Mobile devices are impacting URL sharing

First and foremost among these factors is the “device effect.” The device effect means that a huge number of us are now consuming our content on a mobile device that fits in our hands, such as a smartphone or tablet.

A decade ago, if you wanted to go online, you generally had to do it on your laptop or desktop computer. Not today. The transition to a more mobile Internet has had a profound effect not only on the was people consume content, but also on the way people share and distribute it.

Not long ago, if you wanted to post or share a link with others, you had to know a bit of HTML, and you had to type the full URL out. The big shortcut back then was copy/paste.

The link graph of the mid- to late 90s had very little link spam compared to today, simply because it was too much of a hassle to actually create links. The idea of a link removal service in 1998 would have been laughable. (Actually, it’s just as laughable today — but that’s another story for another day.)

However, HTML editors evolved (early versions of Netscape had a “Composer” feature), FTP became popular and bingo – we were collaborating and creating webpages and link guides and felt like actual publishers.  (Anyone remember ZEAL?)

Blogs came next, and third-party services like AddThis and ShareThis made it simple for webmasters to encourage the sharing of website content. Such features allowed readers to share links with ease. This was all pre-mobile, and the exploding link graph of those days was a large part of why Google dominates the search landscape now – -they realized early on what all those links meant.

Now that mobile devices dominate our daily lives, true link authorship — meaning typing URLs out on a keyboard or copy/pasting them into an HTML document or blog post — has changed dramatically. There are statistics that describe the shocking migration to mobile devices by content consumers — one stat that amazes me is that mobile traffic in 2012 was 12 times as large as was all traffic on the Internet  in 2000!

Think about that for a moment. If someone had told you in 2000 that, by 2012, there would be 12 times more Internet content read or watched on phones (or things called “tablets”) than is currently consumed in total, you would not have believed it. In 2000, my cell phone didn’t have a screen at all — and it was still painful to watch online video on a desktop, even if you had a cable modem.

While I do not have hard statistics on the effect the migration to mobile devices has had on people’s ability to type in, post, and share URLs, I imagine it has to be profound. After all, how many links today originate via Facebook or Twitter sharing buttons that are embedded within content?

Add to the mix LinkedIn, Pinterest, and a few others that have managed to reach a relatively decent mass of button installs, and what we now have is a scenario where more URLs migrate from person to person via mobile device button sharing than by people actually opening up a laptop and posting a URL via a keyboard.

Even my own habits bear this out. On the weekends, I consume my email, Web content, etc., exclusively through my iPad and iPhone. I don’t go near my laptop. I used to bring my laptop in from the office to the house on weekends. I don’t have to do that anymore. I use an iPad almost exclusively when in the house, and iPhone when on the road.

How does this affect my link creation habits? Dramatically. I simply don’t “create” links anymore when I’m on those devices. I might share a link via the “Email a link to this page” option provided by the mobile Safari browser or click a “Tweet this” button via a mobile interface, but what I’m not doing is the bread and butter of the link builder’s daily activity: sitting at a desk, working on a large machine, entering link data into submission forms, inserting links into content via HTML code, emailing link requests, etc.

My actual link building work takes place with me sitting at a desk the same way as I did in 1994, and that is not likely to change for a long time. I honestly do not have any recollection of a time when I have performed the work of link building via my iPad, unless you count the sending of an email. And even that’s not an easy thing to do, as a properly crafted email link request is going to have to include elements that are not mobile device-friendly.

Try writing a blog post via a mobile interface and including a long URL to a cool page or video you found — it’s torture.  It would take less time to simply drive to your office, fire up the PC and write it that way. And, if you’re a link curator — meaning you seek out, evaluate and share topical links in clumps — you aren’t authoring your posts on a tablet. You have a mouse in hand and a 24-inch monitor in front of you. Friction is the enemy of link sharing.

Those of you who actually perform link building activities at the keyboard level likely understand what I’m talking about here. Heavy duty link building activities for clients still must take place predominantly on a machine that is not a tablet or phone.

Ease Of Sharing Means Ease Of Sharing Junk

With fewer people typing URLs and more people tapping “Tweet” and “Like” buttons, this means a great thinning of the link-creating herd must be taking place. As much as I love the social migration of URLs, there is simply no way you are going to convince me that URLs shared in this manner have the same signal salience as URLs shared by a curator on a keyboard.

Think about it this way: I have a librarian friend who is responsible for the library’s monthly “Best of the Web” feature. When he authors this feature, he’s on a computer with Safari open to a multitude of tabs. There’s no way he could author that column on a mobile device. He might come across a site or two on his tablet while doing research during the month, but when it’s time to actually produce the content of his newsletter, it’s back to the good old-fashioned keyboard and mouse.

