Below is live coverage of the Ask The Link Builders from the SMX East 2009 conference.
This coverage is provided by Barry Schwartz of RustyBrick.
We are using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage, please excuse any typos. You can also interact with us and while we are live blogging, so feel free to ask us questions as we blog. We will publish the archive below after the session is completed.
| Ask The Link Builders | (10/06/2009) |
| 4:44 | Barry Schwartz: Starting soon, I think... |
| 4:45 | Barry Schwartz: Ask The Link Builders – PowerPoint Free! Put your questions about link building and external linking issues to our panel of link building experts.
Moderator: Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land
Speakers:
Rae Hoffman, Owner, Sugarrae Internet Consulting
Debra Mastaler, President, Alliance-Link
Roger Montti, Owner, martinibuster
Eric Ward, CEO, EricWard.com
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| 4:50 | [Comment From Michael Martinez]
What do they think of pagerank traps, where you put a page on a site that the internal navigation doesn't link to, but which you use as "linkbait" to attract external links so you can funnel that pagerank to the rest of the site? |
| 4:53 | Barry Schwartz: Clearly, Danny is not happy with the Javits Center |
| 4:54 | Barry Schwartz: Internet doesn't work and they don't refill the water |
| 4:56 | Barry Schwartz: Eric Ward was the first person to buy a link from Danny, giving him a $5 check for his how to guide on search engines 10+ years ago |
| 4:57 | Barry Schwartz: Debra Mastaler is celebrating her 19th wedding anniversary... congrats!!! 
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| 4:57 |  | thewebguyfl: links links and more links #smx |
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| 4:58 | Barry Schwartz: Do old paid links from directories hurting me? Rae said as long as they are not 2000 links... Eric said, unless they are not the only links you have. |
| 4:59 | Barry Schwartz: Competitors have links on specific blogs, but when I email them, they don't reply. How did my competitors get those links when they don't reply to me? |
| 5:00 | Barry Schwartz: can be lots of reasons... might be a competitors blog |
| 5:01 | Barry Schwartz: Eric said, try to act like you are a fortune 500 with a huge budget, see what happens. |
| 5:03 | Barry Schwartz: PageRank dilution question.. PageRank is diluted, you don't lose anything but there is dilution. |
| 5:04 |  |
| 5:04 | | thewebguyfl: Danny Needs a blackberry #smx |
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| 5:05 | Barry Schwartz: Rae said: Don't not link out because you want to horde PR, linking out is natural. It is not recommended. |
| 5:05 | Barry Schwartz: Is there something as too much cross linking within your network? |
| 5:05 | Barry Schwartz: Rae said on your brand, but most small companies cannot get away with this. Be careful, 4 sites is okay, but not 400 or 4000. |
| 5:06 | Barry Schwartz: Linking from your blog to your web site is not going to hurt you... |
| 5:06 | Barry Schwartz: Debra says the word "intent" it is about intent. Are you intending to manipulate the search engines?
