For anyone who has been living inside of a bubble for the last 12 months plus, Google is having a bit of a paddywack and is on a (sometimes questionable) mission to clean up it's search index.
Rand, the top man at SEOMoz, a respected SEO Resource and community has done a recent video explaining the death of links in his interpretation of Googles strategy.
The Death of Link Building and the Rebirth of Link Earning | SEOmoz
It's pretty interesting viewing if you have the time, but some key gems are references to article directories, which I know have been the subject of a few recent threads here on MLF. The short answer seems to be, don't do it!
Anchor text which has been well publicised for a while now is another that falls into the don't do it category. Directories also take a hammering, and by that I take it as traditional web directories, pages of hundreds of links, which have been hammered by Penguin updates.
The key message is actually an age old one, and harks back to the "content is king" cliche, ie display interesting or informative content, and people will naturally link to you.
Like I say, this is one persons view, but a very interesting one. Be nice to hear peoples views, do you agree, disagree, why or will this make you revise your current strategy?
It is a view that makes a lot of sense, but I have to ask who is really going to do all the natural linking? Even if you have great content without trying to get links I'm not convinced people will just naturally link to you in any great numbers. cheaperaccountant
“I'm not convinced people will just naturally link to you in any great numbers.” See I disagree, take today, I did the friday humour post, and credited the original author, so his content (actually a French marketing site) is obviously attracting links. Plus take this actual post, there is a link back to SEOmoz, plus I put this thread on Facebook earlier. Our directory content gets linked to regularly (other than content scrapers!), it crops up all over the place, people passing on an address, a review etc. As an accountant, there must be buckets of great info and content you have at your disposal. I have VAT calaculator bookmarked, because I'm lazy, ok not a link maybe, but I'm regularly on their site using their free tool. Maybe while I'm there something else will take my fancy? I think a lot of us just need to reprogram our mindsets. If you have a great resource, cartoon, VAT calculator, theory on the meaning of life, then shout about it. Tweet it, FB it, blog it, and if it is any good, people will naturally link. Downside is, it all takes time and effort, which is why the short cut gaming options have been so popular over the years. Spinning the same article 50 times or submitting to 500 directories for $10 was never part of a genuine marketing plan 
Very fair comments and I see where you're coming from. I'll be giving some thought to what you've said and decide what I can do next to increase the value I'm giving to visitors to my site. cheaperaccountant
I stopped offering SEO services a year ago, because I believed it was unethical to provide services that were destined to fail. I am glad I did. Unfortunately, it seems there are enough people that haven't got it yet and are still fueling the link building firms that perhaps are supporting the economies of whole sub-continents. Spread the message. Thta said, I'm still sticking my business in a few directories, that actually have visitors and create referrals, e.g. freeindex AlanF
I was never any good at link building, and looking at years of data, brief forays into outsourcing it never generated any worthwhile long term results. Other than the odd forum sig, I no longer bother at all. But I've just got "free cv" to the top of google for our JobsVitae site, which we took over in Jan this year, with the only links coming from this forum and our directory (even resisted the temptation to do anchor text in this post ). So content does indeed count. Also interesting is that it's got a PR of 1, which proves that PR chasing is a waste of time and an out of date metric.“Thta said, I'm still sticking my business in a few directories, that actually have visitors and create referrals, e.g. freeindex” This is where it gets interesting. Directories get tarred with the same brush, from back bedroom web directory scripts to the likes of Yelp and Yell. So the approach then moves from old fashioned link building on web directories (hundreds of meaningless links on a page) to advertising and marketing on professional directories. Now everyone has different opinions or favourites, especially if you mention the word Yell out loud, but the reality is, a directory that doesn't generate any traffic, is as much good as a chocolate teapot, and if you are paying for a listing, then should be getting targeted traffic and leads. I think the days of directories charging
“Depends what referrals the directory brings directly. Checkatrade can demand this level of fees, as it brings business in. Apparently.” yup agreed, perceived value. Plenty of people pay thousands annually on Yell and the like, and are very happy with their return. I think the numbers are declining personally, but the average new or small business taking a foray into the online marketing waters will be wary of that kind of model. |
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