The most bang for your buck in links...

[williamc]

Ok, let's try to get things going in a positive direction here....

What do you think the best links to get are? What should any webmaster spend most of his link building time concentrating on to get the most impact in search engines to get the most bang for their buck?

I'll start this off by simply saying that while google is the top dog, I have found they favor links (and reviews) from a certain 10-12 places in their local search results, and it stands to reason (and to my satisfaction from seeing it in action) that they also love these links in the organic results. I think I have posted the entire list before here, so not going to report it again here.. search if you want the list..

What are your thoughts on this topic?

[PhilipDunn]

the biggest surprise I've had, was after once adding about 10 reciprocals to a site. They were all from same topic websites, but just in different cities and so non-competing. Knocked our rankings up about 4 - 5 pages across the board!

[williamc]

Relevant links are relevant links. Even reciprocated ones, tho to a lessor degree, IMO. If they work for you, keep at it.

[milady]

Hi Williamc, your posts are most interesting always. I wonder where that list of best links is. I navegated your whole profile, at least everything that can be find and didn't find it.
I have serious problems to make good links since my beginning and couldn't find yet the way to be successful.
YOur help will be much appreciated!!

[williamc]

Here you go: http://www.webproworld.com/webmaster-forum/threads/105089-The-local-sites-google-uses-for-scraping-reviews-from....

[nickoran]

Thanks for posting the link, i was just dreading having to search for it...

I have to agree i get the majority of links from "key" sites, none of which are posted on your list. (which is great cause im off to work on it now!)
I think the more social sites have a lot of bang and are really easy to spread a link, the topic of todays wpw newsletter was about "likes being the new link" due to facebook, but its nothing new, how long has stumbleupon been about?
Anyway, sites like stumble I think are great for gaining links. there are lots of others like reddit, etc etc all very prominent and it doesnt take long to build up a good profile and spread what you have on offer.
I really dont think links from the big names like myspace and facebook etc should be as discredited as they often are. I think some people have also taken the nofollow link thing a bit too seriously too, and that you can still get worthwile links even if they are no follow.
Gernerally I think using social sites to gain links is more about how youuse them, you can spread the word of your RSS feed around, and what else is that going to encourage aside from a link!? but just putting a link on your profile and not having any friends will not work.

Aside from the social sites I think you need a bit of diversity, no site only gets pr7+ links back to themselves and Google knows this. Easy places to get liinks are sites like squidoo and blogger butyou need to put a bit of work in to earn the link nowadays and these also tend to pay off better if your more active on the actual sites.

Aside from this I tend to be quite active in the local online community and write articles which I think the community will lap up and spread for me, a global viral may be hard to initiate, but local virals fly about daily so getting in the loop with these can be beneficial.

[claybutler]

I had a really interesting thing happen over the last couple of weeks. I wrote this tongue in cheek peice on my blog http://www.claytowne.com/beats-digging-ditches/bad-google-maps-directions-how-google-map-directions-almost-got-me-killed/

I intentionally didn't use the word funny in the title tag or description and only barely mentioned it as a single keyword at the bottom. The reasoning was that it was written in a serious tone I didn't want to tip my hat as to the satirical nature of the piece. Much like how The Onion is written.

Anyway, I obviosly didn't rank well for the term "funny google map directions" as that was not my intention.

However, my post stated getting kicked around on Facebook and a bunch of people started "liking" it as well as linking to it with the phrase "funny google map directions" or in posts about "funny google maps directions".

So what happens? I go from page four or five to position number one for the phrase and my organic search traffic jumps dramatically for those terms. So I figured if that's what the market identifies my post as, I might as well include a few more "funny" phrases at the bottom just to reinforce it but keep the title and description the same.


So there is something going on here. As far as I know, all Facebook links are nofollow but evidence shows that's the not whole story as how they are actually factored into Google's algorithm.

[williamc]

Clay: interesting observation, and I for one, do not think google actually follows the 'expected' creedo of the original nofollow rules. I personally think Google has realized that they shot themselves in the foot with nofollow. They pushed it too hard and many CMS's started using it everywhere, basically killing the worth of the tag on a great many websites on the net. I look at nofollow links as any other link nowadays.

[SemAdvance]

Google wishes it had a clue what it's doing in regards to links. By instilling fear of being penalized by Google, webmasters for no good reason other than pure fear, applied the nofollow tag to links, where the tag made no sense being applied.

Wordpress (beloved by Google) uses nofollow by default now in their build, which a great many webmasters do not realize. Google shot itself in the foot. They now have .edu sites showing in the 1st page SERPs for obvious commercial search queries.

Reciprocal links still work as well from what I see. As I always say; "Google is the largest propaganda machine, known to man"

Believe what you want from them........

[claybutler]

I look at nofollow links as any other link nowadays.
That's how I'm leaning to. Experience is showing me I can't accurately judge the long term or cumulative effects of any link. Sure, dofollows are a "sure thing", but there are other things going on, especially as to how social linking is factored in. It wouldn't surprise me, as Google gets more sophisticated, that they just abandon the whole nofollow thing entirely as it becomes meaningless when every CMS and social network uses it as it's default.

[nickoran]

Clay I think you should have a look at this http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/25/boys-found-alive-after-50-days-at-sea/?hpt=T2 , google obviously knowing all thinks your 14 day kayak across over to an island is perfectly do-able and could save on fuel emissions.

You used to be able to get facebook follow links in your profile by putting links in your info section, I dont think this is true now, but when you say "that's the not whole story as how they are actually factored into Goggle's algorithm" I think this has to be true. When the nofollow rule came into effect, lots of people were worried about the sudden drop they would have from their only one good link in wikipedia, and it never really happened like that. personally ive always thought that theres no way you would suddenly discredit so many links in one go and they always were actually a very good source of links as they are monitored.

there are so many immediate problems with the fb like button in my mind. I dont even know where to start. its not going to suite evey website, its not universal in comparison to what a link is, it could be outdated tomorrow...

loved the storybtw, and glad you dont own a goat boat

[mjtaylor]

Actually, you *can* get a followed link from Facebook: I posted a thread on that not long ago: Get A Followed Link on Fadcebook (http://www.webproworld.com/webmaster-forum/threads/103848-Get-A-Followed-Link-on-Facebook).

[claybutler]

My profile was already set up like that. But I'm referring to the billions of user generated links. These are the ones that really count but I believe that are all nofollow and that can't be changed.

[williamc]

Ok, so we are pretty much in consensus that nofollow is being treated differently than everyone thinks, at least on some sites. So that is a starting point for that particular branch of this topic while we are already on it, so now let's figure out how to best leverage that knowledge into benefit.