1-way links, link exchanges, and article exchanges

[HHI Golf Guy]

OK - I'm on a MAJOR link quest right now. The first thing that you may want to know is that we have changed the way that we are doing links.

For most of our clients, the link pages have all been moved to sub domains of their web site. And instead of standard link pages we are trying to make these sub domains into real estate information portals.

For example, the pages contain RSS feeds, articles, information, and links. You can see examples of this at http://information.mainlinejohn.com and http://articles.hiltonheadarealuxuryhomes.com.

The goal is to provide strong, credible outbound links pages to our link partners and encourage everyone else to build strong outbound links pages.

The second thing that we have done is to build a centralized link site for all clients with active link campaigns. This site also provides information on our link strategies.

We are currently looking for link partners for 5 web sites. If you would like to participate please visit http://www.RealEstateLinkHQ.com.

[frobn]

OK - I'm on a MAJOR link quest right now. The first thing that you may want to know is that we have changed the way that we are doing links.

For most of our clients, the link pages have all been moved to sub domains of their web site. And instead of standard link pages we are trying to make these sub domains into real estate information portals.

For example, the pages contain RSS feeds, articles, information, and links. You can see examples of this at http://information.mainlinejohn.com and http://articles.hiltonheadarealuxuryhomes.com.

The goal is to provide strong, credible outbound links pages to our link partners and encourage everyone else to build strong outbound links pages.

The second thing that we have done is to build a centralized link site for all clients with active link campaigns. This site also provides information on our link strategies.

We are currently looking for link partners for 5 web sites. If you would like to participate please visit http://www.RealEstateLinkHQ.com.
Using sub-domains is a good idea and appears to have advantages over directories.

[Ralph]

HHI GG

Interesting. You have no concern with having a database for all your clients link pages. Looking at your two examples, the format is very similar between the two sites. Adding that all the links would be similar, I would have some concern. We use databases for all our client’s links, but they are totally separate, including their content.

I must admit that the idea of “provide strong, credible outbound links pages to our link partners and encourage everyone else to build strong outbound links pages” is admirable. I like the information provided and the format it is in. Do you expect to be changing the content of the page or adding content to the page on a regular basis?

[HHI Golf Guy]

HHI GG

Interesting. You have no concern with having a database for all your clients link pages. Looking at your two examples, the format is very similar between the two sites. Adding that all the links would be similar, I would have some concern. We use databases for all our client’s links, but they are totally separate, including their content.

I must admit that the idea of “provide strong, credible outbound links pages to our link partners and encourage everyone else to build strong outbound links pages” is admirable. I like the information provided and the format it is in. Do you expect to be changing the content of the page or adding content to the page on a regular basis?

I'm not sure what you're getting at about the database. It is stored on a separate server than the client sites, and each of the client sites uses their own HTML markup. The links and articles are added manually (not generated from the DB). I may have misinterpreted your response - perhaps you could explain in a bit greater detail.

As far as similarity goes, the internet is full of millions of similar sites. Take a look at the top 10 real estate sites in any market. Most contain roughly the same information. In fact, most active real estate link exchange programs contain the same core people exchanging links.

As far changing content goes, that depends upon how many articles we pick up and how many we write. What may eventually do is rotate articles in and out of the different sections. However, a better method is to use RSS feeds from individual agents.

What I am planning on doing in the next month is expanding RealEstateLinkHQ to allow people to create RSS feeds and use them as link exchanges. The idea is to allow a feed to contain a general information link and one additional link,either to an article or a listing. If the second link goes to a listing, a small photo could also be included in the feed. This helps to give fresh content to the pages.

This way our subdomain pages would contain static links and RSS feeds. Agents that participate within the program would be able to update their outgoing RSS feeds at any time. They could also add any available feeds to their own web site.

If we decide to handle and manage the feeds on our own site we will also blast those feeds throughout the net.

[HHI Golf Guy]

Let me expand on one other thing. Let's say for some reason that in the future the SE's don't like these pages. Let's even say it's because of similar content as you suggested. What happens?

Well, if you take my advice and create your links pages on a sub domain, your root domain does not incur the fickle wrath of the search engines. So you create a new sub domain and start again.

Will the sites that have links from your own site suffer any penalties? Nope. At worst, the link just won't have any positive benefit anymore. Your own site cannot be damaged by bad links pointing TO your site, only from bad links pointing OUT from your site (and once again, placing your outbound links on a sub domain helps shield you from this).

Well, that above statement is not entirely true. Inbound links can cripple your web site rankings. But it takes a ton of bad, inbound links to impact a web site.

[Ralph]

My thought was that you were going take the links and articles from a database that would automatically be added to all your clients link pages. Then the sites would all have the exact same links and articles. Having the individual sites manually choose their links and articles would eliminate any concerns I would have. I am of the opinion that fully automated link exchange programs that duplicate everything for everyone are a no no.

[frobn]

...
Well, if you take my advice and create your links pages on a sub domain, your root domain does not incur the fickle wrath of the search engines. So you create a new sub domain and start again.That is an interesting observation. I know sub-domains share some of the SE advantages but had not considered negatives from the sub-domain not effecting the main domain. Another good reason to use sub-domains.

[HHI Golf Guy]

That is an interesting observation. I know sub-domains share some of the SE advantages but had not considered negatives from the sub-domain not effecting the main domain. Another good reason to use sub-domains.

This works now because the SE's still see a sub domain as a unique domain separate from the root domain. It's probably only a matter of time before they figure out how to correlate the two.

One more thing about sub domains - I am using only a single link from the home page of the root domain to the sub (instead of including a link on every page as is usually the case with links pages).

Why? I don't want to "spam" the sub with links from the same site. Let's see how the SE's treat this sub with just one link. And to those who believe in PR leak, this will help that issue as well. As for me, I'm on the fence about PR leak.

I have been testing the best way to add RSS feeds this evening. For some reason I am having a problem getting the image of the featured property listing to show up when I place that image link in the <description>. It's probably a typo that I'm missing.

One thing that I want to do is limit the amount of articles that one user can feed. I found a neat program RSS2ASP that allows me to set limits. This way if some agent tries to spam the feed with 15 links and articles, only the first two will show up.

In the next few days I will post an update to RealEstateLinkHQ with instructions and templates for setting up an RSS feed to be used as link distribution and how to post the RSS feeds on the web site. Right now I have the ASP solution. I need to find a similar PHP solution for those that prefer PHP.

The more I think about this, I really that that these mini RSS feeds are a great way to manage and vary your anchor text for link exchanges.

[johnc]

I would think it would be better if you use words like real estate directory instead of LINK. Particuarly you may not want LINK appear in your domain name.