Link Exchange a No NO

[Real Estate Forum]

OK, we all get the spam mails from various link exchange programs. We also are often ill adviced by those who figgured out search engine marketing within a day :rolleyes:

I myself have been doing search engine work for 5 years now and my number one focus is this:

get up there and then stay up there.

Algorithms change and when they do, many crumble and their work has been in vain.

I always look into he future ... I believe common sense will take you places.

Google is struggling right now and invited many search engine optimizers to their Google Dance last August.

http://www.google.com/googledance2004/

Their message was this: work with us, don't try to trick us!

Put yourself in their shoes, create a site that is informative, easy to navigate and then have the right sites link to you.

I purposely have decided not to add a link exchange section here even though I think that it would be good if webmasters here contact each others to do so if their sites are somehow related ( the topic of real estate is often enough even though I would not create those 50-link-spam pages anymore).

Anyways, it is a long subject. Feel free to comment whether you agree or disagree. I myself am doing research on the subject everyday and would seriously advise you NOT to participate in any programs containing the word "link".
My 2 cents ... spend them wisely :)

[HMiller]

I've been thinking alot about this topic lately as well. On one of my sites I'm in the process of eliminating my Resources 1,2,3,4,5 pages and created a state by state directory in which I've made sure to include some unique content relevant to each state and I avoided using the word link on those pages.

As far as link exchanges go, I'm starting to avoid exchanging links with any sites on which my link will appear on a page with "link", "link exchange", "trade links" or similar phrase in the title, url or body of that page. I hope I'm not being too cautious, but I think too many real estate website's link pages are starting to look real spammy and linking to some of them may lead to trouble down the road.

[San Diego Real Estate]

H Miller,

Great information thanks for sharing!

What would you recommend naming a Link Directory?

Please advise...

[HHI Golf Guy]

I agree Mike - plan for the future.

In my opinion, the relevance of an inbound link will become much more important within the next 18 months. This means not only anchor text, but also the overall content (not just the page content) of the site linking to your site.

Although it takes a heck of a lot longer to build links, I follow these basic strategies for linnnnnk exxxxxchanges:

1. The theme of the site must contain content relative to our site. For example, in real estate I stick with other realtor sites, financial sites, home improvement sites, etc. I have made an exception for the Co-Op, and it has helped our overall rankings. I can't wait until it is categorized.

2. The site I swap with must be indexed by G, Y!, and MSN.

3. The page that my info is going to be on must be properly indexed in each of the SE's. The page must have a PR of at least 1. Yeah, this stinks for new sites. But I want to make sure there are no penalties (that I can verify) on the site.

4. I check the robots.txt of every potential partner (especially for VIA and similar programs).

5. The partner site must have categorized directory pages. We never swap with sites that have hode-podge links.

6. The partner site can display no more than 100 outbound links per page. IMHO, even 100 is still pushing the envelope.

It's also important to verify all of your links each month. Check for dead pages, site penalties, and if the site has been de-listed. I also check to make sure my link is still there. There are some well know SEO's that are happy to list your site for a month or two, then suddenly your link disappears. That's a cheesy way to get one-way links!

As for my partner pages, I name the main page resources.htm. Each of the sub pages contains keywords (i.e. south-carolina-real-estate.htm, home-improvement.htm, etc.).

HMiller - I agree with the unique content on each page. Check our FSBO site below and you can see we added "Fun Facts" on each of the state directory pages. Adsense seems to like this - we usually display ads according to KW's that target real estate in each state.

I have a feeling that all of these site owners that clump thousands of unsorted links together are in for a rude awakening. Come to think of it - maybe it has happened with the latest G algo changes.

[HMiller]

San Diego, I named my directory "Real Estate Related Directory" and the file name is realestateresources.htm. Also each state's page has a similar title and file name.

[VegasMack]

One of mine San Diego Real Estate (http://www.national-real-estate-directory.com/real-estate-forum/member.php?find=lastposter&f=65) is www.goallpro.com/directory.htm

Each state has some unique content, and all have unique title tags.

I continue to add content when time permits.

~VegasMack

[Jade456]

I also avoid those who want you to use their specific link text, yet don't reciprocate. The ones that put your link under just the url only www. yada yada.com or your name but expect you to put in two or three links back to them with specific anchor text. Probably the worst are those that use link managing software where the links aren't on their site. Some just don't know any better, but there are those out there that try to mask the url of the pages or even the urls on their own page. :eek:

[VegasMack]

I also avoid those who want you to use their specific link text, yet don't reciprocate. The ones that put your link under just the url only www. yada yada.com or your name but expect you to put in two or three links back to them with specific anchor text. Probably the worst are those that use link managing software where the links aren't on their site. Some just don't know any better, but there are those out there that try to mask the url of the pages or even the urls on their own page. :eek:Agreed Jade456. A lot (not all) of AA sites are like that.

