A collection of some of the best resources on the web to further help your link building campaigns.
If you'd like to suggest a resource, please email Ken McGaffin
(i) Linking Strategy
The Road to Link Popularity
General article on link popularity together several tips to improve popularity scores including redesigning your site to promote linkability.
The Five Major Flaws of Link Popularity
Eric Ward makes no secret of his enthusiasm for linking but here he gives some important words of caution. Ward maintains there are "right and wrong reasons to pursue links, right and wrong ways to ask for them and right and wrong reasons to want them in the first place".
Increasing Hits by Improving the Link Popularity of Your Site
Sumantra Roy�s guide starts with the methods you shouldn�t be using - namely �Free for All Pages� and �Reciprocal Link Services�. She then goes on to describe some alternative methods in order of increasing importance, finishing with top dog - submitting to the directories.
The Right Way to Improve Link Popularity - Traffick.com
Recognises Link Popularity as an important SEO strategy and one of the best ways to improve your visibility and rankings. But do it the right way!
Link Popularity - by Spider-Food.net
Spider-food.com gives some useful advice on how to rank higher and avoid risk when increasing your link popularity. Also covers many search engine topics.
Linkability - Why do some sites have it while others don�t?
According to Eric Ward, "most brand web sites fail to provide the type of content that engenders, inspires or encourages other sites to link to them". In short they have no linkability. Here�s why.
Marketing - 10 steps to building links to your site - Microsoft bCentral
According to Craig Fifield, link building is the online equivalent of word-of-mouth advertising. And just like its offline cousin, it's the most effective way to get new business.
What Your Link Request Should Contain and Why
Eric Ward gives excellent advice on writing a compelling link request. The article gives a typically bad example from �StupidCompany.com� together with a linking request that he used successfully for a client. Advice not to be ignored!
131 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies
Robin Nobles, Eric Ward and John Alexander have collaborated to produce an excellent and comprehensive resource. As well as sound advice from the threesome, there are numerous quotes and tips from search engine professionals. Essential reading.
Do's and Don'ts for Building Your Site's Link Popularity, an article at Search Engine Workshops
Robin Noble advises that a high link popularity is sometimes all it takes to achieve top ranking, "It�s crucial, in many cases, to the success of an online business".
'Like Links? Begin With Top-notch Content' by Marcia Yudkin
Author Marcia Yudkin describes how she generates traffic to her site by posting substantive content and getting it linked.
Marketleap SEO 101: Link Popularity and Analysis - Everything You Need to Know
The concept of link popularity sounds good but the results are often mixed. Marketleap emphasises the need for good content and describes several critical targets in any link popularity campaign.
WorkZ.com - Link Analysis Can Help (or Harm) Your Web Site
Two main link analysis factors affect your site�s ranking: the authority factor and the hub factor. Poor quality sites with unrelated content have a negative effect on both factors.
A link Too Far: Understanding Link Depth Origination
Eric Ward explains the problems presented by search engine crawlers going no deeper that three directory levels on any site - relevant information for both inbound and outbound links.
Easy Linkin'
One of the key ways to encourage links is to provide a links instruction page. Eric Ward explains the principles and gives some useful examples.
Links and Power: The Political Economy of Linking on the Web
Search engines like Google interpret links to a web page as objective, peer-endorsed and machine-readable signs of value. Links have become the currency of the Web. With this economic value they also have power, affecting accessibility and knowledge on the Web. Interesting article that sees links as a pseudo-monetary unit - but be careful how you spend your money!
Keywords in hyperlinks
Jill Whalen explains why it's important to have keywords not only in the title of your page and the page copy BUT ALSO on the linking text that points to the page. The first two you can control easily, the third - well that's a bit more difficult. Jill gives some useful tips.
(ii) PageRank and Search Engines
Topic Distillation: hits, clever, discoweb then teoma
The title may be obscure, but Mike Grehan's logic never is. In this 15 page PDF, he summarises how topic distillation - finding the most authoritative pages on a particular subject - has been incorporated into search engine algorithms. In layman's terms, "it's more important what other pages say about you than what you say about yourself". Grehan is a natural communicator: this free paper gives a taste of what you can expect in his excellent book, Search Engine Marketing.
Google Technology
PageRank is very briefly explained by Google themselves. You�ll find a much more detailed report on �PageRank Uncovered� below.
PageRank Uncovered by Chris Ridings and Mike Shishigin, edited by Jill Whalen.
This 55-page report probably represents more than you ever thought you wanted to know about Google�s PageRank. Explains when PageRank is important and when it is not, and suggests that the importance of PageRank on Google may already be declining. The report recommends that you should always concentrate on "on the page" factors and anchor text first and PageRank last. Describes the concept of a threshold where further work on PageRank is pointless, contrasting two different approaches. Not exactly light reading, but highly informative and useful.
Interview with Craig Silverstein
Craig Silverstein, Chief Technology Officer of Google tells it like it is. His advice - avoid spam techniques and deceptive cloaking, embrace content and community.
