Hands up who wants to be a link builder!

[David]

I'm currently getting a couple of emails a week like the one below:

I am contacting you about cross linking. I am interested in your site because it looks like it's relevant to a site for which I am seeking links.

Offering a production control and job tracking software, this site provides manufacturers and job shops the ability to track product flow from quoting to shipping.

I'll keep the web address confidential and will send it to you only if you give me permission to do so. Just let me know if it's OK, and I'll send you the web address for your review. If you approve of the site, then the intention is to exchange links.

Looking forward to your reply.

Sincerely,
Johnny - Sr. Link Builder
http://www.link-builder.com

Now obviously links mean better search engine ranking but who'd have thought you could earn a living building links for people. Johnny is a SENIOR link builder and so, presumably he's doing rather well.

Do you think there's any mileage in accepting these offers and building a link exchange on my site. Most of the offers are not exactly a good fit. Last week I was offered a link exchange from a site selling vitamin supplements. Is it worth compromising content for the sake of fame and glory? ;)

[Tom]

According to the book I have just read, you can expect to pay $100/link if you engage a professional link builder to do the job for you.

The trouble with links from special link pages is that the value of each link is divided by the number of links on the page. If there are 100 'Recommended Links' on the page this does not give you much value!

Also you need to be wary: if the link comes from a site which Google does not judge to have a content relationship with your site then the value of the link could actually be negative. They do not like sites which try to spam the system through link exchange type arrangements that to not tell their robot anything useful about the value of your webpage to searchers.

What you really want is to be the only link from a page with a high pagerank and to have the link from the word "Cadutor". That's worth money!

[francis]

Tom: I mentioned to one of my colleagues that you'd recommended the SEO For Dummies book, so he ordered it from Amazon and spent the weekend going through it. For the last two days (and several emails over the weekend) pretty much all I've heard is about SEO, so you have a convert!

If you're interested, he has built, from scratch, JB's Music (http://www.jbsmusic.co.uk). Since starting to work with me (he started about a year ago) and me mentioning the what we've learnt on the MA, he's realised that, in terms of layout and design, he's got to almost start from scratch. Notice the word "cheap" in the index page title? He used a tool mentioned in the SEO book to see what people looking for DJ equipment are searching for. The word "cheap" appeared in the top results, so he's added it. He's also got working (in demo form only) clean URLs using Apache, which will be integrated into the site in the future.

Personally, I'd ignore anything that's spam, including link builders. It's a bit of a black art anyway, what with search engines constantly changing their algorithms, so I'd rather be in charge of my site.

[Tom]

Shame about the title but it is indeed a good book. It kept me awake reading in bed the night it arrived!

Your colleague's site works well. I'll be interested to hear whether he gives up PHP. In my view its best use is to generate static web pages. Should I ever find time to redo my garden site, this is what I will do.

[francis]

There's no way that he can give up the PHP. THe site is database driven with a fairly complex CMS behind the scenes. The shop staff can update the site, add images, put things in sales etc. There's also an order tracking thing that links with, I think, FedEx's site so you can see where your expensive good are. And now there's finance agreement forms and systems in place, all of which would be an impossible task without a server-side scripting language. When he rolls out clean URLs and re-designs in CSS, it will be even better

[David]

Today I heard from Bert...

websitearchitecture.co.uk

I am contacting you about cross linking. I am interested in your site because it looks like it's relevant to a site for which I am seeking links.

The site offers great information regarding cosmetic treatments and aesthetic procedures. This company specializes in providing acne treatment, laser hair removal, microdermabrasion, removal of stretch marks and other services.

I'll keep the web address confidential and will send it to you only if you give me permission to do so. Just let me know if it's OK, and I'll send you the web address for your review. If you approve of the site, then the intention is to exchange links.

Looking forward to your reply.

Sincerely,
Bert - Sr. Link Builder

I guess it must be true - people who attend our course are pimply nerds who spend too long in the dark - aesthetic procedures here I come! :D

Hang on, what exactly IS microdermabrasion - some method of buffing up websites?

[Tom]

Might one make the same comment about the staff who teach our course?

I had an equally bizarre experience with Adsense. It was with a page about garden tools. ALL the adverts served up were about DIY divorce packs. They must have a Thesaurus type programme which equates tools to DIY, and then there must be firms bidding on DIY cognates. Weird. Anyway, if you ever want to save a few bob on a divorce I can tell you where to get the info.

[Tom]

Originally posted by francis@Jun 24 2004, 6:13 am
There's no way that he can give up the PHP.
Then your friend should create some content-rich static pages to (1) provide googlebot-fodder (2) let customers know how much he knows about music equipment (eg advice on product selection). (3) provide internal links to the homepage - Google uses them in calculating pagerank.