The tactic is conducting surveys.
Not only do you get valuable industry data from surveys, you also get "two waves," as the SEO wrote, of links. The first wave are industry people asking their readership to go to the survey and take it. The second wave are industry people sharing the results and linking to the results.
As you know, we run polls here often enough and although I rarely think of it as a link building tactic, I can definitely vouch for it in terms of linkbait, on some level.
More people are likely to link to the results than link to the request for people to take the survey, but either way, you are getting links and helping the industry.
Have you used this method pretty much just for link building?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A WebmasterWorld thread has interesting discussion around a link building strategy of looking for sites that link to old GeoCities web pages.
As you know, GeoCities was shutdown by Yahoo in October 2009. There are still many sites that link to old GeoCities sites and one tactic link buildings love to use is to inform webmasters of broken links and suggest they link to their site.
That being said, do you think it is worth going through the process of discovering who is linking to old GeoCities sites and then reaching out to those webmasters to link to your site?
You have to understand that is is almost two years since GeoCities was killed and maybe the sites linking to those pages are also pretty much dead? Or maybe not?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A HighRankings Forum thread has one SEO saying he was asked by another SEO company to sell them a link, a text link. But the weird part is the SEO company specifically asked for the link to be nofollowed.
Typically when you get a request to buy a link, the person requesting specifically wants the link to be clean of nofollows but not in this case.
We have sold several nofollowed links on this site, based on request. Most of the time it has to do with testing Google and sometimes it has to with fear of being caught for buying links and even some people just don't want the link value.
But in most cases it is SEOs trying to test things.
I'd be careful when selling links and even if they do not want it to be followed, they might come back to you later and ask you to remove the nofollow. So be careful and make sure the deal is in writing and includes the nofollow portion of the deal.
That being said, Google says there is nothing wrong with selling links with nofollow - so enjoy.
Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.
Michael Martinez, a frequent commenter here, posted a $1,000 reward for someone in the SEO industry to provide a clear 100% positive proof with evidence that links work to rank sites in Google.
His rules are clear:
But are the rules achievable? Michael thinks not and many SEOs think not as well. And Michael is so confident, he is willing to put $1,000 of his own cash on the line to prove it (or disprove it).
You have until June 30, 2011 to prove it.
There is one forum thread discussing this contest, it is at Cre8asite Forums and I wanted to highlight one comment from administrator Ron Carnell:
Life. It's not always science, it's rarely clean or pretty, and it's never ever ever precise. But you know what else it's not? It's not always arbitrary and it's rarely as simple as pure luck. It's one choice leading to another choice leading to the next. To think otherwise is to ignore the fact there are invariably some people who do it better than others. Not just once in a while, but usually. Not every single time, but still more than most. Not scientifically, not precisely, but nonetheless ... reliably.
Up for the challenge? Details over here.
Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.
A few months ago I ran a poll asking if you believe in penalty proof paid links?
We had over 200 responses and I am a bit surprised to see that most SEOs believe in penalty proof paid links.
53% of those who replied said there are penalty proof paid links, whereas only 26% said there is no such thing. Another 20% answered that they do not know.
I honestly felt that more SEOs would either say there is no such thing as a penalty proof paid link or say they did not know. I am a bit shocked to see so many SEOs saying they are confident that they can pay for links and not get caught.
Are you surprised?
Image credit: Jim Sher on Flickr.
This post was written earlier and scheduled to be posted today.
A WebmasterWorld thread asks other link builders if they would ever do a link exchange with a competitor.
Typically, you would think you'd never want to link over to a competitor. In fact, we ran a poll on this type of topic back in 2009 and most SEOs said they would not link to a competitor. But one person said it depends, the WebmasterWorld response so far read:
If it benefits your end user, why not? Unless its a fierce competitor selling your widget for half the price you sell it for always get the link anytime its relevant and benefits your end user.
Try not to make linking decisions based on how you think its going to affect your site's search rankings.
Please take my anonymous poll and let me know if you would exchange links with competitors. I am not simply asking if you would link to competitors, I asked that already. I am not asking if you would exchange links with a competitor.
Do You Do Link Exchanges With Competitors?customer surveys
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Image credit, Stephen on Flickr.
The graph below is from the SEOptimise blog showing what happened to a new site after building 10,000 spammy links to it in a single day. What happened was the site tanked in rankings just after a few weeks.
He said:
I took a new domain that I wasnât too worried about destroying, picked a reasonably competitive keyword, and built about 10,000 really nasty-looking low quality links in to the home page with a mixture of phrase and exact match anchor text.
