Search Engine Optimization And Reciprocal Linking
by: Barry Whitteron
Search Engine Optimization
I believe linking is dead!
Google do not count your links like they used too, fact!
I make this claim from personal experience. My website used to have many back links from other websites, now Google only list 19 and some of these are internal links.
I get at least 50 web site owners, or designers a week, asking for a link to their site from mine. Me being the affable chap that I am I usually give them a link. I do however expect one in return, fair enough you might say. If that is the case and all these websites link to mine where the are they?
Yahoo show my links to be 1,735 sites linking to me. I know, some will be internal links.
MSN show me as having 877.
Great you might think, so why do Google only show 19. I know I have many well ranked links coming from relevant sites in the same field as my own site, but the Google does not see them as relevant. Why I ask?
Are Google now discounting links that have been there for some time? EG. aged links.
Are Google discounting all reciprocal links?
Do links only count if you don't link to them? E.G. one way links. If so how does one get links from well ranked sites?
Well I can probably answer that, you are expected to buy them.
Therefore Google have created another spin off business for certain people in the world. I don't agree with buying links, people should rate your site well enough to link to you. If you have a rubbish website and can buy links to improve your ranking then the whole thing stinks. I have never purchased links, in fact I have never even asked anyone for a link. The only way I get links is by people asking me.
The little guy on the web has little chance of getting a high ranking in Google.
When I first put my website together Google gave me a PR6, this was before they had things like the sandbox. I had very few, if any, sites linking to mine, I was a newbie on the web, not to my business I might add. I used to work for another company doing SEO but thought why am I working for someone else, and set up on my own. However I digress, my point being I had few links and Google and all the other search engines ranked my site highly. I know good content and all that, but about a year ago I went down to a PR5 with lots of links, get the picture. Now from Google my site is only a PR4. There seems to be no logic at all to Google, which is probably what they are striving for.
For some of my search phrases I get position one from 20,000,000 pages but I have not even optimised for those phrases. With no links going to that page. It is starting to appear that the more you optimise the worse it gets. The more links you have the worse it gets.
Whereas everyone in my industry, and at Google, says linking is one of the most important things, I genuinely do not believe this is the case anymore unless you can get links from very high PR sites. They are somehow filtering out the links, even relevant ones.
I know I have some irrelevant links coming to and from my website but I just like to help other website owners. It takes me a couple of hours a week to add other peoples links to my site and I wondering if it is all worth it anymore. Why should I spend my valuable time putting links on my site, emailing people to say where their link is all for Google to discount them. So from now I am no longer adding anymore links from my site.
http://www.bwservices.co.ukAbout The Author
Barry Whitteron
I have been in the SEO business for ten years but it is getting more difficult as the search engines become more refined to stop the spammers.