And with the Links Manager programs that do not reside on the real estate websites server, you then have a one way non reciprocating link from you to them.

And a link in a framed link page is almost worthless IMHO.

~VegasMack

[CTABUK]

Hi, one of the best tips on backlinking can be read here

http://www.cre8asite.net/browseCats.asp?category=48

One of the better Directory submission tools is www.pheedster.com/directories.php

There is also an interesting 'theory' going around dozens of forums, when a Directory asks for a reciprocal link and you really don't want to do it, but the Directory has a high PR and is case relevant, will you end up in 'deep doggydo' if you put the referring link into a 'link farm'? It's a mute point, it won't show up on your backlinks and the odds are when they search it -they will find it anyway! What are your thoughts?

[VegasMack]

I think “link farms” are in the eye of the beholder and each SE handles them differently. PR only comes from the number of back links to that directory, and is not all that good of an indicator as to the value of their back link or if linking to them could cause you grief.

One way to check a directory for signs of trouble is to search the KW phrase and see if they show in the SERPS. If they have any real ranking, they should not be under any SE penalties IMHO.

~VegasMack

[HHI Golf Guy]

I don't swap links with any AA sites. They provide zero link pop value.

BTW, AA sites are available to avoid the dupe content penalty because all of the reports and articles for the realtor web sites are stored on the AA server.

[San Diego Real Estate]

HHI Golf Guy,

Please elaborate? :confused:

[San Diego Real Estate]

I don't swap links with any AA sites. They provide zero link pop value.

BTW, AA sites are available to avoid the dupe content penalty because all of the reports and articles for the realtor web sites are stored on the AA server.

HHI Golf Guy,

This is not an Advanced Access site!

[Real Estate Forum]

I've been thinking alot about this topic lately as well. On one of my sites I'm in the process of eliminating my Resources 1,2,3,4,5 pages and created a state by state directory in which I've made sure to include some unique content relevant to each state and I avoided using the word link on those pages.

As far as link exchanges go, I'm starting to avoid exchanging links with any sites on which my link will appear on a page with "link", "link exchange", "trade links" or similar phrase in the title, url or body of that page. I hope I'm not being too cautious, but I think too many real estate website's link pages are starting to look real spammy and linking to some of them may lead to trouble down the road.
I am looking at it like this: anything we do needs to make sense. To a visitor as well as a human editor. Why would someone have a pile of links unsorted and for no reason on his site other than influence the search engines. And that is exactly what search engines don't like. It doesn't improve the quality of your site at all and in their eyes it is spam. Coop network for example is a grey area which could turn black or white any day ;)


If you have a state by state directory, you are helping visitors find other realtors, also adding moving companies or even home decorators would make sense to me. Not some random gaming site or home business thing.

I am planning to be strong in all the major engines and the only way I see it possible is by avoiding and eliminating short cuts.

[Real Estate Forum]

I don't swap links with any AA sites. They provide zero link pop value.


I am glad I wasn't the one saying it :D

Al, mass produced sites are very hard to get ranked and looked at on an individual basis at this time.

[San Diego Real Estate]

Good Info Guys!...I guess keeping my content custom and in the proper format is the only chance I have! I see it as a challenge. There are other site's on our same platform that are PR 5 and in the top5 of Google and even a PR 3 site that is number 1 with very little custom content and no BL's?:confused:

[VegasMack]

HHI Golf Guy,

This is not an Advanced Access site!I don’t think he was meaning you Al, but referring to one of my post, but HHI Golf Guy is on the money about AA sites IMHO.

If memory servers, all the AA sites resolve to one IP address as well.

~VegasMack

[sward]

Hey Golf Guy ,

I think you have been mislead. There are ways to have AA sites seen. Mine is not an AA site but I do link to a few and got a great lesson about how to determine the difference. I hope I'm not overstepping by posting it here. I will not reveal who it's from and have removed references and personal commits but if he reads this post here many thanks to you I'm indebted to you for your kind exchange with me! ;)

valuable info...

