Just like to introduce myself... For a few years (just over 5 years I estimate) I ran a very basic directory website covering Yorkshire (Region of the England, UK). Every month or so I would update any new submissions and do a bit of housekeeping but this all stopped when my domain registrar managed to cock-up the renewal. Some cheeky b*gger unbeknown to me then quickly snapped up the expired domain and then pointed it to his own website. On the revenue earning front, I had signed up as an affiliate with a company who are now called DGM and had one area with a rotating banner and occasionally received a cheque for my efforts. Anyhow that ceased about 2 years ago but just recently I have decided to resurrect the old dog and and been thinking of ways to earn a bit pocket money from it. My searching around the web brought me to this website and have to admit I am bit overwhelmed !! It seems the world has not just overtaken me, it has lapped me numerous times and is now competing in a totally different race !! PR6, PR9, PR3 ??? Sounds to me like the latest Citroen models but apparently it means page rank. SEO, blimey when I was lad the effort was spent trying to stop search engines from spidering your website and eating up your bandwidth !! I feel so out of touch. I could be spending the next fortnight reading this forum just trying to catch up.
What section is the best to ask basic questions because I am more out of touch that I even first imagined? I don't understand the concept of buying links because from what I have read so far, it seems to me to be a house of cards. For instance I see a website with about 150 links which links to another with 150 and yet another that has links to the first two. I don't get it because there is no real content on those pages and I can't imagine anyone would visit them. Maybe I am somewhat of a traditionalist but I can't see how people are making £xxxx if their sites don't contain anything other than links to other links.
Greetings Yorweb! Sad to hear about your domain renewal experience, if it's any consolation you are not alone in that at all. Kudos for your resolve to get back into creating useful content. Regarding link buying, it's now become a pretty controversial area where many agree with you, apparenty including Google to a large extent. In response to your question, these two sub-forums might be a good place to start: General SEO: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=12 Link Building: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=13 Hope to see you soon in some of the many other fascinating sub-forums here. IMO Digital Point is the place where you can have the most fun while learning how to make serious money.