by EricHammer on January 16, 2012
The short answer to this question is: it depends. Now before you grown and think this is another rehashing of old topics, the question of whether .gov links are worth “thousands of dollars” depends on more than just the perennial question of what makes them valuable to begin with (a refresher on this in a moment). There are other factors involved as well.
What Are .Gov Links?
As you know, a backlink is basically considered to be a kind “vote” for your website. When you get a .gov backlink, it’s basically a “vote” from a government website. The thing is, just like with regular links, not all .gov links are created equal. Thus some .gov links may indeed be worth thousands of dollars while others are worth the time it takes for you to create them yourself.
Why .Gov Links are Popular
I won’t spend too much time re-explaining why these kinds of links are popular. As I’ve mentioned in this blog in the past, there are two theories. The first theory is that Google and other search engines consider such links to be inherently valuable because they come from an ostensibly reliable source (i.e. a government).
The second theory holds that these links are worth more because .gov websites tend to be linked to more often and thus tend to get higher PR ranks which in turn means that links on the sites are inherently more valuable.
Why It Matters
The distinction is important because this would mean that even a very obscure government agency which happens to have a website (for example, the US Board of Geographic Names, which decides whether or not particular names will be adopted by the Federal Government) could give you a valuable link. On the other hand, if only government agencies which actually get linked to regularly are valuable, then something on WhiteHouse.Gov is likely to be much more useful.
The Difference between Links
Now here’s the real kicker though and the reason that I said that it depends when I discussed the question of .gov links – regardless of what the reason for .gov links being more or less valuable may be (and again, it’s not clear one way or the other), the fact remains that just like with regular links, different links have different values. A link from a page entitled links is going to be worth less than a link from a page with news releases is going to be worth less than a link from the homepage.
Bottom Line
Nobody knows for certain what makes .gov links valuable to begin with and I’ve seen passionate supporters of one opinion or another everywhere on the web. Therefore, when asking the question whether they are “really” worth thousands of dollars, I prefer to examine what kind of link it is. Obviously, the government blog comment link is worth less than a link from the President’s Home Page. However, one thing is certain: all of these are likely worth more than a link from some unknown blog on Blogger.com. . .
Tagged as:
backlinks,
gov links,
seo,
whitehouse.gov
by EricHammer on December 5, 2011
The short answer to the above question is no. Reciprocal links are not all that horrible. The key to doing it is moderation and relevance. When you keep those two ideas in mind, you are able to use reciprocal links to your advantage rather than making them into something which can get you penalized by Google. Here’s what you need to know:
What are Reciprocal Links Anyway?
In essence, reciprocal links means a situation where you link to me and I link to you. There are perfectly legitimate reasons for doing this – for example, if you happen to run a locksmith company in New York City and you know someone who runs a locksmith company in Las Vegas, you can exchange links with each other because someone may show up at either of your websites by accident.
The Problem with Reciprocal Links
However, the problem with reciprocal links is that Google doesn’t like them since it looks like you are trying to game the system by creating extra backlinks to your website in order to boost your rank. This is why most good link packages are made up of one way links, not reciprocal links. Now, that said, there are ways to do this which won’t affect your SEO efforts:
Make It Obvious
Google’s engineers know that there are legit reasons for reciprocal links, so if you want to make it clear that your intentions are above board, then you want to put your links into a place where they will be obvious. A page titled “links” for example will generally alert Google to the fact that you are simply offering useful links on your website, some or all of which may be reciprocal.
Don’t Overdo it
Another thing to keep in mind with reciprocal links is that you don’t want to overdo it. A page with 10 or so links to other sites which you think your visitors will find interesting is going to look perfectly natural, even if all ten of those sites link back to you as well. A page with hundreds of such links though smacks of spam and black hat SEO tricks.
Keep it Relevant
Is the link to the local plumber something that really belongs on your website about how to position a satellite dish? Probably not. Then why on earth are you putting up such reciprocal links on your website? Remember, reciprocal links look bad when they are obviously intended to game the system. So if you want them to look innocent, put up links which would naturally appear on your site anyway (for example, you satellite dish site might include a link to Dish Network).
Consider No Follow
This isn’t absolutely necessary, but if you want to make it clear to Google that you are putting up reciprocal links which are on the up and up, considering making them no follow links. This will tell Google and the other search engines that they shouldn’t index the link, thus it won’t count against you at all.
Remember, They Probably Won’t Help You
Finally, remember that reciprocal links probably won’t be much use to you as far as getting yourself additional link juice. So treat them as something which involves direct traffic rather than SEO and you’ll do fine.
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Tagged as:
backlinks,
link strategies,
reciprocal links
by admin on August 29, 2009
by admin on July 10, 2009
Now, before I start on this topic, I would like to tell everyone that these are my own opinions. I do not own Google and I do not know their algorithms, so let us keep the hate mails to a minimum.
Contrary to popular belief, backlinking speed does not really get you banned by search engines. Some people are a little too paranoid about their speed of adding backlinks. They ask whether adding more than 30 links a day will get them banned from Google. It wont. Not unless you do something really stupid.
Allow me to elaborate. When I started internet marketing, I would keep a note of how many links I put up for my website and made sure that the number per day never exceeded 20. Why? Because someone told me to go easy on the links or I would be penalized.
Now coming to think of it, this never made any sense. Let us look at the real-life scenarios. How many links do you think CNN.com gets everyday? 20? I doubt it. A few hundred? Nope!
CNN.com gets over 10,000 links a day, I can bet you that! And even then it does not get banned from Google. This goes to explain that as long as you at least try to make the backlinks look natural, no matter how many you add, you will not get banned.
But let`s not start cracking up on the backlinks like a banshee. Do not get links from FFA or link farms in hopes of ranking high in 2 days for a competitive term. If you get links from FFA or link farms, you will most certainly get banned. I am talking about normal, legit link building techniques.
To put everything in perspective, I contracted a third-party service to give me 10,000 links over a period of 2 days. The website I have is only 3 months old currently. And it gets only 20 links on average per day.
But did getting 10,000 links over 2 days ban me from Google? Nope! Which leads me to believe that no matter how quickly you build legit links (or links that at least seem legit), you cannot get banned.
So folks, stop worrying about whether Google will banned you when you place your 21st link for the day. Nothing like that ever happens. If you are using black-hat techniques to get quick rankings, you might get into a problem.
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Tagged as:
backlinks