There is nothing wrong with properly designed framed pages...... Google has indexed every one of my framed pages and they do extremely well in Google, with most on page one for their primary search terms. Yesterday this framed site had over 1700 uniques, 11,000 hits and 57 new buyer leads in a very competitive market.

OK, on to frames. The confusion with frames is understandable. If you don’t set up the frame set correctly, it can lead to basically blocking SE bots. The right design can be great for a SE, and from an optimization standpoint, is still hard to beat. It works as well as cloaking and wont get you in trouble.

The frameset is also a great way to optimize a page. If you have Frontpage, take a look at my site in that program. You will see the frameset the search engine sees, plus you can see the nav and main/index page. You should be able to see how from the frameset, the bot can spider the rest of the site. Each one of these pages is optimized, as is every other page in the site. The bigger problem with frames is that you end up with orphaned paged (without the frame). This is a problem I have. It is more of a contextual problem, though. When frames first came in to vogue, the main issue was to NOT link out and lose the visitor. My site first went up in 1998. If I was to build it today, I wouldn’t use frames, but this site does so well that tinkering or redesigning it is a risk I’m cant afford to take.

The other issue with frames usually concerns iframes inline frames. These are common with asp and .NET sites. Advanced Access uses this. They have gotten a bit of a bad rap ....

Now the issue with AA frames isn’t the iframe concept, but the way the page is linked to. There default link created by their wysiwyg editor created the link in the wrong format. Also many AA users only used the JS link button on the nav frame to link to the different internal pages. Most nav pages have little PR to pass and the JS buttons prevented in PR from passing. Using text links on the main or index page to the internal pages solved this problem. As a result, many AA internal framed pages have PR, its just tough to pull up the page outside of the frame to actually see the cache or PR via the Google toolbar.

(Look for the.... )The NF=1 at the end of the link denotes a noframed page. It’s indexed and shows a PR3. You have a link from this page.

With most framed pages, you need to right click on the link to the framed page and open in a new window.

While you probably don’t need to know too much more about frames since your site is not framed and should stay that way, here is some additional reading:

http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/article.php/2167901

http://webdesign.about.com/cs/promotion/a/aaframesseo.htm

http://www.searchinnovation.com/optimizing-frames-for-search-engines.asp



Think what you will....... I'll link to the ones who have done this and if others don't..... hey just gives me more PR
sward;)

[VegasMack]

BTW, AA sites are available to avoid the dupe content penalty because all of the reports and articles for the realtor web sites are stored on the AA server.Good point!

I hadn’t though of that.

~VegasMack

[Real Estate Forum]

It may have sounded a little harsh but I believe it is best when people speak their minds and educate anyone who comes here :) - referring to Al and HH

Sward, hmmm ... I guess I have some more reading to do - wanna give me a synopsis? :D

[CostaLee]

Hi

I'm new to the forum and am slowely going through previous discussions. I'm based in the Costa del Sol in Spain and work for a real estate company.

We have a website selling Spanish property, land and new developments and are looking to trade links with sites that have either travel, hotel, golf, property or similar related content.

If anybody would like to link to our site, as long as your site contains similar content please contact me, also I would appreciate comments on my site.

Regards

CostaLee
Costa Del Sol Property (http://www.bluewater-homes.com)

P.S Thanks VegasMack.

[San Diego Real Estate]

Welcome Costa Lee,

I would be happy to exchange links with you! Just let me know when mine is up and where and then add yours to my site for immediate approval! ;)

[Douglas Rasor]

Thanks for the info guys!

It seems like some people say that "content is king" and I think that is somewhat accurate for Y! and MSN and alltheweb. I wrote an article about a band before I had started researching about Search Engine Optimising stuff. Well I got lucky and if you search at some of the SE that have directorys for that band name my page comes up second or third behind the bands official web site. Also a friends SIMPLE real estate web site I did comes up 1'st or so for several search phrases at a few popular search locations. Both of these sites have not been submitted to any directorys so I guess the content was driving those results.

BUT both sites get NO results from G! so more work needs to be done!

I have talked to some of the bands web site admins about linking and they said ok. How do I check out the "site banning" "site penalty" thing?

Thanks

[VegasMack]

Al,

Give CostaLee your anchor text and description here so he can add your link. ;)

~VegasMack

[San Diego Real Estate]

Costa Lee

Here is my info for posting!

Anchor text = San Diego Real Estate
Description = The best San Diego real estate online guide featuring thousands of homes, condos, lofts, beach front homes and investment properties in San Diego California.
URL = http://www.sandiego-house.com

Thanks,

[Real Estate Forum]

Thanks for the info guys!

