So, link farms work now you say? Last I checked they don't and are still against the guidelines of all 3 major search engines. It's worth the time and risk to deal with link farms. Build quality related one-way backlinks is the proper way to increase link popularity. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769 & http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66356 http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/basics/basics-18.html http://help.live.com/help.aspx?mkt=en-us&project=wl_webmasters Yet another episode of myth busters
In all fairness, he said the myth was that they "don't work", not that they violate TOS. It's interesting though. Some folks claim they do work, and others say they don't. Some say that you will end up placing a pattern ("footprint") that google will detect and discount the links, no matter how hard you try to avoid it. Others say that's bull. P.S. Man google loves DP. Searching "So, link farms work now you say?" brought back 1.7 million results. One hour after you posted that it was #2 position. Amazing.
Amazing how many pundits charge huge fees for "Guaranteed 1st place/ 1st page results in Google" isn't it?
If it violates the terms of service and your trying to be a "respectable" webmaster it is worth noting.
Myth - too many links too fast gets you penalized Fact - too many links too fast with repeat description gets you penalized Myth - FREE articles are a great way of getting free content Fact - Using any article already found on the internet is classed as repeat content and any pages you have with repeat content will be only found in supplemental results Myth - Links trading is white hat SEO and a good way to build back links Fact - Links trading is black hat SEO because it is an attempt to manipulate ranking because the links are not a genuine vote for a website. Reciprocal links are worthless unless the webpage linking back has more importance that the webpage used to link to. Like trading 50c for a dollar...you could be trading a dollar for 50c ! Also many black hat seo webmasters cheat on reciprocal links in an undetectable way. Myth - Black hat SEO is illegal Fact - It is not illegal to break guidelines set up by a search engine Myth - You need to submit your website to thousands of search engines Fact - you don't need to submit it to ANY search engine - if your website gets popularity then it will get spidered and indexed. (Submit your website to 5000 search engines for $10, these companies are making mugs out of you all !) Myth - Buying traffic works Fact - These companies send a computer to visit your website Myth - White Hat SEO is better than Black Hat SEO Fact - Just following search engine guidelines is no guarantee of success - But using black hat SEO guarantees success - even if it may be shortlived success is imminent !
I just paid for social bookmarking and directories submission service...so that qualifies as many links with repeat descriptions? DOH!
Quantity of links isn't as important as many people make it out to be. I'd rather have a few dozen well trusted links than thousands of junk links.
Social bookmarking isn't, but the directory submission is, uh oh, hundreds of links all appearing within a few weeks of each other..all with the same description.. and probably the same anchor text = search engine algorithms coming to the conclusion that these links are automated - mass traded - bought - or put up using a submission company - eg THEY ARE NOT A GENUINE VOTE
Fact - You dont need alot of external links to rank high (G pg 1) for competitive terms that bring decent traffic! Fact - You dont need high Page Rank to rank page #1 of G for a moderatly competitive keyword or phrase that will bring decent traffic. Fact - Your crawfish pages will rank page 1 of G by the end of summer for decent traffic keywords, provided you dont do anything "crazy".
so does that mean it is immoral to stuff in a few keywords, build pages just to draw in traffic, do a little bit of spamdexing, or post links to your own website ?
Fact: I have multiple free for reprint articles on my sites. Fact: Many of these articles rank in the top 10 on both google and yahoo for various keyword phrases. Fact: One article in particular, has been reprinted dozens of times, and this article brings traffic to my site for about a dozen variations on a phrase, these phrases are heavily searched. Using free reprint articles can and does work if done correctly. As with any other article you may use/or write yourself, you need to be sure to SEO the individual page correctly and to be sure it is relevant to your site. Additionally, in regards to duplicate content, if ALL duplicate content was bad for rankings, how would you explain things like AP news stories that appear on dozens of news sites,blogs, etc.....Many times the original source does NOT rank 1 for the AP article. Vanessa Fox from Google stated "Duplicate content doesn't cause your site to be placed in the supplemental index. Duplication may indirectly influence this however, if links to your pages are split among the various versions, causing lower per-page PageRank." In fact, she had a nice long entry all about duplicate content here A ton of good info there from her. I'm not for or against using free reprints, I am only saying that it can work. I just think it is smart to listen to authoritative sources (like Vanessa Fox) on issues like this. And, if nothing else, conduct your own research and see what works for you. Is that a link to a blackhat SEO book you are selling in your sig?