The site ended up ranking #1 on Google.com for this keyword for about three weeks, which as you can see had a significant impact on increasing the siteâs traffic.
Is it about the bad links? Is it about the site being new and ranking due to QDF temporarily?
New data shows the site is now back in the top 10, after taking a dive in rankings.
This case study is continually building upon itself in the comments. There are just so many factors, it is hard to isolate the issue or issues. The site is new. It has 10,000 horrible links. The links are all spammy, 99% of them. The site is now ranking well again. The site may be based in the UK.
Here are some good comments from the post:
After reading your latest comment, my opinion is that the penalty was triggered by the fact that the spammy links accounted for 100% of the external inbound links of the target website (which had none beforehand). If you repeated this test on an established website with non-zero link popularity, I believe you would not get the same results. Hurting a competitor may be possible, but itâs certainly not that easy.
This is likely a failure of Googleâs QDF algorithm. They want fresh, viral news to appear in the SERPs as it comes, but itâs also perhaps very possible that they canât efficiently determine what to trust and what not to trust at certain points because of the push/pull effect trying to display âfreshâ news creates in their search results.
Anyway, if anything, it is always fun to watch people destroy things.
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
A Cre8asite Forums thread has a rant on a new business cropping up, the business of acquiring positive reviews for your Google Maps local listing or negative reviews for your competitors.
This is really not all that new. Ever since there have been online company directories and yellow pages, reviews have been tampered with. Heck, even in 2005, I played a game with Yahoo to see how easily it would be to tamper with my own reviews. Of course, similar things work fine on Google until someone takes notice.
That being said, as Matt McGee pointed out, Google has tweaked their reviews guidelines document, specifically saying you cannot solicit or pay for positive or negative reviews.
Conflict of interest:
Reviews are only valuable when they are honest and unbiased. Even if well-intentioned, a conflict of interest can undermine the trust in a review. For instance, do not offer or accept money or product to write positive reviews about a business, or to write negative reviews about a competitor. Please also do not post reviews on behalf of others or misrepresent your identity or affiliation with the place you are reviewing.
Matt then goes into the irony of such guidelines.
But yes, there are companies that actually will do this for you. If you want your reviews to be mostly positive, they will take your money and get you lots of positive reviews on your Google Places page or other online yellow pages.
SEOigloo from the forums said:
Beyond the immediate consequences to the business owner, there are the implications of a completely spammed review scene for all Internet users. We may all be aware of the adage, 'don't believe everything you read', but these spammy review practices are making it more like, 'don't believe ANYTHING you read' when it comes to local businesses.Bottom line: if you own a local business, please don't purchase these kinds of services. I genuinely believe it pays to play by the rules.
Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.
In light of Forbes being penalized for selling links and Google sending out link warnings to link sellers and buyers - a new topic arose at WebmasterWorld where one SEO asks if there is such a thing as a "penalty-proof paid link."
Can you buy certain links and not run any risk in being penalized for that link?
Of course, many SEOs know there are some links - paid - that won't get you banned. Links like the Yahoo Directory or Open Directory Project. Links from non-profit organizations that you are a member of. There are many cases where you can "buy" a link and not get penalized for it.
But are there ways to buy mass links and not get caught. Or better yet, are there ways to buy links specifically for Google ranking purposes and never ever run the risk of getting caught?
Take my poll below:
Are There Penalty Proof Paid Links?Market Research
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A WebmasterWorld thread has conversation around the topic of link building. The question in the thread is, is there anything new to be learned on the topic? Are there any new techniques to get quality links that have no been uncovered? Is the innovation behind link building dead?
A senior member, wheel, said:
Quite frankly, there isn't anything unique or new. It's simply learning the techniques of finding places to get links and then methods to get links from those places. And those procedures are detailed in this forum repeatedly, with variations. Outside of that, if you say 'no link exchange request and no buying links', I don't believe there IS anything else.
In reply to that, moderator, martinibuster, said:
I agree that there isn't anything new being published, I agree with that. But there are new techniques being worked out. I see them in action. I hear them in confidence. And when I need one I invent a way of building links that no one else, as far as I can tell, has thought of.
I am sure those who live and breath link building have strokes of genius when coming up with new ways to get links. I mean, article building, guest posts, widget creation, social media sharing and so on are old techniques - but who knows what will come out in the future that link builders can utilize?
Future thinking is never dead.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around how some sites that rank well in Google but only have links from sites they actually own.