This raises some interesting questions. Are links that require more time and effort to insert into content more credible than links shared by a one-second button tap on an iPhone? Put another way, does the ease of URL sharing on mobile devices reduce the credibility of those URLs shared because the share takes place via a button tap and thus may have been impulsive rather than carefully considered?

Is sharing URLs via mobile like playing Whack-A-Mole? Are these impulsive URL shares a bad thing? When examined in mass, does the method of sharing help surface the best the Web has to offer? If I’m in my car at a red light, and I read a headline and tap the “Tweet” button, have I just created a useful signal?

Ultimately, it seems to me that the URL share will be valued based on the sharer (hence why Google is pushing authorship and cross-device log-ins). Search engines must be able to take the billions of URLs ping-ponging across the Web and decide to what extent this noise contains useful signals. Links are not what is trusted — it’s the credibility of the person doing the sharing that’s trusted.

Beyond the mobile explosion, the main point or thesis I don’t want to stray too far from is that I believe we have entered a period where the manner and method in which we share URLs has changed forever; thus, the ability of search engines to determine intent and credibility based on manner, method, device and friction of the sharing process will be crucial to producing useful search results.

After all, which is likely to have more value: a share originating from an iPhone, or a share originating from a PC with a Library of Congress IP address?

In light of the explosion of links due to ease of sharing, I expect the value of the traditional curator/linker like my librarian friend to increase. These passionate subject specialists will become even more important to the search engines looking for intent and meaning.

Why? Take a look at a curated page of links, such as this page or this one. Someone had to make decisions about what to include on these pages — what to link to, how to link to it, and what to say about the sites being linked to. Time an effort were put into collecting and sharing these links — it was not done on mobile device with a one-second finger tap.

With Diversity Comes Strategic Opportunity

With so many ways to share and encounter URLs, it’s a very cool time to be a content publicist or link builder. There are more opportunities for URLs to be shared, discovered and surfaced. And good link marketers know how to get people to websites without Google — non-search traffic diversification has never been easier than it is right now if you’re willing to change your mindset and think like a publicist or traditional marketer.

What we perhaps didn’t see coming, however, was the possibility that the method used for sharing content could end up being a signal in and of itself. How will you adjust your strategy?

Image via Shutterstock

For many years, email was one of just a few ways you could share a URL with another person. And, people were far less accepting of link request spam than they are today.

So, for today’s column, let’s talk about the ancient concept of net etiquette and link building. In many ways, it’s come full circle and is as relevant today (if not more so) as ever.

Net Etiquette & Link Building

There was a thing called “netiquette” back in the day, a concept that today seems almost quaint.

There were even online guides (still out there) explaining how to behave. Many of the emails I receive today would have cost you your ISP account back then. Seriously.

Who out there reading this has not received an email containing lines such as:

Dear webmaster… I was looking at your site…Please place a link to our site… We’ve already placed a link to your site… This email is not spam…

By the way, the first indication that an email is spam is when it tells you it is not spam.

Receiving an email like that was a rare thing once upon a time. Today, those types of emails hit my inbox every day.

Different Ways To Share URLs

While email is still the cornerstone used for link-building outreach, there are numerous other ways a URL can end up in front of someone today. This is very cool, but it also has led to some really unfortunate outreach behaviors that, in turn, have led to search engines going on the offensive — not just to identify the good, but to purge the bad, as well.

Besides email, the most obvious ways a URL can be shared is through these social networks:

• Twitter
• Google+
• Facebook
• Pinterest
• Linkedin

Add to the above: social bookmarking, voting and sharing services like Stumbleupon, Digg, Squidoo and a few hundred others. With so many ways to push URLs around the Web, it was inevitable that new services would appear that were designed to help make sure your URL was one of the URLs being pushed, consequences be damned. We all pretty much know where this got us. The battle between the search engines and the link pushers rages on.

But… there is still a place for etiquette when it comes to link building, often in subtle and nuanced ways.

Simple Etiquette Tips That Won’t Go Out Of Fashion

Here are several thoughts and tips that might be worth keeping in mind, particularly in the new age of social sharing. These have served me well over the past 19 years; and for me, they matter as much today as they ever did.

1. Stop The Outsourcing Madness!

Stop outsourcing your link building to people in other countries that can’t write proper sentences. Take a look at this email I received recently — it’s real:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: LINK BUILDING PROPOSAL
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2013 17:37:31 +0530
From: <********@gmail.com>
To: <eric@ericward.com>

Hi,

I am professional link builder with team 
of 20 link builder working under me, we have 
huge tie ups with USA and UK based web design 
firm and we provide 10000+ one way links per month.

I have a good solid on-going client base who 
welcome you to contact for reference with 110% 
positive feedback.

