Picking relevant link partners

[abound]

When you first start trading links, it's tempting to trade links with everyone under the son who will trade with you. If you're goal is to trade traffic, this approach isn't bad. However, if your goal is show up high in the search engines, then you'll want to show some discretion in who you trade links with.

Generally, you should only trade links with "relevant" sites. A link is deemed relevant based on several apparent criteria:

1. How related is the site to you?
If a car site links to a patio furniture site, it won't count as much as another patio site. Google will still count it some, but if you do a link: search on your site, that partner might not be considered relevant enough to show.

What this means to you: Pick sites related to what you sell. They don't have to sell the same thing however. For example, I consider real estate related to patio furniture because people need furniture for new homes. However, I don't trade links with gambling websites.

2. How long has the site been linking to you?
When I was tracking it more closely, I found that Google rarely listed links the first month it was found. Google waits until it has seen the link to you 2 or 3 months straight. This is a measure the search engines have taken against FFAs, which link to everyone in the universe and have quite rapid turnover rates. It's also a measure against fly-by-night websites whose sole purpose is to achieve a quick ranking for you before it goes away.

What this means to you: Be patient.

3. How relevant is the site for its own keywords?
Sites that don't rank very high in Google won't help as much as if ranks high. The site's Google pagerank is a measure of that. A site with a Google page of 1 or 0 might not be listed will still count minimally toward your own pagerank, but it might be considered very relevant, even if it is directly related to you. Since page ranks take months to establish, this is another measure against fly-by-night sites.

What this means to you: You shouldn't avoid trading links with every site that has a low rank... after all, every site starts out that way. But, you should look at the site for quality. That could be the reason they're poorly ranked, and good enough reason to stay away.

[B & M]

Generally, you should only trade links with "relevant" sites.
Hi Mike,

Just looking for some clarification on what constitutes a relevant site. With my jewelry sites, would relevant sites be
(1) other Jewelry sites
(2) wedding connected sites
(3) gift sites
(4) ??????

I would appreciate your opinion as I am now ready to concentrate my efforts on my link exchanges.

Cheers,
Bernard :D

[Christine]

Anything to do with personal shopping i.e. fashion grooming gifts etc. No hard or fast rules but linking with a casino or porn site might not bring the visitors you are seeking.

[B & M]

Thanks Christine,

I thought that was the case, just needed some confirmation.

Cheers,
Bernard :D

[yma_hopson]

What's more important in the beginning?

Should I be linking to as many sites as I can to start (as long as they aren't porn or gambling)? I have set up a links directory with categories on each site so that I can trade with sites that are not as relevant but are good quality sites because I really need the links! Can we afford to be picky right from the start or should we get as many links as possible and then decide after we have built up our links who we should continue to link to? I am kind of confused. :?

[Bethers]

IMHO, you should always be picky. If the sites you link to have no relevance or interest to your customers, you shouldn't link to them.

Also, if the site is not professional, and you have them on your links page, it reflects on you if your customers go to them.

However, if they are quality sites and you can find a relevancy - then I see no problem.

[yma_hopson]

Thank you Beth
I will definately start to be more selective in my link trading.
:)

[abound]

Think about from the visitors' perspective. You sell jewelry... what does your link partner's visitor's have in common with people looking for jewelry. Some examples:
1)People buying wedding gowns will probably need jewelry.
2)People buying new houses might also be getting married, and so might need jewelry.
3)People refinancing their home looking to free up money... probably NOT looking for jewelry.
4)People looking for toys are not looking for jewelry.
5)People looking for "gifts" might be looking for jewelry.
6)People buying clothes might be looking for jewelry.
7)People buying bathing suits are not looking for jewelry... well, maybe belly-button jewelry, if you sell it.

Getting the hang of it? The idea is to trade with sites who are looking for the same people you are... that makes their link to you (and your link to them) a relevant vote to the search engines. For you, a vote from a gambling site isn't worth very much.

[elvisyorkie]

I agree with Mike in that when link trading one needs to concern themselves with :
1. Will the link generate traffic
2. Will the link help long term in search engine placement.

