'Net Features : links

Big List of Link Building No-Nos

Michael Garrity — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 19:30:00 GMT

Link building is one of the most basic methods that Web professionals use to grow their businesses online. It’s a pretty great system because there are so many different ways to build links on the Internet, but it’s also really difficult because there are so many ways to build links, meaning there are a lot of ways to screw it up.

So, while getting links is an essential task for website owners, they should also make sure that they’re doing it the right way. Otherwise, their brand can be seriously (and in drastic cases, even irreparably) damaged. But with so many options for link building, how do you know what to do and what not to do? That’s easy! Just check out this Website Magazine guide to link building no-nos.

Irrelevant or Duplicate Content
If you’re trying to garner links from websites, the first thing you should do is make sure you’re worth linking to! That means producing original and valuable content that is going to have some relevance to the people visiting the pages you want links from. Also, avoid running duplicate content (either content previously published on your site, or that you’ve written and published elsewhere) and writing guest blog posts for irrelevant sites. This will make your site feel authoritative and be more attractive to high-quality links.

Don’t Spam or Leave Irrelevant Comments
Look, nobody on the Web likes a spammer, so don’t be that guy (or gal). It’s fair game for you to want to visit websites or forums that are relevant to your audience or niche and spread the word about your great site in hopes of building a few links, but that doesn’t mean you should just drop in context-less comments or replies that don’t really help progress any discussions or provide value to other readers, all in hopes that they’ll pay attention to you. Instead, take part in ongoing discussions to build your presence as an authority, and only add references or links to your site when it will add value to other visitors. And if you’re on a forum, you can even include a link to your site in your signature.

Be Social – Not Pushy
Social media marketing is basically a necessity on the Web these days; you’re just not going to get anywhere without it. However, just having a profile on Facebook, Twitter, etc. is not enough – you also have to be social and engage with your fans/followers and other big names in your niche. Be friendly and open, and under no circumstances should you simply and blatantly engage in self-promotion, or spam the walls (and news feeds) of your fans with promotional links.

Don’t Buy Crappy Links
The ultimate goal for people looking to build links is to find those that are high-quality and relevant to your site, so not only is it a waste for you to try to buy links from low-quality sources, it’ll also get you in trouble with Google, which keeps a cautious eye on low quality link sites that engage in a nefarious practice called “link farming.” When it comes to getting quality links, your site and content should be all you need. And while you’re at it, don’t bother with “trading” links with low quality sites just to have them. You’re better than that…

Slow Down on Submitting to Directories
Directories, either paid or free, are great because they can seem like they're these big fields where links grow just for you, but don’t be tempted to just submit your site to a bunch of directories the week it goes live. Remember, good links come naturally and are built up over time. Plus, search engines can totally tell when you’ve just acquired a lot of links by going directory crazy, and that’s going to do more harm than good for your site in the immediate future.

Don’t Over-Link to Your Own Site
If you’re a hard-working content marketer, chances are you’re producing articles and blog posts pretty regularly, including for other websites or blogs that you don’t run. Naturally, you may want to drop a link to your site once, maybe twice, in said article, if there’s a natural and not-totally-obvious way to do it (most authors save this for their bio section attached to the article). Be careful not to “over-link” to your site in these articles, though. Remember, you’re supposed to be offering relevant and valuable information to your readers, not promoting your website, so never drop in more than one link to your site. Besides, Google is open about the fact that it only reads the first link anyway, so more than one link is not only annoying, but also useless.

Link to Various Pages on Your Site
One of the biggest mistakes that people make when linking to their websites is to link only to their home pages. This is a bad idea, because (A) it makes users have to dig to find certain information, so just link to the pages you want them to see, and (B) it gives your site a bad deep link ratio and negatively affects how well your deeper “child” pages will rank on the search engines. But also, if your site has a canonical issue that gives you a “/index.html” URL in addition to your domain URL, make sure that when you DO link to your home page, it doesn’t send users to this index page (or any other home page extensions).

Change Up the Anchor Text
When you’re targeting a specific term that you want associated with your website, you may think it’s a good idea to use the same anchor text in your links over and over again. It’s not. In fact, this kind of narrow targeting will actually hurt you on the search engines. Instead, try to vary the anchor text you use to include OTHER relevant or related terms, or terms specific to the page you’re linking to. This will help your site rank for more terms, obviously. Plus, it would be helpful to include your company or website name in a percentage of your links, as well.