It seems like some people say that "content is king" and I think that is somewhat accurate for Y! and MSN and alltheweb. I wrote an article about a band before I had started researching about Search Engine Optimising stuff. Well I got lucky and if you search at some of the SE that have directorys for that band name my page comes up second or third behind the bands official web site. Also a friends SIMPLE real estate web site I did comes up 1'st or so for several search phrases at a few popular search locations. Both of these sites have not been submitted to any directorys so I guess the content was driving those results.

BUT both sites get NO results from G! so more work needs to be done!

I have talked to some of the bands web site admins about linking and they said ok. How do I check out the "site banning" "site penalty" thing?

Thanks
Doug, if you don't want to give the sites names, PM me the urls and I will take a look at it and share what I have found in this thread without mentioning the site.

[sward]

Sward, hmmm ... I guess I have some more reading to do - wanna give me a synopsis?
Gee I thought that was what I just did. To be honest that and these links is about as far as I took it seeing that I don't have frames I didn't see much point in going any further.
As for Dupe content isn't it just the pages not the sites that get penalized for that? I mean when I check general stuff like Real Estate" lots of pages come up with that. They can't penalize us all ! Well maybe I shouldn't say can't :eek:

Gotta go have some weekend fun! See ya'll around soon!
Thanks Mike for a new outlet!
sward:)

[Las Vegas Homes]

Gee I thought that was what I just did. To be honest that and these links is about as far as I took it seeing that I don't have frames I didn't see much point in going any further.
As for Dupe content isn't it just the pages not the sites that get penalized for that? I mean when I check general stuff like Real Estate" lots of pages come up with that. They can't penalize us all ! Well maybe I shouldn't say can't :eek:

Gotta go have some weekend fun! See ya'll around soon!
Thanks Mike for a new outlet!
sward:)

Yes most of the time it is just the pages that can get penalized, but those pages can also affect your allinanchor and in worse case situations it can cause the whole site to get penalized. IMHO the search engines place greater filters within their algo on real estate sites. What works for say widget sites wont work for real estate.

Google as an example considers real estate a money word and try to drive more and more very good informative sites into adwords. Hence the application of more filters to prevent a lot of good sites from ever showing up in the serps.

Back to the question at hand. There is a major problem in real estate for duplicate content. Either some real estate agent goes and copies your content or a lot of products that are offered to Realtors to use on their sites are being used by thousands of others.

[HHI Golf Guy]

Please elaborate? :confused:

By AA, I assumed that you meant Adv*anced Ac*cess. Many of their link pages are set up so that they are not crawled by SE's or they are not using frames properly and allowing the SE's to pick up the framed page. Perhaps when SE's can better navigate javascript this will no longer be a problem.

From waht I can see, the Google PR that shows up is for the framed navigation menu, NOT the link page.

Also, I believe that the content is actually pulled from the AA servers through ASP and not a hard link on the page. A dynamically generated link is not always a problem for SE's, but I think that pulling them from another server is a problem.

[San Diego Real Estate]

Yes most of the time it is just the pages that can get penalized, but those pages can also affect your allinanchor and in worse case situations it can cause the whole site to get penalized. IMHO the search engines place greater filters within their algo on real estate sites. What works for say widget sites wont work for real estate.

Google as an example considers real estate a money word and try to drive more and more very good informative sites into adwords. Hence the application of more filters to prevent a lot of good sites from ever showing up in the serps.

Back to the question at hand. There is a major problem in real estate for duplicate content. Either some real estate agent goes and copies your content or a lot of products that are offered to Realtors to use on their sites are being used by thousands of others.Wayne,
Great info thanks!

[Douglas Rasor]

Doug, if you don't want to give the sites names, PM me the urls and I will take a look at it and share what I have found in this thread without mentioning the site.


No Mike I am not shy at all. But am not quite sure which site your are asking about. So you know me, I have no problem being long winded :D so I will give them all.

My page that comes up good when searching on the band name "Boxcar Satan" is at my website in my signiature. I wrote this article in 2003 before I had even heard of SEO and html validation and the other cool stuff.
The article I wrote about Boxcar Satan (http://www.theopinionrag.com/articles/200311101.html)
I did EVERY thing wrong when I started my site, all graphic navigation etc.. but that one article turns up like number 2 or 3 on Y! when searching for boxcar satan.

