Rae at Outspoken Media compiled one of the best sets of link building interviews I have seen, possibly, ever. She had ten or so link building experts submit one question each and then answer all the submitted questions. The other twist was that no one was able to see each other's answers until it was published, which was now.
I won't share the long and excellent answers now, but I will share the questions. Read the full interview (or print it and read it later) at Outspoken Media.
The questions:
(1) What are a few emerging link tactics that you've seen in the past 12 months providing tremendous value to sites/pages? Can you give a specific example or two?
(2) The SEO industry has become so stingy with linking to quality content to the point that many people who used to share a lot of it simply don't bother, as it is not worth the cost of doing so. Is this a trend which spreads? Are we canaries in the coal mine, or is this just an issue impacting the SEO niche because it is far too saturated? What can Google do to encourage organic linking on the WWW (outside of nepotism, hype, spin, misinformation & ego-baiting)?
(3) What are the criteria for the "perfect link"?
(4) How do you go about creating a link marketing plan that will A:) Get tangible search results in a 6 to 12 month period and B:) Create sustainability for the website you are creating the plan for (i.e. keeping the links clean and adding links with long term value)
(5) If you could choose a link on a lower authority page that would provide a moderate amount of targeted traffic or a link on a higher authority page that would provide absolutely no traffic – all other attributes being equal – for ranking benefits on the site you’re developing links for, which would you choose and why?
(6) Do you feel that you can conserve pagerank or that it's still worth the effort to sculpt your links, by limiting the number of links on a page, creating them with JavaScript, passing them through a blocked page or using nofollow?
(7) Please discuss what link deprecation is and what impact it may have on a link building campaign.
(8) Do you think search engines are trying to find a way to depend less on link popularity and more on other algorithmic/social media factors?
(9) How much do you stress internal linking on your own or clients' sites? Do you have a quick rule of thumb or strategy to maximize the effectiveness of internal links?
(10) What's a successful link development strategy many overlook or dismiss?
(11) What have you been most WRONG about over the course of your link building/SEO career?
There are some additional questions, plus all the great answers, so check it out.
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