SEO Mechanics - Anchor Text

Michael Garrity — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:25:00 GMT

The Internet has done a lot to make it easier to spread and digest information at a faster pace than ever before, but the really great thing that Web content is able to do is insert supplementary information right into the text on a page in the form of a hyperlink. However, what many up-and-coming Web pros don’t realize is that these hyperlinks, when paired with the right anchor text, can actually play a significant role in improving their SEO efforts, as well.

Quite simply, “anchor text” is just the clickable text in a hyperlink; that is, those specific characters and/or words that a hyperlink displays in the text portions of a Web page that link out to other locations or documents on the Web. When it comes to the coding on a page, anchor text looks like this:

<a href=http://www.exampleurl.com>Anchor Text</a>

But you may be wondering just what kind of a role this actually plays in search engine optimization. Well, as it turns out, search engines tend to use anchor text to figure out the subject matter of the linked-to Web page or document. This means that they get a chance to learn what a page is all about, so if they see that a number of websites link to the page using terms related to its content, Google, Bing and others will note that the page seems relevant to those keywords, and it will begin to rank the page higher, even if those terms never appear in the actual text. Like at all.

See, since search engines tend to heavily weigh inbound links, it is important that they have as much information as possible about the page’s being linked to. In other words, it kind of tells Google or Bing or whoever not only which Web pages the linking site is vouching for, but also why has selected them.

Seems pretty simple, right? The problem is that that many people don’t use anchor text correctly, and that makes it difficult for search engines to glean information about the content of the Web page or document being linked to. This more or less cancels out the SEO benefits of using anchor text in the first place.

The Right Anchor Text Says A Lot
For the most part, the biggest problem that people seem to have with anchor text is that they tend to put links inside text that reads something like, “Click Here,” “Next,” “Read More” or something of that ilk. Of course, by now it should be clear that these sorts of link “descriptions” are inadvisable, as they don’t provide any information about the actual contents of the linked-to page, which makes them virtually useless for search engines and, thus, doesn’t improve the page’s standing in the SERPs.

Instead, anchor text should include targeted or branded keywords often as possible, or at least some sort of descriptive information about the page being linked to. That way, crawlers will be able to quickly find the keywords in their directories.

Just remember that people tend to link to content using anchor text that is made up of either the linked-to website’s domain name or the title of the page in question, so by naming your page with particular keywords, you’ll be able to ensure that *most* of the links you get should include anchor text with those terms that you want to rank for.

Anchor text is a very powerful tool when it comes to SEO and ranking higher on the search engines, but all of its power comes from being descriptive and helpful, not only to the search engines, but readers, as well. It’s important to not force anchor text awkwardly into a Web page; instead, find a way to make it natural and readable, even if that means just including the page title.

Direct Request Link Building from Zero

Michael Garrity — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 19:15:00 GMT

Everybody has to start somewhere, and when you’re trying to build credibility and bring people to your website basically from scratch, there are myriad opportunities available to build links around the Web that will make users and search engines, alike, take notice.

Here at Website Magazine, we’ve provided a step-by-step guide to link prospecting for when you’re starting with close-to-nothing (e.g. time, money and resources). However, when all is said and done, the whole reason why we prospect for links is to find those websites that we want to build close relationships with that will be beneficial for both parties.

So, although there are some more “hands-off” techniques for acquiring links on the Web, such as submitting your site to a directory or a local business listing site like Google Places, the best way to go about building quality links is still to seek out quality, authoritative websites or blogs in and around your niche. You should forge a relationship with them through direct requests, or by providing them with contributed content.

Let’s look at a few of the best ways to build links and, more importantly, relationships with other websites, especially when you don’t yet have the credibility or resources to get your content published in “high-profile environments” that will naturally garner some links. When you’re starting from zero, how can you go about getting good links?

Just Ask

Just like in real life, the best way to approach someone is to be open and honest. Direct requests for links are not only the most obvious way to go about introducing your site and its content to others. And going directly to a website owner to request a link beats asking a group of strangers on a message board, because you have no way of controlling who will respond to you and how worthwhile their website’s will be for your link building efforts.

There are a couple of ways that you can go about getting in touch with a website owner or webmaster, including through social media (although this isn’t recommended) or a website’s contact form, but probably the most effective method will be to simply send a direct request email. However, remember that you’re trying to build relationships here, so if you’re going to send a direct request email, do so in a way that shows that you’re familiar with the website and its work, and explain how you could benefit them, as well.