My Realtor® friend that I did a super simple site MikeFolks-Realtor.com (http://www.mikefolks-realtor.com) for has been showing up kinda well if you search on a few variations of first or last name with Realtor® in there , city schools etc.. It just started showing up in G! today! Of course it does not show up searching on any of the money key words.

The bands that I can get to link to me are
Boxcar Satan (http://www.boxcarsatan.com)
HONKY (http://www.honky.net)
and
Skunkweed (http://www.skunkweed.com)
but I was interested in checking on that banning or penalty thing before letting them put a link on their sites to my music page.

unfortunatly I can not find a good catagory for my site at the directorys so I have not submited it to any.

[San Diego Real Estate]

No Mike I am not shy at all. But am not quite sure which site your are asking about. So you know me, I have no problem being long winded :D so I will give them all.

My page that comes up good when searching on the band name "Boxcar Satan" is at my website in my signiature. I wrote this article in 2003 before I had even heard of SEO and html validation and the other cool stuff.
The article I wrote about Boxcar Satan (http://www.theopinionrag.com/articles/200311101.html)
I did EVERY thing wrong when I started my site, all graphic navigation etc.. but that one article turns up like number 2 or 3 on Y! when searching for boxcar satan.

My Realtor® friend that I did a super simple site MikeFolks-Realtor.com (http://www.mikefolks-realtor.com) for has been showing up kinda well if you search on a few variations of first or last name with Realtor® in there , city schools etc.. It just started showing up in G! today! Of course it does not show up searching on any of the money key words.

The bands that I can get to link to me are
Boxcar Satan (http://www.boxcarsatan.com)
HONKY (http://www.honky.net)
and
Skunkweed (http://www.skunkweed.com)
but I was interested in checking on that banning or penalty thing before letting them put a link on their sites to my music page.

unfortunatly I can not find a good catagory for my site at the directorys so I have not submited it to any.

Thanks Douglas Rasor for Sharing!

[judyo]

Quoted from Douglas Rasor-I lost my quote since I goofed up: "My Realtor® friend that I did a super simple site MikeFolks-Realtor.com (http://www.mikefolks-realtor.com) for has been showing up kinda well if you search on a few variations of first or last name with Realtor® in there , city schools etc.. It just started showing up in G! today! Of course it does not show up searching on any of the money key words."

I though we weren't supposed to ever use the term Realtor in our urls. NAR hasn't come after that? I'd be too afraid to try it even though other sites seem to get away with it.

[HMiller]

You cannot use Realtor in a URL when it's in connection with a geographical location, example: newyorkrealtor.com. However, I believe when you use it with a name (joesmithrealtor.com) it's allowed.

[San Diego Real Estate]

Thats right they will make you pull it down and you could get fined!

[Las Vegas Homes]

You cannot use Realtor in a URL when it's in connection with a geographical location, example: newyorkrealtor.com. However, I believe when you use it with a name (joesmithrealtor.com) it's allowed.

You may not use the word Realtor as a description. You can not use the word Realtor in a url unless it is ONLY being used like you stated JohnDoeRealtor dot com. There have been several people that have these urls using Realtor plus their city and will be caught and told to cease and desist. We even have one here in Las Vegas that has till March 13th to remove the domain which is really nothing more than a doorway page.

Also if you are given a C & D you can not forward that domain, this is also a violation from NAR.

[CTABUK]

You guys have got a good feedback system and it's really good to see. I'm not ever going to Sell 'Right to Buy' Mortgages in the USA or Canada but what I am prepared to do on my site is putting a 'Fed up with the UK' page on my site and put loads of links to the Forum Members, so if anyone in the UK is thinking of 'upping sticks' and buying over there they will have a wide choice. I will need a general run down on the rules and regulations on how much time Brits can spend in a second home, or the difficulties in getting Permits etc, but I know you will chip in. I also know a few RealEstaters over in WPW, I am going to PM them about this forum as I think it's the best RE one around. One of the guys is a Warrior with loads of connections. I'm a member of the quite famous 'Band of Gonzo's'.

One thing I have found, and quite by chance is that if you plug into Tourist Information sites you will find hundreds of URL's begging for links on a non reciprocal basis. (if you clutter too many pages with links it can be a turn off).
I started one in Lincolnshire and I've got 14 e- mail confirmations in this morning.
Is anyone using this http://barremore.net/directory-list.html ?

[Real Estate Forum]

Band of Gonzos is run by Dr. David Baxter, right?
Very cool guy!

[happy home]

nice sharing

good luck