Here’s another hilarious cartoon from Kevin & the Googlebots with a hilarious spin on paid links. I wish we could just pay Tyler to work on these cartoons everyday because they’re always hilarious. Click on the image to get it a little bigger, but for all his fine work go to his website and leave him a comment.
Micro-Blogging is still going strong and there are a ton of them popping up for every niche and theme imaginable. Some of them allow you to get do follow links so this does fall under the general link building topic, but they also allow you to increase your reader base and grow your website. The stats I’m going to use to rank the sites will be based on Alexa ranking,(unique not site wide links counted) backlinks counted by Link Diagnosis, and Google Page Rank. If anyone has a site I missed, or even a new one that they’re going to release then you should leave it in the comments or contact me. I like to mention only use these sites if you plan on using them for what they’re intended for, and not just spam them to death. I understand people use micro-blogging services do promote their products and that’s fine, but don’t overkill it.
1)Twitter.com
Alexa:624
Backlinks:85 million
PageRank:8
2)Plurk.com
Alexa:7141
Backlinks:847,447
PageRank:7
3)Secondbrain.com (dofollow)
Alexa:54,243
Backlinks:1167
PageRank:6
4)Jaiku.com
Alexa:54,867
Backlinks:1782
PageRank:7
5)Kwippy.com
Alexa:62,290
Backlinks:535
PageRank:4
6)Identi.ca(dofollow)
Alexa:77,983
Backlinks:2693
PageRank:5
7)Yonkly.com
Alexa: 365,908
Backlinks:384
PageRank:3
8 )Twingr.com
Alexa:390,695
Backlinks:723
PageRank:0
9)Niimo.com
Alexa:638,838
Backlinks:125
PageRank:4
10)Twoorl.com
Alexa:696,373
Backlinks: 171
PageRank:4
I’ve been hearing chatter down the pipeline about a Google PageRank update in the works. There has been reports of a lot of people losing their PageRank, so I’m hoping everyone is getting smarter when it comes to building links. It is only getting tougher out there and that’s why I try and promote quality link building to make sure you keep on moving ahead. I know PageRank is not much of a factor these days, but I still change my mind on that if your site hits the Page Rank 5 and up range. I’ve been building up this site nicely and I haven’t seen movement in my PageRank for a long time, but I’ve seen a lot of positive movement within the SERPs, so I must be doing something right! If you check out my backlinks profile you’ll notice I keep things tight, and try and get links from related sites only. So if you’ve seen any movement within your PageRank let us all know so we can see if something bigger is going on!
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about certain link building methods that will eventually end up getting drowned out like directory links and paid links in blog posts. Since I’ve been writing this blog and link building full time my eyes have been opened wide to the amount of places to build links, and even the amount of new places opening up. Obviously the easiest methods will be the ones to get abused the most, and I’m starting to wonder what’s next in line for a good old fashioned Google smacking? I’m hoping to get enough votes from you folks to determine what you think it will be, and get an insight to what you’re seeing getting spammed the most lately. I’ll write my explanation out below for reasons why I have them on the list, and if you think I missed an important technique on here let me know!
Do Follow Blog Commenting: I know that do follow blog comment is a two way street and can either be beneficial or get you in the dog house. I’ve put this option on the list because these days I’m seeing a ratio of 90% spam comments/anchor’s and about 10% in real and quality comments. Since the commenting process can also be an automated one, we’ve all seen auto commenting scripts in the wild doing a nasty job. I can easily see sites getting into “bad neighborhoods” because of excess amounts of spam comments on their site, which would lead to a penalty for the spamming site.
Submitting .pad Software: Well this is still a great method for building solid links on very authoritative software sites, I’m starting to see the spammers making use of this technique for unethical reasons. It has gotten to the point that I’m seeing people selling Ebooks with this as the prime “secret” they teach amateur online marketers to gain top ranking spots. I imagine in the near future these software download sites will start getting looked at just like the directory industry has, and if you take a look there are a lot of low quality software download sites with this type of spam all over them.
Forum Signatures: This link building method had me wondering if I should even mention it, but like I stated before about methods that are easily automated will generally come under the ban hammer, this is one of them. Now I am not against getting links via signatures if you’re active on a niche related forum, and there not just to spam your siggy. But I’m not seeing companies who offer forum signature links and spamming by the thousands, and this is setting off a flag in my mind. It has me wondering if Google might eventually come up with some sort of quality checking.
Social Bookmarking: Social bookmarking is a great method for not only building links but getting targeted traffic as well. There is already a strong spam presence on almost every
bookmarking site out there, and with the sheer number of them popping up is going to dilute the amount of link juice you would have once got. I can easily see the same thing that happened to the directory industry to social bookmarking if it isn’t already happening.
Linkbaiting: Linkbaiting is by far the hottest link building method to come out recently and its great for getting links, but most importantly links from related sites. I like this method because it forces you to first create great content to earn those links, so there is little room for evil….keyword here being little. I’ve seen a good number of ‘out of context’ articles with linkbait titles and sometimes just downright misleading information. Because this information can be seen by a large volume of readers this can pose a serious risk to influencing people for good or bad.
Twingly is by far the coolest new blog search on the scene and I really like how it is laid out and the content is presented. If you’re used to using Technorati, you might find this a breath of fresh air. Technorati still has a plethora of features compared to Twingly, but it is also a cluttered mess of links that could keep you lost for hours. The simple web 2.0 layout makes for a fun browsing experience and at the moment there is nothing but quality content to be found on Twingly. This blog search engine is all about being SPAM FREE which is great and is why I like it a lot more. So far their search engine is serving out more than 25 million searches a month, and mostly through their API which is pretty impressive and shows there is growth and a need for a service like this. Now you all know I do not like to promote spam, and although the links on this site are dofollow you won’t last long if your blog is spammy/crappy/lousy. You can sign up and ping your blog on the site, or add their RPC ping function to WordPress to make sure your content stays afloat.
I’ve been keeping my eye on iLinkshare lately and I’m hoping to give it a try when it goes out of Beta, or they read this and want to give me an account(hint hint). I’m always on the hunt for people bringing new ideas to the bookmarking world and from what I can tell these folks got something cool going on. I have seen iLinkshare links showing up in people’s backlink profiles, that is in fact how I came across the site so that’s good news. There is no indication when they’ll be out of Beta so hopefully someone from the site could let us all know. They have dropped a few unique features they’re sporting;
Logo Pallet is a great place to get your brand noticed by showing off your company or product logo to the world. Logo’s identify your place in the visual sea that is known as the world wide web, and if yours sucks don’t expect much. If you think you have a great logo that is worthy of showing off, and even a little critique from the design world you should be posting on Logo Pallet. This site also allows your to fill out a company profile which provides you with dofollow links to your website, as well your image link follows through back to your homepage. Adding your logo is a breeze because the site is powered by my favorite, WordPress, and you can have your profile online within minutes of signing up. Please use this service for what it is intended for and do not spam, so if you’re in agreeance, please sign up.
I’ve noticed this PR4 dofollow social bookmarking and tagging site showing up in my backlinks so it is time for a post on SyncOne. This site is simple to use and provides a great organization system for your bookmarks which makes it a cinch to add them in. You can also import bookmarks from your browser or through an OPML feed, so that can allow you to create a custom feed to import a lot of links quickly. I’ve just started using the site so I’m not sure how quality the links are, but the site seems to be liked by Google and is indexed quite heavily. Anyone else have experience using this site? If you’re done reading and ready to start bookmarking then head on over to the sign up page.