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| 5:06 | [Comment From Michael Martinez]
I would say don't do all the cross-linking at once. Spread it out over months, years. That gives you a chance to build some unique content. Should be fine, then. |
| 5:07 | Barry Schwartz: Danny said newspapers never link out, so that is the exception |
| 5:07 | Barry Schwartz: What is the greatest single thing you can do and worst thing you can do to help/hurt your web site in linking? |
| 5:08 | Barry Schwartz: Eric: Make sure those who click on your links can contribute to your site (user generated content, tweet your content, etc). Take advantage of the users you have on your site and turn them into link builders for you? |
| 5:09 | Barry Schwartz: Rae, contact you competitors links |
| 5:10 | Barry Schwartz: Rae: fix your own internal linking structure |
| 5:11 | Barry Schwartz: Danny: Do not send bad link requests |
| 5:11 | | thewebguyfl: too buy links or not buy links #smx |
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| 5:11 | | dannysullivan: @ericward best way to build links is to turn your existing visitors into people who link to you #smx |
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| 5:13 | Barry Schwartz: Do not link to bad sites |
| 5:14 | Barry Schwartz: Danny goes on record as sending link requests emails to Matt Cutts of Google |
| 5:15 | [Comment From Paddy Moogan]
When crafting content for linkbait, do you craft it for one site to get one link or for a group of sites in your niche to get links to one page from all of them? |
| 5:16 | [Comment From Michael Martinez]
Linkbait should be about attracting as many links to the "linkbait" as possible. |
| 5:20 | Barry Schwartz: Email people who are experts in areas and email them to ask them for other resources. |
| 5:20 | Barry Schwartz: That gives you more linking opps |
| 5:21 | Barry Schwartz: Rae said, dont use nofollow internally and dont do it externally, if you don't want to link somewhere, don't link there. |
| 5:22 | Barry Schwartz: Eric said he persues them if they are nofollowed or not, cause Google can use it if they like (google says they dont). |
| 5:23 | | smec: linkbuidling: never ask for links by mail, try to find out who the site editor is, and contact by phone.. #smx |
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| 5:23 | [Comment From Michael Martinez]
Link building should focus on traffic and visibility, not passing anchor text and pagerank. |
| 5:24 | Barry Schwartz: Rae takes nofollowed links if they send traffic |
| 5:24 | [Comment From Michael Martinez]
And please don't call me for links just because I don't want you emailing me. If someone is open to link requests, you should contact them by their preferred method. |
| 5:26 | | smx: @ericward "you can not do a search on google & not get wikipedia. that would be awesome drinking game. wikiquarters" #smx |
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| 5:26 | Barry Schwartz: Don't get greedy with Wikipedia. |
| 5:26 | | dannysullivan: @ericward "you can not do a search on google & not get wikipedia. that would be awesome drinking game. wikiquarters" #smx |
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| 5:26 | Barry Schwartz: Open Directory Project (DMOZ), what do you think about it? |
| 5:27 | Barry Schwartz: Debra met with the head of DMOZ recently... |
| 5:27 | | thewebguyfl: dont get greedy with wiki links dont piss off the editors #smx |
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| 5:27 | | andfl: Always accept a link, wether it is nofollow or not. #smx |
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| 5:27 | Barry Schwartz: Debra said, DMOZ said they want to bring DMOZ back to life... |
| 5:28 | Barry Schwartz: Eric said from a ranking standpoint, you don't need the dmoz links. 70% of the links in ODP are orphaned and without editors, keep that in mind. |
| 5:29 | Barry Schwartz: Rae: Submit it and forget it when referring to DMOZ |
| 5:30 | Barry Schwartz: Danny said, they removed you should get directory links from their webmaster tips, for several reasons. |
| 5:31 | | fabioricotta: Rae said that a Dmoz link is not important as it was.... #SMX |
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| 5:31 | | fabioricotta: Debra said, DMOZ said they want to bring DMOZ back to life... #SMX |
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| 5:33 | Barry Schwartz: If no editor, go to a higher level |
| 5:34 | Barry Schwartz: It also might be that your competitor is the editor of that category, said Rae. |
| 5:34 | Barry Schwartz: Eric gave the other advice. |
| 5:35 | Barry Schwartz: Best Link Building Tools:
- Debra uses her eye balls :)
- Rae built internal tools, but she normally does it by hand, like debra
- Eric uses his own tools, he named a bunch of tools quickly |
| 5:36 | [Comment From Fabio Ricotta]
they should suggest Linkscape or Majestic.... |
| 5:37 | Barry Schwartz: Eric said, use Google's advanced search functionality, cause it will tell you what links you should get...
Rae added don't use the link command in Google. |
| 5:44 | Barry Schwartz: Danny said "there is no reputable link building company" because it is against the search engine guidelines. They can be reputable in buying links, but it is against Google's TOS. |
| 5:45 | Barry Schwartz: Can Google catch all paid links? |
| 5:46 | Barry Schwartz: automatically, no, but many. manually, virtually yes. |
| 5:48 | Barry Schwartz: They are going into lighting round... Still not feeling well.. we are almost done, so ending it now. Tune in tomorrow for more sessions! |
| 5:48 | 
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