A lot of people feel that some of the factors that determine a quality link are:
1. The relevancy of the page and the website that the link is located on to your website.
2. The quality of the page and the website that the link is located on. (Google Page Rank)
3. The number of the outgoing links on the page. The higher the number of outgoing the lower the value of the Reciprocal link.

A word of caution DON"T GET HUNG UP on GOOGLE PAGE RANK. A link on a high PR page that is non-relevant to the theme of your website probably has less value than a link on a PR0 page that is relevant to your website.

Where Mike and I may disagree is what determines relevancy. I can understand that as as example people buying wedding gowns will probably need jewelry and so the wedding gown website might be considered relevant. But I don't think a search engine is going to see the relevancy. I think that for a search engine to see any relevancy there has
to be KEYWORDS that are common in the partners website and link page to your anchor text and your website.

I also think there is some value linking to websites that might not be relevant to yours but there are link pages that are set up in a organized way and limit the number of links on a page. I look at the title of the page and the content on the page. As an example if my website is about gold jewelery and the title of the link page has the words gold or jewelry in it then this link probably has some value. If the content on the link page has gold or jewelry then this link probably has some value.

One way I've found to get high quality link partners that drive traffic to my site is to find competitors websites that have stat counters that are viewable to the public. I then monitor their stat counter and links that are driving traffic to their website I go and get Reciprocal links for my site.

I posted this tread in the hopes that others will contribute and then all the posts can be summerized into a step by step guide to getting high quality links. Link trading can be a very time consuming process so the smarter we can work the better off we will be.

Larry

[Bethers]

Larry,

It is highly recommended that professional sites don't use stat counters on their sites - that is considered unprofessional. Just a head's up there.

Glad to see that you've changed your thinking on page rank.

[elvisyorkie]

My point was that it is important to understand how page rank and relevancy are inter related. When finding link partners it is important to look at both PR and relevancy to determine the quality of the link. If you just look at PR or just look at relevancy you might not be working the most efficently that you can. If you have two sites that are equally relevant to your website and one site has a pr4 and the other has a pr1 the link that is on the pr4 website will have more value which will help your website in search engine rankings.

To rank high in search engines for competive keywords you have to optimize your website for:
1. On page factors(meta tags, alt tags, external links, internal links, etc.)
2. Off page factors(Anchor text, quality of links, etc.)
3. Page rank(quality of website)

Here again these are three components that are all important. Optimizing a website for on page factors and ignoring off page factors and page rank, in my opinoin is not very wise. Just as in link trading if one optimizes their website taking into ALL the components they have a better chance of placing high in search engines. Ignoring pr for your website is like ignoring relevancy in link trading. You might get by with it now but as the internet grows and becomes even more competitive I think you will have problems in reguards to traffic from search engines.

Larry

[Bethers]

Larry, Yes, and there are many many posts about all the issues to look at for your website on this forum - including everything you're talking about.

However, I do not pay any attention to pr - but to the professionalism of the website I'm linking to. Funny thing - if the website is professional, they generally speaking move up in rank.

If you look closer at a lot of the talk today- link trading could become a thing of the future because the se's are seeing how sites are using it and don't think it's as relevant as it used to be. This is also true of many aritcles - because they are seeing how articles are being written and blogs added constantly - and don't find them as important. That means they'll be putting even more emphasis on the onsite optimization.

Now, don't take that to mean I say not to link trade. I'm in favor of it. But I do believe the day will come when it really is irrelevant - and that day might not be as far in the future as many would hope.

As for articlies - some articles will continue to hold weight - just as some links probably will - like when Sho got mentioned in a Wall Street Journal article. Both being in that article and having a link from an article like that - will probably always carry weight.

[abound]

I agree with Mike in that when link trading one needs to concern themselves with :
1. Will the link generate traffic
2. Will the link help long term in search engine placement.
Glad we agree.


