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Link Exchanges

A lot has changed when it comes to gaining links to your website. More importantly a lot has changed on what is considered a good link or a bad link. With the economy in the tank, we are getting more and more calls for help with search position and increased traffic. Some of the calls are from potential clients that have never paid for any type of link building or site optimization, but a good percentage is from small business owners that have either been a part of Link Exchange programs or have purchased links in the past and now they are finding out  it is not working for their website any more. If you are not familiar with the Google or Bing guidelines for links then you should read Google’s position on link exchanges and Links: the good, the bad, and the ugly – Part 2 from Bing.

Paid Blog Networks

So what do you do if link exchange software doesn’t work any more? How about all the fuss about these blog networks? That’s a question we have received a few times. First let me tell you about blog link networks where you pay a monthly fee and publish as many posts as you want, with links to your website. Your posts are distributed throughout a “network” of blogs. The claim is link diversity and unlimited potential. Don’t waste your time! This type of network is popular because they pay out good commissions, that’s it! These networks are easily detected which means they are easily discounted by Bing and Google and could be considered a bad neighborhood. You will waste a lot of time writing or you will pay additional fees to have the writing done for you, and you get nothing or near nothing in return. That time and money would have been better spent putting an article on a popular article network or sending out a press release. While neither of those methods are high value they generally have some value, unlike the so called Nirvana of subscription blog networks. With generic category based blog networks with no specific theme and some of the worst content ever written, you will get zero benefit. Once your post is pushed off of the main page or the main category page, which usually happens in a day or two, any value is lost. At that point your time, effort and money live on a page buried in a site that nobody, including Bing and Google, gives a rat’s ass about.

Example of a Blog Network where you pay per month to post as many times as you want. Just look at the quality. 😉

(The examples we showed here have shut down since this post’s writing, meaning everyone who paid to be on them has lost their investment, for whatever it was worth.)

If you think this type of site is not easily detectable, let me show you how I found them: Google This and then look for nonsensical domain names as the title. See the similarity? Most of these are from one of the most popular subscription blog networks out there. Notice every post has a single keyword link buried in the post? It gets worse, look at almost any post that is over 90 days old and copy a unique sentence, then search for the quoted sentence on Google, and 90% of the time the article can’t be found. The only people making money here is the owner of the blog system and their affiliates.

Let me say that there might be a paid blog network that actually works, but it would need to follow a few rules. I just pointed out one of the most popular networks that in my opinion is a waste of money and just ripping people off. If someone really wants to create a blog network that works, it would need to follow at least the following 4 rules:

1. At least 75% of the posts need to be commercial quality information without any paid links embedded in the article.
2. Every subscriber’s post needs to be reviewed by an editor for “real value”.
3. Each blog needs to have a theme and specialize in one particular subject.
4. Each blog in the network needs to be optimized and promoted as a “real website” with good content.

That said, you are most likely still violating Google’s guidelines if you pay to post your link on those sites. I’m not judging, just pointing out the risk involved.

How To Build Links

So how do you get quality links to your site? You need to create information and multimedia that people need and are willing to link to. Then you need to contact relevant websites and convince them that they should link to your content. If you are a product reseller, you should get your vendors to link to you as an authorized dealer. If you are a member or sponsor of any organizations, you need to get them to link to you as a such. You could do some guest blogging, but be sure the value of the link you get is greater than the value you would get from posting the article on your own website. You can also use article marketing, press releases, and directory submission but it’s just for diversity and extra exposure, alone they are not the answer.

Let me know if you agree, disagree or what I missed. I look forward to your comments. | Read the original Link Building 2010