reciprocal links yes / no?

[LianneF]

Hi
I am thinking about going with a SEO company that is in the top 5 on www.topseos.com but my web designer isn't too keen on giving out ftp details as he thinks people will copy the site, so am trying to see if i can do anything to help with SEO myself.

I have spent months and months getting reciprocal links with other sites and have been reading on the internet that these are rubbish and that one way links are better, should I delete all the reciprocal links that i have done, there are about 500?

I am thinking about adding articles to the site and linking text within these to products, categories within the site, all unique content and also writting different articles to submit to article directories to try and get back links to my site, does this sound a good idea? anyone recommend someone that is good at writting articles for visitors and SEO as I'm rubbish!

Also I've seen on a lot of sites that they add keyword link text in the footer of the site which leads to other relevant pages on the site, would this be a good idea in terms of SEO.

Also it has been commented that the header tags in my site are all the same, can I not add say All Things Gifts at the end of every page?

Any advice would be greatfully appreciated as i'm really stuck on where to go from here.

Regards
Lianne

 

[JustOneUK]

Hiya,

You have an issue with your site...

yourdomain.co.uk and yourdomain.co.uk/index.php are seen as DIFFERENT pages by the search engines, you need to lose the index.php one.


I would keep the links..but go and concentrate now on getting one-way links if you can.

regards
James.

 

[LianneF]

Hi James

People have recommended that I had a HTML sitemap, RSS feed and become W3C compliant, do you think this is needed? i have a google sitemap and a sitemap at the bottom of the homepage is this enough?

Regards
Lianne

 

[JustOneUK]

i have a google sitemap and a sitemap at the bottom of the homepage is this enough?

Regards
Lianne

Hi Lianne,

I think that it's enough provided your Google sitemap is complete with every product, because the one on your site isn't.
HTML or php makes no difference for the one on your site - as long as it's spiderable.

Compliancy makes no difference in my mind - I've never witnessed it making a difference - but clean code is always worth aiming for, so that's a personal preference thing for you to decide yourself.

RSS - will anyone USE your feed if you make one? I'd focus on trying to get H1 and H2 tags (and probably longer descriptions) onto your product pages if I were you.

regards
James.

 

[LianneF]

Hi james
Sorry is this is a silly question but i thought i had h1 tags for all products, isn't this what appears in the blue bar at the top of the site? I have added a description and keywords too, is this h2 and h3 or doesn't it work like that?
Regards
Lianne

 

[timrydon]

You are welcome to add a link on www.megashout.com you control the information that surrounds the link and we don't expect in link in exchange just some good text.

 

[stato77]

Hi james
Sorry is this is a silly question but i thought i had h1 tags for all products, isn't this what appears in the blue bar at the top of the site? I have added a description and keywords too, is this h2 and h3 or doesn't it work like that?
Regards
Lianne

No The Title tag appears in the the blue bar at the top of the webpage. Without viewing your site, i think that you are referring to meta description and meta keywords.

H1 Tags would be usually be the header title for the page that is included within the page not in the blue bar.

 

[stato77]

Hiya,

You have an issue with your site...

yourdomain.co.uk and yourdomain.co.uk/index.php are seen as DIFFERENT pages by the search engines, you need to lose the index.php one.


I would keep the links..but go and concentrate now on getting one-way links if you can.

regards
James.

I am currently designing a site in dreamweaver with the home page titled index.html. Will the search engines view this as the same as mydomain.com?

 

[ineedcontent]

One way links are also on the way out, IMO, the only thing that will always push your site up is lots of good content. Every other method of pushing a page up has eventialy been punished by Google, meaning, like recip link building, the time was wasted. Link to articles on popular submission sites will give you the best responce, as things stand at the moment.

 

[hevs]

Do you really think one way links are on the way out i am thinking of signing up with a company for this?? now am not sure what to do. when you say link to other articles what exactly do you mean?:|

 

[Writing]

It's piffle to believe that one way links are on the way out, no offense to the writer of said comment.

For some really, really simple tips that you can implement without getting all confused on this subject, with everyone giving you conflicting advice which I know can drive anyone absolutely barmy, simply read this blog and sign up to his newsletter, he says it how it is, he keeps it simple and he always writes in very clear, easy to understand language utilising the K.I.S.S. principle.

Look through his archives, seriously all the information you could ever need is right there for you, in bite size chunks that your brain will never get frazzled over.

His name is Josh Spaulding and he can be found at:

http://ez-onlinemoney.com/blog/link-building/is-your-link-building-strategy-a-time-waster/

His latest blog entry written on 24 June 08 was just with individuals like you in mind.

Once you start reading his words, you'll soon be addicted and in fact, it'll take out all of the mystery of this entire process.

Happy to help.

Andy

 

[max737]

Does anybody know a good affiliate, with no joining fee?

Thanks

 

[fairestcape]

If you're reasonably comfortable with installing and configuring software, you could try JROX JAM affiliate software.

 

[GNU]

500 recips is a bad plan.

Adding content is a good plan.

Article submissions can work, but dont go OTT... I got a penalty for drilling a keyword in automated article submissions... just submit to the top few sites, and make it a different version.

A better idea would be to try and get your stuff posted on blogs... IMO.

Internal links with anchor can help, but links at the bottom of the page are de valued, and can look spammy... better to put into a sidebar... i.e. legit navigation rather than footer spam.

 

[GNU]

http://ez-onlinemoney.com/blog/link-building/is-your-link-building-strategy-a-time-waster/

His latest blog entry written on 24 June 08 was just with individuals like you in mind.

Andy

Some bad advice on that post... theme / widget spam can get you into a real mess if your not careful... as can links from articles / blogs whatever.

You can be hurt by inbound links that are "not under your control". I did not believe this until a few weeks ago.... when I got a penalty for it.

 

[LianneF]

Hi GNU
How do you know if you got a penalty for it, do you get an email from google or do you just loose rankings?
Regards
Lianne

 

[GNU]

Hi GNU
How do you know if you got a penalty for it, do you get an email from google or do you just loose rankings?
Regards
Lianne

I acquired a load of low quality links with very specific anchor text.

The page these pointed to subsequently got dropped from the SERP on that term. I am still in the SERP, but much lower down with a different non optimised page. I am now unable to move on that term.

It is as thought all links internal and external have been discounted. I have another domain on the same topic with no content to speak of, an inferior domain name and no links (its just a holding site to age the domain) that now ranks above it.

The webmaster tools no longer show any internal or external links to that page despite it being the most heavily linked after the root domain.

Pretty sure its a penalty, the effect is very specific in terms of the affected page and key terms.

Not sure whether to just ignore it and keep building on more generic phrases. I cannot get the offending links removed...

 

[reggiemental]

Hi GNU

Sorry to hear about your Google woes.

I acquired a load of low quality links with very specific anchor text.

Roughly how many incoming links do you think it takes for a problem to arise? Where these straightforward one-way links, or from article submissions?

Regards

Paul