Start by looking to see if the website(s) you’re interested in link to some of your competitors or not to determine if they’re even willing to link out (some may even have a specific email address listed on their sites for people interested in link building). Then, make sure that your link request appears to be relevant and beneficial to both you and the linker.

Keep Them Updated

One way to prove that linking to your website will also be beneficial to the linker is to provide them with some valuable information or content right off the bat. Perhaps you could initiate your relationship by supplying the other website with a news release about something your company or website is doing, or something happening within the niche that you both operate in. Anything they can use to improve or add content to their websites could be considered “beneficial." It’s all about having your thumb on the pulse of your industry and proving your worth to the desired linker. Services like PRWeb allow users to create and distribute press releases for little-to-no cost.

Again, this can be done through social media or other outlets, but the most direct and effective method is email, and it probably will be for the foreseeable future.

Give Away Content

If you want to get links from a blog, or a website that features a blog, there is no better way to show off your value and provide something beneficial to the prospected linker than by writing up a guest blog post and sending it to them. If they publish it, not only will this automatically give you one link from their website (since they’ll likely link to your website somewhere in the post), but it will also help you establish a relationship with them that is mutually beneficial from the outset, and that will greatly improve your chances of getting links from them in the future.

The main thing to remember is that good link building is about more than just acquiring citations from other websites that are kind of related to your niche or industry; it’s actually about forging lasting and valuable relationships with others. By just taking some initiative and offering something valuable to other websites, you’ll eventually be able to do that, and improve your site’s credibility in the process, even if you’re starting from zero.

Identifying Bad Links (And What You Should Do About It Right Now)

Michael Garrity — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 20:45:00 GMT

Every good SEO wants to get the highest-quality links possible, as they serve as affirmations of the quality of their site’s content and, thus, help them be recognized by search engines and ultimately moved up the SERPs. But sometimes, if they’re not careful, even the best SEOs can end up with some bad links that are, at best, a waste of their time and, at worst, a detriment to their optimization efforts.

These bad links can cause problems for your site with the search engines because Google, Bing and the like are often weary about giving high rankings to sites that have inbound links from questionable or outright unacceptable sites, as they want to discourage users from ending up there. “Bad” links are usually those that come from spam or poor-quality sites, blog networks, paid posts, defunct directories, irrelevant/untrustworthy sites or disproportionate anchor text links. They can also include purchased links, which are also frowned upon.

Needless to say, if you have built bad links, you’re going to want to get rid of them for the sake of your Web business. How can you do this? Well, you first have to start by finding those bad links…

How to Identify Bad Links
For starters, you need to make sure that your SEO problems are a result of bad links and not actually something else, such as duplicate content, bad canonicals or redirects, downtime or latency issues or a malware issue. Fortunately, search engines (specifically Google) will now warn webmasters about their poor or “unnatural” links, so if it’s a problem, you’ll at least know about it before you watch your rankings plummet.

To find these links, you’ll have to do a backlink audit to see where they’re coming from and devise a plan to get rid of them. One of the best ways to conduct an audit is to compare your link profile to those of your competitors. Study their site-wide links, anchor text distribution, article and Web directory links, blog links, link networks, footer links, blog comment/forum links, etc. to get a better picture of what “good” links in your niche or industry should look like. This knowledge will help you better identify those backlinks that don’t meet those criteria.

You can do this manually by checking Google Webmaster Tools to look at your most linked pages. For example, if any of them are highly commercial and feature minimal value-added content, (making it odd that it would get many links), you’ll know where to start looking. Webmaster Tools can also let you see your anchor text distribution. Again, if you see important information like your website name or URL, company name or text directly related to your site, that’s a solid indicator that the link may not be desirable.

Other good tools for checking the quality of your backlinks are SEOMoz’s Open Site Explorer and CongnitiveSEO. These tools do the lion’s share of the analysis, so the process is quicker and more effective. If you’re especially industrious, or just don’t trust your own work, you can also hire an SEO agency to conduct the audit.

Disavowing Bad Links
Both Google and Bing offer a Disavow Tool as part of its Webmaster Tools suite, which allows website owners to quickly alert the search engines about backlinks they’ve found that they don’t trust by submitting page, directory or domain URLs that contain unnatural, spammy or low-quality links to their sites. The search engine in question will then disavow the link so that it will no longer count against you when it assesses your site’s position in the SERPs.

