Webmaster ToolBox

 There was an excellent post on Matt Cutts forum (which I’m having trouble finding) which explained the correct format for “natural” backlinks

WRONG
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anchor Text Link
description of the link above.description of the link above.description of the link above.description of the link above.description of the link above.description of the link above.description of the link above.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RIGHT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
description of the link above.description of the link above.description of the link above.description of the link above Anchor Text Link description of the link above.description of the link above.description of the link above.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Directories list it the first way. Leaving responses on blogs and sites like Yahoo Answers in the correct format = right.

I’m not saying that directories wont help you at all, I’m saying that if you submit to 100 directories, in 6 months, you will get maybe 20 backlinks which will be worth one blog post response. Leaving blog responses has a clearcut advantage over directories…

1. Link to your site is up right away
2. Can place your link in the correct format
3. People will actually see your link - you get [B]targeted[/B] traffic
4. Spiders will almost always spider a blog post (since its pinged to tons of places)
5. You learn more about your niche by reading the blog post
6. Where you place you link is completely up to you (no page 6)

If you want to submit your site to directories, it isn’t worth your time. Your better off outsourcing it. Link or Link
I’d say the average directory submission (with a bot) is 2 minutes

1. Find a directory
2. Go to directory
3. Find Correct Category
4. Go To Correct Category
5. Submit link
6. Bot-Fills in most information
7. You fill in the rest of the information
8. Submit
9. Wait 6 months

2 minutes x 150 directories = 300 minutes = 5 Hours
Are you saying that you’re time is worth $3/hour?

Another guideline - You can’t use the same anchor text for each link (unnatural) and having the same description on each page is also unnatural. So lets see what you get when you submit to a PR3 page on page 1 of your category (which is hard to find).

• Its 2 subfolders down. Juice down.
• You share space with 9 (min) other links - Juice down
• You have duplicate anchor text/description - unnatural - juice down
• Bad format - unnatural - juice down
• 6 months from now - you don’t know if the directory will exist

Post in response to Thirty Day Challenge Thread
I will try to find the post on how to properly link.

Filed under: Directories, SEO | 4 Comments »

Where to start….

First off, your link will end up in a page along the lines of

http://directory.com/Main_Category/Sub_Category/4/

This is, technically, 3 subfolders in and Google drops the amount of link juice with each subfolder.

Next. Lots of directories have a PR4,5,6 homepage, but what happens when you dig a little deeper? 99 times out of 100, PR0

What does this mean? When search engine spiders reach that subfolder of a subfolder, they think the page is crap and give you slim to nil juice for your link there.

Now you say to yourself, “This just isn’t true. I see lots of directories that have PR3 subcategory pages.”

Okay, so you’ve found that lucky 1/100 and what do you see when you go to the page where you are to be listed? About 50 links of your competitors, which completely destroys your chances of getting any PR juice from it. If you don’t know how pagerank juice works, its like this:

“The more external links on a page their are, the less pagerank each link receives” - Oleg

Couldn’t have said it better myself. So your link is to be placed on a PR3 with 50 other sites turning that PR3, into a PR 0. (<4 links = PR3, <10 links = PR2, <20 links = PR1, >20 links = PR0 - All numbers are estimations)

So you don’t believe me and submit to that directory and 6 months later, you get an email saying you’ve been listed! Your all excited and go to check out how your link looks but when you arrive at the page…. ITS NOT THERE!

But where could it be? Did you try checking page 27? So not only did you get listed on a page that isn’t spidered by search engines, but if by some crazy chance it does, you share a PR0 page with 50 other sites. Perfect.

I used to submit to directories all the time, until I figured out that most are complete crap. There are a few good ones out there, but you are going to have to find them on your own and keep them to yourself. Let the directory out of the bag, and you’ve turned your PR3 link into a PR0.

Filed under: Directories, SEO | 1 Comment »

and everyone is rushing to get as many backlinks as they can. People interlinking their sites to squeeze out as much juice and get that extra pagerank point. All in vain.

After reading this super informative article on digitalpoint,  I have learned the error of our ways. This is how Google and pagerank really work.

Google takes a screenshot of your webpage MONTHS before the toolbar update.

The screenshot being of course not visual, but of the backlink count you have. How am I so sure? Follow along…

First pick a nice big site where every page gets pagerank, like mattcutts blog 

Next, we go through each month’s archive until we see which month has actual toolbar pagerank.

• July - Nope
• June - Nope
• May - Nope
• April - PR7

Okay, so Google took a screenshot somewhere in April, but when? So we start cycling through all the posts until we come to April 2nd

So the latest Google update was on April 2nd.

Another site with the same results - http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/4/2/ - the later articles dont have PR whereas the first few do, meaning Google took the screenshot early in the day.

So next time the toolbar updates, don’t fret. You’ve already missed the big linking rush.

Filed under: SEO | Add a Comment »