The disturbed SEO said:
Last week, a competitor that is normally on page 3 to 4 on Google has started to rank number one or 2 for a highly competitive term. When i was evaluating their backlinks, 85% of the 20 links they have are all from blog / low content sites they own. When I say low content I mean one post on a blog with a unique url over 6 months ago. The other 15% are from low quality directories. I thought Google was trying to get rid of this type of spam links, not reward them... Anyone else seeing anything like this?
Guess what? It works. It doesn't necessarily matter if the sites that link to you are sites you technically own. If you have good quality content and the links are somewhat quality, then it will count. If you abuse it, then Google may take action, but otherwise, it is fine.
Let me quote Wheel, a Senior Member at the forums, who said I "use it myself thank you very much. Works great. And remember, that doesn't invalidate the content or usefullness of the site that is ranking."
He added other methods he uses:
I personally prefer to have a stable of high quality sites to give myself backlinks from but there's a variety of things you can do:
- lots of crap sites as you've described. I haven't personally seen this in a long time, but I'm not surprised.
- build out related but different sites in the niche and drive backlinks to them, get them hosted etc distinctly. Makes for valid backlinks and as long as Google can't connect the dots they should look good. I've got a widget site in my niche and a forum in my niche. Both are great sites on their own. I give myself links from them.
- buy dropped domains in your niche, rebuild them somewhere else. Maybe even let sit somewhere with content on them for six months or a year. I've actually got a whole bunch of pr4-6 websites with content on them that were dropped a couple of years ago. Today they're not dropped sites, they're pr4-6 2 year old sites.
- buy existing dormant websites. Go looking for dormant websites in your niche, offer them some small amount, see if they bite. If they do, leave the site as about untouched as you can and then drop yourself a link.
What do you think?
Let me be clear, this does not mean you should go out and build thousands of blogpost blogs and link them all to you. If it looks unnatural, Google will eventually get you.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
There is an interesting conversation going on about the use of your anchor text on your internal links at WebmasterWorld forums. The topic here is that this SEO wants a specific page of his to rank for a term, so he optimizes the page for the term and links to it with the phrase in his internal anchor text. But he also links from that page to another internal page using the same anchor text he wants the current page to rank for. Got that?
For example, I want to rank a page for big blue pineapple chair, so when I link to the page, I use the anchor text big blue pineapple chair. But I also decide to link to a different page on my site, via the big blue pineapple chair page using the anchor text "big blue pineapple chair" to this other page.
The question is, will this confuse Google in thinking the page that is all about big blue pineapple chairs is actually linking off to another page about big blue pineapple chair and they should rank that page instead.
Nothing like a good deep linking topic to make link builders salavate. :)
Tedster replied to the thread saying, "Theoretically, it does sound like this might become an issue in some cases. In reality, I've never run into it. I think I'd still avoid using the exact same phrase I was targeting in the outbound anchor text."
Personally, I have no clue. Logically, you would think it might cause confusion. But I do not have practical examples of either, so I have no clue. Tedster said he has never seen it, have you?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A WebmasterWorld thread has nice discussion on the topic of how to train a link building team or link builder. The thread doesn't get good until the content after the 2011, so skip down to that portion.
Professional link builders obviously have different ideas on how to train and sculpt the supreme link builder. So the thread has some of those thoughts in there. Let me pull out a few quotes:
Is it necessary to train the link builders? All you really need to train is the point person, the manager, for the overall strategy. Everyone else below them can use scripted actions, much like Google support employees do.
Link Development vs. Traffic Development and Staying with the Times Popularity Has a Whole New Meaning
[www.webmasterworld.com]Link Cliques - Rethinking Link Acquisition Tactics for 2009 How to Assert Your Relevance Among Established Sites
Membership required...
[www.webmasterworld.com]Have you read any Good Link Development Blogs/Articles?
[www.webmasterworld.com]
Why not hire a person who already have an experienced? It's a time consuming if you will need to train the person instead of looking for more experienced staff.
If it was me and these link builders had no knowledge at all, I'd start with the basic of SEO. Then show examples of why links are important. Train them on good links versus bad links. Then show them some pointers on how to find good links with various tactical tools. Make sure they do it within a system that tracks the links, requests, successes, and so on. Then do weekly reviews of their techniques and keep adding pointers.
I am not a link builder. I never request links. I don't do SEO. But this is how I would approach it.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Bryson Meunier posted a study showing that search results on a desktop different from search results on a smart phone by about 86%.
That means, the results you get for a specific keyword search when done on a iPhone or Android phone will 86% of the time be different in some way then if you conducted the same search on a desktop browser.