However, while this may seem like a handy quick fix to your link problem, these Disavow Tools aren’t always (or even often) going to be your best option. First, you should try to get rid of these heinous backlinks on your own by contacting the offending website and asking them to remove them. Those who need help finding a contact at the website can try using Domaintools.com, SpyonWeb, C-Class Checker or regular social media sites to track them down. If you contracted out your search engine optimization, you can contact them to ask about the original agreement regarding the link and how to get rid of it.

It is important to check, because the links you’re so quick to get rid of, could actually be helping your site. Google says you can eventually get disavowed links back, but it does apparently take a while. For the most part, you should only consider using the Disavow Tools when you have received bad link warnings, been manually penalized, were denied reconsideration after trying to fix a bad link warning or were a victim of negative SEO.

Dealing with bad links can take time. Luckily, there are a growing number of online tools and services that can help you speed up the process and ensure greater accuracy, such as Website Magazine's Broken Link Checker.

Big List of Link Building Strategies

Michael Garrity — Fri, 11 May 2012 20:00:00 GMT

Link building should always be top of mind for those who want to grow their Web properties, but to call it a difficult practice is an understatement. It is, in fact, one of the most challenging components of search engine optimization, and one of the trickier areas in all of Web marketing.

Fortunately, a number of helpful strategies have emerged in recent years, and WM has highlighted some of them below. If you have additional suggestions, we welcome you to share them in the comments section.

Content

Quality Counts
The most effective way to acquire quality links is to produce quality content – something that your visitors and other website owners are going to find worth reading and sharing. The better your content, the more likely it is to be picked up and/or linked to by publishers in your industry. It’s always good to keep in mind that the most useful, sharable content is that which includes lasting, actionable information such as tutorials, lists, industry reports, glossaries, etc.

Infographics
Most Web users appreciate a well-conceived and attractively designed infographic. They can provide practical, useful information in an easy-to-digest format, and they are easy to share between links to the infographic and other sites embedding it into their own content.

Viral Content
Viral content is basically anything that encourages those who see it to look into its source for more information. Typically, it can be videos, photos or games that offer an ambiguous message that creates intrigue and drives users back to its source website for more.

Linking Made Easy
If you want people to share your content, especially images or videos, you’d do well to make it easy for them to link to your site. The best way to do this is to provide HTML-ready snippets that people can easily copy and then paste right into their own website/blog/social media post.

RSS Feeds
Most content management systems create RSS feeds for your blog content. If you don’t automatically have that option, it’s a good idea to create one. This allows interested users to add your content to their daily feeds, increasing the likelihood that they will not only see it but also share it with others.

White Papers
One great way to establish authority and gain links is to publish white papers. Not only do white papers help you earn links from interested parties, but they also help to identify you as a thought-leader in your industry or niche.

Images
It is true that we live in a visual society, which is why photos are a very valuable type of content to leverage. Photos can be set up to link back to your website, which is a valuable way to increase website traffic. Images can also be posted and shared on social media sites for even greater visibility.

Videos
Videos are another type of content that can be very influential when it comes to building links. Content producers should remember to vary the types of videos so that they don't become too repetitive, such as a mix of tutorials, product announcements, general information and industry news.

Controversy Loves Company
Sometimes the best way to get noticed is to make waves, and online that often comes in the form of bold or occasionally controversial statements. Content that takes a bold stance on a topic, even one that is contrarian to the present popular belief, is very likely to encourage others to link back to your site as the source.

Promotions

Press Releases
Submitting company news to the top press release engines such as PRWeb, PRNewswire and Buisnesswire will immediately increase your business’ online visibility and encourage journalists and bloggers to write about your brand and link to your website.

Contests
Engaging your audience with contests is a great way to promote your brand online. Post information about the competition on your website and social media channels, as well as within email newsletters, so that your audience can participate and share the promotions with their friends.

Daily Deals
By participating in a daily deal through a website such as Living Social, Groupon or WhereYouShop, merchants will not only increase their conversions but also their online visibility through a link on the daily deal vendor’s website, as well as within the deal’s social media and email promotions.

Widgets and Apps
Valuable widgets and apps will build links through promotions, reviews and social sharing among audience members. Additionally, when another site downloads and uses your widget or app on their website, they will link it back to your website.

E-books
Create an informative e-book for your audience to download can result in linkbacks through reviews, promotions and social sharing.