How Search Engines Use Link Analysis (Paid-for resource)
Today, the search engines look beyond sheer numbers. Since all links are not created equal, the engines attempt to rank the importance of each link, and to understand the context of the link.
SearchDay - How Search Engines Look at Links
Representatives of Google, Fast, and Ask Jeeves/Teoma shared inside information about page ranking and linking analysis at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Boston. Suggests that for best results, you should optimize all pages, don't mix with bad company, and make sure link text says something important. A useful summary leading to a longer article if you subscribe to SearchEngineWatch (not a bad idea!)
Link Development Forum
It is no secret that today�s search engines are link happy. Many search engines count the number and quality of links to a site. Exchanging and acquiring links can be a tricky but rewarding process. This busy forum covers topics around link building but does not cover the actual exchange of links. Useful source.
The Bow-Tie Theory
The Bow-Tie Theory emphasises the importance of links on the internet and describes four groups of sites, the most important of which is the core made up of about 30% of sites on the web. The core is made up of sites that are well linked with both inbound and outbound links and as a result will have higher ranking and higher traffic. An effective linking strategy should help you become part of the all important core.
Winners don't take all: Characterizing the competition for links on the web.
Academic paper that describes the supposed 'rich get richer' behaviour of the web with a relatively small number of sites receiving a disproportionately large share of hyperlink references. Qualifies this view and maintains the importance of specific categories or communities of sites on the web.
Google Loves Blogs: How weblogs influence a billion Google searches a week
Weblogs are perfect for Google: frequently updated web sites crammed chockfull of tasty links. Argues that weblogs influence over a billion searches every week and that their power will only grow over time. But many people don't know what a weblog is - perhaps this article is the place to start.
(iii) Finding Links
A Technique For Selecting Sites For Link Requests
Competitors or potential link partners? Eric Ward describes �piggybacking�, one of his favourite approaches to finding new link partners.
How to find 1000's of sites to exchange links with
Describes a methodology on how to find potential link partners using two freeware tools, WebFerret and 2BPop. Broadly similiar to our own strategy, but using different tools. In an example of bad linking practice it links directly to a downloadable freeware tool, but has no link to the writers of the software.
(iv)Legal Issues
Linking Legalities ... What You Need To Know
Some web sites have threatened to sue or are actively suing other sites for linking to them. Ward sees this as foolishness and believes that every linking dispute can be easily solved without recourse to the courts. He describes the only three instances where linking to someone else�s content could be deemed illegal.
Linking Custom and Etiquette
Article begins with two quotes from Tim-Berners-Lee, "There is no reason to have to ask before making a link to another site" but by the same token, "You are responsible for what you say about other people and their sites, on the web as anywhere". Eric Hellman goes on to give a very clear description of three types of linking - cooperative, commercial and obnoxious. Includes links to other articles on the legal aspects of linking.
Frequently asked questions (and answers) about linking
What are your rights when other website owners object to your site's links? Explains the major legal issues and describes some interesting cases. Result of a joint project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, university of San Francisco, and University of Maine law school clinics.
Germany: deep linking lunacy continues
The news search engine, www.newsclub.de has been accused of copyright infringement by a large German publishing company. According to Christian Kohlschutter, there is no in-frame linking, each headline contains the name of the publisher and users are directed to the original publisher�s site. Lunacy indeed.
Internet, Copyright and Linking
According to Charles Oppenheim, the basic principles regarding the internet and copyright are very clear - the internet is NOT a territory where no law applies. Discusses the 'Total News' and 'Shetland Times' cases.
(v) Monitoring Results
Measuring Link Popularity
Danny Sullivan explains how to measure link popularity across some of the most popular search engines.
Linking Clipping
Would you like to know whenever a site creates a new link to you? Of course you would! Using a free tracking service, www.trackengine.com and some nifty ingenuity, Eric Ward shows how you can build a linking alert service in just five minutes.
(vi) Miscellaneous
Articles about search engine marketing written by Robin Nobles and John Alexander
Useful collection from Nobles and Alexander that covers link popularity as well as other search engine marketing techniques.
Warning!! Link Farm Ahead
Are you sick and tired of receiving 'I just visited your website. I linked to it on this page. I would love it if you would link back to mine' emails? Kim Krause explains why the gig is up.
'Trading Links - Any Real Value?'
Trading links (or reciprocal linking) has its detractors. Gail Hornback argues that it has some value and offers five tips on how to go about it.
Link Popularity and its effect on search engine rankings
Explains the need to have a �common thread� between sites for linking to be effective. Whalen also believes from personal experience that if your site is well written and provides a lot of useful information, you won�t have to search out links at all.
Web Credibility and Linking
In his Alertbox review of Dr. BJ Fogg's new book on captology (computers as persuasive technologies), Jakob Nielsen finds the section on web credibility most immediately useful. He notes that poor linking accounts for two of the four most harmful design elements (in undermining credibility), "most companies probably don't have a formal linking strategy ... Good links, both incoming and outgoing, boost credibility almost as much as poor links lower it."