Bryson said that most SEOs have claimed there are no major differences between the two. I don't really remember respected SEOs saying that but maybe they have. I do know there aren't many SEO changes one should make between optimizing their pages for desktop versus iPhone or Android phones, specifically. Okay, this is an over simplification of the process and I've explained a lot what you should be aware of.
Overall, as Bryson said, the majority of the difference in the search results has to do with Google showing you more locally related results. Google feels, if you are searching on a mobile device, your search intent is more locally specific. He documented what he saw were the main differences. He said:
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
| Organization | Anchor Text Examples | User Friendliness | Anchor Text Behavior |
| The Mosaic Project | Work for Mosaic Order Our Curriculum Guide Outdoor School | High: Users can get an accurate idea of the content on the links’ destination pages just by reading the anchor text. | Active verb phrases and rich nouns accurately describe the pages that the links are pointing to. |
| Asian Liver Center | Learn more here | Low: The anchor text is too generic and does not give users an idea of what the linked-to content is. | Generic phrases give little insight into the pages that the links are pointing to. |
| Organization | Page Title Examples | User Friendliness | Page Title Behavior |
| VAMS International | Upcoming Events | VAMS International Request Service | VAMS International FAQ’s | VAMS International | High: Each page’s content is relevant to its title, and the user can get a good idea of each page’s unique offerings and functionality. | Concise, rich language joined with the organization’s name accurately describes the corresponding pages. The titles show how each page is unique while also acknowledging that they are all associated with one organization. |
| MHCD Evaluation and Research | MHCD Evaluation and Research | Low: This site contains a lot of diverse content and rich functionality; however, the uniform page titles do not convey these strengths. | This page title is too general and does not accurately describe the content on each page. The same title is used across all the pages on this site. |
| Organization | <title> source code | User Friendliness | Tag Behavior |
| <title>Top San Diego Doctors and Hospitals - Sharp HealthCare</title> | Best | Includes organization’s name and a descriptive tag line | |
| <title>Interieur 2010 - 15-24 October Kortrijk, Belgium</title> | Good | Includes the organization’s name and a non-descriptive tag line | |
| <title>Visual Arts and Music for Society | VAMS International</title> | Okay | Includes only the organization’s name |
| Organization | Source Code | User Friendliness | Tag Behavior |
| <img alt="Sponsor a Puppy logo" src=... | Best: the alt text specifies the image is the organization’s main logo | Uses rich, descriptive alt text to describe images, buttons, and logos | |
| <img alt="Logo" height=... | Good: the alt text specifies the image is a logo, but does not further describe it by the organization or its behavior | Uses non-descriptive alt text for images, buttons, and logos, or uses alt text only sporadically | |
| <img src="...”> | Not ideal: alt text not present | No use of alt text, or use of text that does not add meaning (often seen in numbering the images) |
Our greatest resource is the webmaster community, and here at Webmaster Central we're constantly impressed by the knowledge and expertise we see among webmasters: real-life SEOs, bloggers, online retailers, and all those other people creating great online content.
How do real-life webmasters actually use Webmaster Tools? We'd love to know, and we'd like to showcase some real-life examples for the rest of the community. Create a video telling your story, and upload it via the gadget in our Help Center. We'll highlight the best on our Webmaster Central YouTube channel, and even embed some in relevant Help Center articles (with full credit to you, of course).
To share your stories: Make a video, upload it to YouTube, then go to our Help Center, and submit your vid via our Help Center gadget. Our full guidelines give more information, but here is a summary of the key points:
Update: as mentioned here, we have introduced a new feature: Change of Address. Check it out if you are moving from one domain to another! By using this feature you will help us update our index faster and hopefully make the transition for your users smoother.
Written by Luisella Mazza, Search Quality Senior Analyst
| Browser | Version of WebKit |
| Chrome 1.0 | 525.19 |
| Chrome 2.0 beta | 530.1 |
| Safari 3.1 | 525.19 |
| Safari 3.2 | 525.26.2 |
| Safari 4.0 beta | 528.16 |
Wrong: <a><div>This will look wrong.</div></a>
Right: <div><a>This will look right!</a></div>
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example.com/search?q=user+search+keywords&url=
example.com/coupon.jsp?code=ABCDEF&url=
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proxy.example.com/?url=
example.com/login?url=
example.com/redirect/
example.com/out?
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google.load function, which lets you load the individual Google APIs. For loading Google Transliteration API, call to google.load looks like this:
