SEO Hosting Blog

There are major arguments running around in SEO circles about nofollow vs. do follow and the draining power of outbound links.  The nofollowers argue that a dofollow link could go to a bad neighborhood and drain page rank.  Let’s look at this a little more closely.  Is it true?

A bad neighborhood site is one that uses black hat or outdated SEO tactics, which gets the site banned from search engines.  You can use SEO Hosting’s own banned site tool to see if a site has been banned.  The trouble with checking a site’s link in real time doesn’t mean the site will be permanently “healthy.”  The site could get banned in the future, which means your site is linking to a site with damaged authority.  It’s the concept of: you can judge a person by their friends.  If you link to a site with a bad authority, it damages your own authority.

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Linkbait—the word that gets tossed around on internet marketing blogs thousands of times each week. But how well do you really understand linkbait? Do you understand the different types of it, and do you know which one will work best for your needs?
To shed a little light on the subject, I decided to come up with a list dissecting the different types of linkbait. Hopefully, this will help you in your pursuit of inbound links for your website.

1. Humorous Linkbait- We’re all familiar with humorous linkbait. It’s the type of link that gets forwarded to us from our friends or that catches fire on forums and blogs because it’s so hilarious. Common examples of humorous linkbait are funny photoshopped images, crazy videos, and humorous rants in a blog. People love to laugh online so humor really does well.

2. Controversial Linkbait- Let’s face it—we all love a little drama. That’s why controversial linkbait is so powerful. Whether it’s about a celebrity getting caught snorting cocaine or a contrary opinion about a popular industry topic, controversy is king. It doesn’t matter if people love it or hate it, they’ll link to it because they’re passionate about their point of view.

3. News Linkbait- If you can be among the first to break a hot story in your industry, you’ll be rewarded with a surge of backlinks. Relevance is one of the keys to linkbaiting. Of course, having success breaking news stories on a consistent basis can be challenging, but it certainly pays off to be in the loop.

4. Resourceful Linkbait- To me, this is the best kind of linkbait because it adds the most value to the online experience. Plus, it can be done in virtually any niche. Resourceful linkbait is the content that tends to stand the test of time because it provides so much insight into a particular topic. Common examples of this include how to guides, lists with links to online tools, and handy tips for making things easier. The great thing about resource linkbait is that it continues to attract links for months and even years.

5. Incentive Based Linkbait- Incentive based linkbait is good for a quick surge in links. As its name implies, this is content that gives readers a motivation for getting involved. Usually, incentive based linkbait is a contest or a giveaway of something people want. If you’re looking for a quick boost in online visibility, this can do the trick.

Which types of linkbait do you use? Is one more effective than the others?

Although Google has only been around since the end of 1998, ranking websites in regards to how many other websites are linking to it is a system that was based off of a concept that has been around since the 1950s. Because incoming links have played such a significant role in a website’s rankings throughout the ten year history of Google, one of the primary roles of SEOs has always been to build new inbound links.

While it would be foolish of me to make a statement such as “linkbuilding is dead,” we can all agree that the field of SEO is evolving, and as a result of the evolution of this field, individuals and companies who are involved in the search engine optimization field must be willing to adapt. Therefore, while I still think that linkbuilding can be an effective investment of money, resources and time (when those three factors are devoted to more than blog comment spam and directory submissions), I want to look at a variety of techniques that will generate inbound links without relying on the traditional definition of link building (note that I emphasize the “traditional definition of link building”, because SEOs who are on top of their game have already been integrating these methods into their link building arsenal for quite some time):

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This week produced quite a bit of excellent content around link building. In this week edition of SEO Friday, we’ll recap some of these excellent articles and references that were published during this week. As you may know, link building is a very important aspect of improving your visibility in the search engines.

Ann Smarty, author of the successful Search Engine Journal, wrote an article titled, How To Build Links and Awareness by Pitching Bloggers. In this article she addressed that bloggers can be an excellent resource towards building links for the fact that most bloggers are always on the hunt for new material to write about and they are connected with many friends which gives your links the opportunity to go viral. The article was submitted into Sphinn, so be sure to help Ann out by casting your vote.

The author of a blog titled, Link Building Best Practices, wrote a very thoughtful piece that distinguishes the difference between SEOs and Link Builders. It is stated that there is a clear difference between the two skilsets and it is noted that commonly most people are either one or the other but not both. Understanding the difference between the two very well might break the boundary and expand the skilset from both professions. You should take a moment to help out by casting a vote on Sphinn. (more…)

In this article, I am going to show you a method that I use daily towards getting absolutely free and powerful backlinks to my blog. The other day I wrote a post titled, A Simple Yet Effective Link Building Techique. For the sake of simplicity, we’re going to call that post, Part I. I want to continue that into a second segment that I will from now call call, How To Get Free BackLinks.

Today, we are going to discuss Part II. When I wrote the first post, I decided to break things down into sections. If I didn’t I would have just created an eBook for you to download. So with that said, let me show you another method towards getting free backlinks to your web site or blog.

Now, many of you guys and gals know about companies such as Text-Link-Ads.com and ReviewMe.com. Make no mistake, these type of businesses work and work very well. For those who don’t know what these services offer, they provide people with a way to purchase backlinks. Text-Link-Ads.com is more blunt about it and ReviewMe.com attempts to sugar coat the process by making publishers write a crafty review about the site needing the backlink. (more…)