Advertising
Set up a marketing campaign that will put your site in front of Web surfers all over the Internet. Try display advertising on social sites such as Facebook or join an affiliate program to increase your brand’s reach.

Wikipedia
If your business doesn’t already have a corporate Wikipedia page, create one and link back to your website from the page.

Networking

Guest Contributions
This is the most useful form of networking for both parties, and it can go two ways. You can either enlist other prominent industry experts to create content that you will post on your site – which gets links from users as well as the contributor linking to it on their own website and social media profiles. Or you can contribute something to another blog or website and then link back to your own site from there.

Listing Site Directories
One of the easier ways to pursue links is to submit your site to an online website directory. It can be especially useful to include your site on an industry-specific directory (if one exists). Unfortunately, while this may be a great way to begin the link-building process, garnering links from website directories does not do you a lot of favors when it comes to SEO.

Talk to People
In the digital age, it can be easy to forget that sometimes the best way to network is to just go out and form relationships with others. This can be achieved by reaching out on social media to authoritative bloggers in your industry, or linking to their content on your blog or website in an effort to get on their radar.

Interviews
A great way to show off your expertise is to give interviews to relevant Web publishers and get a link back to your website in return. You can also conduct interviews with others in your niche, and the more you do, the more in demand you will be.

Forums
Everyone has an opinion, and for some reason they love to share them on the Internet. This is why message boards and forums have become such a popular medium for discussing pretty much anything. Including a forum on your site can help bring in relevant users who love to talk about whatever it is you do. It can also improve your link building efforts because when an interesting discussion pops up, users may share it with their friends/readers/visitors in an effort to engage more relevant voices.

Webinars
Like white papers, webinars are a very effective way to show off your authority. And webinars also present an outstanding opportunity to network. You can go out and find other industry experts and put together a joint presentation, and then each party can link to it for their own unique user base.

Social Media

Social Presence
The Web is full of social media networks, and most come with a large, very interactive audience. Website owners can leverage these platforms by choosing a few of the most beneficial sites for their brand to join, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, FourSquare or Tumblr. Once your brand has its own page on these sites, administrators should grow the audience and brand’s visibility through posting great content and promotions, as well as interacting with their fans and followers.

Gamification
Gamification functionality enables website owners to better engage their audience as well as increase their online visibility through rewards and badges. Gamified sites can be set up to reward social sharing among audience members, as well as reward influential consumers with badges that link back to the gamified website.

Social Login
Not only have studies proven that social login increases audience engagement levels (and that customers prefer it), but it also makes it easier for site visitors to share content. A recent Janrain study even revealed that 78 percent of people using social login posted to their social networks about a product or service that they liked and thought others should know about.

Share Buttons
This link-building tactic is pretty obvious, especially since we have already covered the power of social media when it comes to link building. By providing your audience with social sharing buttons that are easy to locate on your website or within email newsletters, website owners will most certainly see an increase in shared content and traffic to their sites.

Email
Email is still king when it comes to marketing, which is why it is also a valuable link-building tool. Include links to content, promotions and sales within the email, and it is also important to make it easy for your audience to share and link back to the content.

Sharing Made Easier with Dropbox Links

Allison Howen — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:30:00 GMT

The popular document storing service Dropbox has launched a new way for its users to share their content quickly – with a link.

Dropbox Links enables users to easily share documents, photos, videos and even entire folders by sending a link to their colleagues and friends. The link opens up the chosen content into a full-browser display without any setup, signing in or downloading.

“We’re always looking for ways to make life easier and solve the basic problems people face every day,” says Drew Houston, CEO and co-founder of Dropbox. “Sending files has always been a painful process, but now with Dropbox, sharing with friends, family and colleagues is effortless.”

Users can create a link by clicking on the “Get Link” button on a specific file or folder. Links can be created from Dropbox desktop, Web and mobile applications. Additionally, if the link is sent to another Dropbox user, that person will be have the option to instantly save the file into their Dropbox.

SEO Quick Start Guide to PR-Based Backlinks

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:30:00 GMT

Say what you will about the value of social media in driving brand awareness and website visits, it is search marketing (and SEO in particular) that still receives the most significant share of attention from Web professionals. It remains a struggle, however, to obtain links – those online citations of Web properties that search engines use to determine popularity and relevance when ranking sites and pages on search return lists. You need links – now more than ever – but you also need a strategy to acquire them.

For that, you’ll need to do one thing very well – learn how to network (and work) like public relations professionals.

PR folks, at least the best ones, know what it takes to get a backlink. In a way, they are the original link builders. And for that we can say thanks. Thanks because there are well-documented approaches a Web professional interested in building links can mimic.

Press releases, of course, have a long history on the Web and while their value may have been diminished once everyone figured out that a sub-$100 press release could generate hundreds of links, they still do quite well in driving an initial level of interest and establishing a base of relevant, yet lower-quality citations. With so many scraper sites on the Web, however, and with a clearer understanding of what and how search engines define value in the virtual eyes of users, we can extend our PR to more sophisticated approaches.

The Power of the Byline

Once upon a time, having your client pen a bylined article for publication in a trade magazine would make you a public relations master. The power of a byline provides credibility, authority and awareness and there is still an immense amount of interest by PR agencies to secure these placements – even as the tide has turned nearly fully digital.

As it stands today, there remains no better way to generate some buzz and build links to a Web property than through guest-blogging. While there is most certainly a time-commitment involved, and prioritizing which sites deserve the most attention is imperative, engaging in guest-blogging and old-school byline writing will definitely earn you some backlinks. In some cases, lots of them.

To get started, simply search for available opportunities using queries such as "write for us," "submit post," and "become a contributor" along with the keywords that you would like or need to be associated with. For example, I would use “become a contributor, digital marketing.” You might just be surprised at the number of high-quality sites that are openly recruiting writers. Take a look and prove me wrong if you can.

Networking through Networks

Public relations professionals are master networkers. Not only do they seem to know everyone, they also know what everyone does and more importantly what everyone needs. The Web has improved networking several times over, so if you’re looking to build links to your Web property, start networking with journalists and reporters where and when they need you. How do you do that?

Several free subscription services on the Internet bring together reporters, bloggers and authors looking for answers to specific questions and support on articles/stories that are actively in production. In some cases, those seeking support are under deadline so if you are fast and helpful, getting links through these services is a snap.

Free services/sites such as HARO, Reporter Connection, PitchRate, Flacklist and the paid service ProfNet are the most popular – if not the most effective – ways to earn links to your website. The services typically follow a similar pattern: reporters ask questions about very specific topics; others respond if the questions relate to their area of knowledge or experetise. Then the reporter credits you and your Web property as a source, usually via a backlink. Bingo. We’ve got links!

While there is no guarantee you will receive coverage (such is life in the PR industry) even a few mentions can generate a great response in relation to building links to your Web property. Take the challenge seriously and you will be rewarded many times over with high-value links that can and will influence search ranking position.

How Long Do Links Survive?

Michael Garrity — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 05:30:00 GMT

Who would have thought that bit.ly was useful for more than just shortening your URLs?

The popular link shortener recently released on their blog the findings of a very scientific study that they conducted about the lifespan of shared links.

Their work led them to two major conclusions: timely content has a shorter lifespan than information that can be appreciated at any time, and links posted on Facebook tend to last much longer than Twitter, but both pale in comparison to video-streaming site YouTube.

They started by studying a story titled "Baby otter befriended by orphaned kittens," initially shared by StylistMagazine on Facebook. They evaluated the perserverance of the link by determining it's "half life," which is lifted from a scientific term used to refer to the period of time it takes a decaying substance to decrease by half. For their study, the folks at bit.ly use this term to refer to "the amount of time at which this link will receive half of the clicks it will ever receive after it's reached its peak."

The following graph shows the results of their observations on the life of the link. The half-life of this particular story was 70 minutes, which captures all of the clicks that took place between the gray lines.

Next, they decided to see what the lifespan would be for a link with drastically different content. This time, they went with "East Coast earthquake: 5.8 magnitude epicenter hits Virginia," originally posted by the Washington Post on Twitter.

Like the otter post, the graph for this link showed a pattern of a fast rise and relaxed drop-off. Of course, the amount of traffic coming to this link is much larger than the previous one, as an earthquake story interests more people with more diverse backgrounds than the story about small mammals. However, in studying its existence, bit.ly found that its half-life was only 5 minutes - after just 5 minutes the link had already seen half the clicks it would ever see.

What this data appears to show is that links with content associated with timely events, such as the earthquake, drive traffic much more quickly than content that can be enjoyed at any time. That is why the number of clicks in the initial spike is so much higher in the second graph. However, also because it is timely, interest in the content wanes much more quickly, because it is no longer relevant after a while. That is why the half-life of the earthquake story was so much shorter than that of the otter and kitten link.