A lot of people feel that some of the factors that determine a quality link are:
1. The relevancy of the page and the website that the link is located on to your website.
2. The quality of the page and the website that the link is located on. (Google Page Rank)
3. The number of the outgoing links on the page. The higher the number of outgoing the lower the value of the Reciprocal link.
[NOTE: Before I go into my response, I want to say the bottom line from my perspective is to provide a directory that serves your customers. Therefore page rank is not the bottom line in choosing link partners. However, I don't think it should be ignored either. It is a factor to consider, but only a factor. Okay, read on...]

Given your agreement with the first 2 points you find important, then you will be interested to know that the three points you find unimportant are actually quite related. The reason is because the value of a page's vote for you is based on that page's page rank divided by the number of outbound links from it. In other words, your website's relevancy is a function of the relevancy of your link partners. It's a function of other things as well, but page rank is a part of it.

As for site quality, that should be considered for more indirect reasons. Basically, a poor quality site will attract fewer link partners, which results in lower page rank, and therefore a less valuable vote for your site. It also means fewer repeat visitors, and hence fewer people clicking on your link.

Finally, the number of links on a page is relevant for two reasons. One is that its vote for you is worth less. The other is because people are less likely to click on the link to you.

Now, I'm not saying to be beholden to page rank. I'm just saying it's a factor to consider.


A word of caution DON"T GET HUNG UP on GOOGLE PAGE RANK. A link on a high PR page that is non-relevant to the theme of your website probably has less value than a link on a PR0 page that is relevant to your website.
Well, that's a bit extreme in my opinion, given that the page rank scale appears to be more logarithmic than linear. A vote from a PR 0 is vote to you worth 0 (well, probably not zero, but darn close to it). A PR of 7, unrelated to you might be worth 1% of what it would be it were related, but that would still be like trading with a PR of 5.


Where Mike and I may disagree is what determines relevancy. I can understand that as as example people buying wedding gowns will probably need jewelry and so the wedding gown website might be considered relevant. But I don't think a search engine is going to see the relevancy. I think that for a search engine to see any relevancy there has to be KEYWORDS that are common in the partners website and link page to your anchor text and your website.
The reason I disagree with you is because I believe Google is able to identify pages using common words with different meanings. The reason I believe they can is because I could write a program that does it, and Google has some of the most talented programmers out there. The idea is to keep track of how often various words appear on the same page throughout the internet. If wedding gowns and jewelry appear frequently together in articles, then the "relatedness quotient" (to coin a phrase) would be bumped up. On the other hand, the word "house" as a place to live vs. a place to gamble can be easily distinguished via a dictionary. Now, I don't know as fact that they do this, but makes so much sense, and is such a service to search quality, that it would actually be unwise (and hence unlikely) for them to omit such a measurable factor from their algorithm.


I also think there is some value linking to websites that might not be relevant to yours but there are link pages that are set up in a organized way and limit the number of links on a page. I look at the title of the page and the content on the page. As an example if my website is about gold jewelery and the title of the link page has the words gold or jewelry in it then this link probably has some value. If the content on the link page has gold or jewelry then this link probably has some value.
Google is starting to look at the overall site more, and if there is only one page on the site relevant to you... and its a link trading page, then the trade might be worth something, but not much. And to boot, you end up watering down the usefulness of your own links pages. If you don't measure a trade by Page Rank, but by usefulness to a person, then consider that a trade with an irrelevant site is a poor trade, regardless of how well ordered that site's links pages are.


One way I've found to get high quality link partners that drive traffic to my site is to find competitors websites that have stat counters that are viewable to the public. I then monitor their stat counter and links that are driving traffic to their website I go and get Reciprocal links for my site.
Good trick!

The most important guideline IMHO is to you think of your links pages as a service to your visitors, the people looking for you product. Yet, page rank should still be considered. That might mean linking to one Page Rank 0 page just because your visitors would benefit, while avoiding another Page Rank 0 page because you realize its copyright is 2 years old which suggests they were banned from Google, and you don't want to get mixed up with them.

So Larry, I hope you see that Page Rank, while not the holy grail of link trading, is still a real factor, and is also more complicated than most people realize. Bottom line: your strategy ain't bad, but I would include page rank considerations to your arsenal, while making your visitors the bottom line.