The bit.ly people also theorized that it may be more than just the type of content that extends link life, but also where the link is posted.

Their next move was to look at the half-life of another one thousand popular bit.ly-based links. They yielded similar results.

According to their study, the average half-life of a link on Twitter is about 2.8 hours, whereas on Facebook they typically hang on for about 3.2 hours. When it comes to "direct" sources, like email or IM, it's slightly longer still, at 3.4 hours.

"So you can expect, on average, an extra 24 minutes of attention if you post on facebook than if you post on twitter [sic]."

They also noted, however, that there is an exception to this regular pattern: YouTube. Links originating on the Google-owned video-streaming site typically have a half-life of a whopping 7.4 hours, which means that clickers tend to hold their interest in links on YouTube much longer than other social networking sites.

The graph beow shows the distribution of half-lifes for each referring site:

"We'd expect to see link half lifes of less than 20K seconds (5.5 hours) for facebook, twitter [sic] and links shared directly," says bit.ly, on their blog, "And we'd be very surprised to see any link maintain significant traffic for a lot longer than 60K seconds (16 hours)."

They go on to add that they would actually be surprised to see YouTube links with half-lives of anything less than 5 hours.

To finalize their study, they concluded that the half-life of the average bit.ly link is about 3 hours, unless it is published on YouTube, where it will be around seven.

Ultimately, they say "that the lifespan of your link is connected more to what content it points to than on where you post it: on the social web it's all about what you share, not where you share it!"

Well said, bit.ly.

Weekend Warrior: Inbound Link Prospecting

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 19:00:00 GMT

It is unlikely you will find a website high on the SERPs for which the person or team responsible for that placement has not done the necessary competitive research. Link prospecting does not stop at knowing the sites to target; you also need to group those sites and pages, provide some definition on their value, and then formulate your approach. Let's take a data-driven look at inbound link prospecting.

Much of the discussion on how to actually build links, unfortunately, is shallow and void of any practical value. Personally, if I hear the phrase “quality content” one more time I might explode. Let’s mix it up by addressing real ways to target real valuable links, and how to go about actually doing it for a business’ benefit.

Read more on using data to acquire inbound links

Backlink Management for Enterprise SEO

Administrator — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 19:45:00 GMT

Search analytics software provider SearchMetrics debuted Link Manager last week and it might just be the most powerful solution on the market for enterprises - of course, we'll leave that for you to decide.

The Link Manager tool is a module in the SearchMetrics Suite which handles pretty much every aspect of the link management process. Features include the ability to manage up to 500,000 links, import new links found with Search Metrics' backlink analysis function, link strength evaluation with ranking information, the ability to organize links into seven different types, set attributes (eg. link placmeent, content link, etc.), includes a contact manager and even ROI management of link structures. If that weren't enough, the module even refreshes every 48 hours to ensure you get the most accurate and up to date information.

“To date, the majority of SEO backlink management has been monitored using a combination of spreadsheets, manual notes and Web browsing,” said Dr. Horst Joepen, CEO, Searchmetrics. “The new Searchmetrics Link Manager eliminates the need to manually track all the backlinks by providing an integrated online tool that enables them to control, manage, and evaluate all source and target URLs.”

SearchMetrics was included in WM's Big List of SEO Software, but that was well before it released Link Manager. This addition to the Search Metrics suite of offerings make the platform the go to solution for enterprise SEO.

Four Rules of Thumb for Buying Links

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:40:00 GMT

Not that you ever would, but buying links is a sure-fire way to increase the number and quality of links pointing to your site. While there are some downsides of working with programs, buying directly from other sites is hard to identify by those that are capable of penalizing you, so the prevailing thought seems to be - if they are, why don't we? You too can secure some site-wide links from reputable sites for a modest investment. But what are the factors, the rules of thumb if you will, in deciding what site is the right site for you?

Read the Four Rules of Thumb for Buying Links

Resources For Building Links Through Forums

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:34:00 GMT

Posting on forums is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your websites. The ability to insert signatures in posts, links to specific web pages and network and communicate with those that might be interested in your products and services is well worth the investment of time it requires. But with thousands of forums, discussion boards and mailing lists to get through, you need the right tools for the job. Here are a few essential resources for finding opportunities to build links on forums.

Read Four Essential Resources For Building Links Through Forums

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