Please let me know if I can be any assistance 
to you in any of your existing/future projects.

One Way Link Building Package (Mix PR from PR1 to PR4)
PR 1 = $ 2
PR 2 = $ 4
PR 3 = $ 7
PR 4 = $ 12

Packages --
50 links = $200
100 links = $300
150 links = $400
200 links = $ 600

Looking forward for your reply !!

What an epic fail. Moving on…

2.  Put An End To Nameless Requests

Don’t send an unsolicited email link request unless you know the name of the person whom you are sending it to. Never. If you can’t find a name on the site, get on the phone. If you can’t find a name or a phone number, chances are it’s a poor target, anyway.  There is no possible way to build a credible link profile by sending out unsolicited email to no one in particular.

This seems so obvious; but apparently, it isn’t. “Dear Webmaster” = delete, every time.

3.  Please Don’t Tell Me How To Link To Your Site

Let me decide if I feel your site is something I want to link to. And, if it is, I’ll link to it in a manner that I feel most helps people visiting my site. Over the years, I have composed and sent thousands and thousands of emails where my objective was to introduce content to a person in hopes of earning a link. In all those emails, I have never once asked for anchor text. Not once.

If you take the time to study the site you are hoping to get a link from, chances are the site will have an obvious protocol it uses when giving links. Here’s an example:

If you happen to have a site that you feel is a fit for that curated link collection, why would you ask them for anchor text? They don’t do anchor text.

4.  Trim Your Twitter Stream

Regarding Twitter, the fastest way to make your streams useless in each direction is by feeling obligated to follow everyone who follows you. It may seem impolite to not follow back, but if you think it through, it’s the opposite. You follow 17,000 people and have 17,000 followers? Why? In what way is this firehose useful? Can you really, really read 510,000 tweets each month?

Take a look at the two Twitter Follower/Following profiles below.  One looks like they have something useful to share while the other looks like an exercise in futility. When you have 400 times followers than you follow back (assuming they are legit), you are tweeting good stuff.

5.  Google+

G+ circles are sneaky. They give you a way to make it appear you care when really, you don’t. You can add people to circles so they will know you’ve added them, but you put them in a circle you never check. Does that really help anyone?

6.  Stop Begging For Likes

Regarding Facebook, if “Likes are the new links” (hint: they aren’t), please stop asking me to Like things. Not just via email, but everywhere. Driving my son home from school, I see the Chick-fil-A sign that says “Like us on Facebook.” Why should I? I mean, I like your chicken and all, but seriously? And please, stop bribing me to Like you.

Add up the number of times you are prompted to Like something in a single day — I’ll bet it’s a lot. I really believe that if the Like button had its own Like button, nobody would click it.

7.  Not Everything Is Likable

Social inequality extends to the Web. People will “Like” Lucky Charms cereal all day long, but they aren’t going to sprint onto Facebook and “Like” that yeast infection cream or jock itch spray they just bought with the same zeal. Click and check the numbers. I feel bad for Tinactin, but I guess in this case, the key to Facebook success is to be magically delicious.

Social signals are an absolute train wreck, with marketers doing everything they can to game the signal, and that’s partly why, in my opinion, at SMX last month, Matt Cutts was quoted as saying, “Links still have many, many good years ahead of them.”

8.  Pin The Original Version (And URL) Of The Creator’s Content, Not A Re-Pinned Version

If you maintain Pinterest boards, when you pin something, please consider attributing it to the original creator’s URL. It may seem like nitpicking, and the links may be no-followed, but that’s not the point. Giving credit (and links) to the original creator of what it is you are pinning is just a polite thing to do.

Here’s one reason why: if you come across a great picture or product or photo or infographic on a site and you pin it, that pin brings along with it the URL of the site where you found the object, which may not be the person or site that created the original.

It often only takes a moment to identify the originating source; so, take that time and then pin from the originator’s site. Many people don’t take the time to verify the original source.

9.  Don’t Link Spam Me On Twitter

One last tip pertaining to Twitter: when someone follows you, you don’t have to auto-tweet them back a “thank you for following me” tweet. If you are one of those who do, fine; but please don’t include a link to try and sell me something in your very first thank you tweet. It’s rude.

Take a look at the below pair of tweets.  They aren’t that different from many I see every day.

Polite:

Joe Blow @JoeBlow

Thanks for following me on Twitter. I hope you find my tweets helpful!

Not Polite: 

Joe Blow @JoeBlow

Thanks for following me on Twitter. Follow this link for 25% off my new white paper titled “You are nothing but money to me.”  http://not-very-polite

Which one of those thank you tweets makes you feel like you matter?

The social sharing explosion has created many fantastic opportunities for link growth, but has also created many ethically ambiguous scenarios. I’ve only touched on a few examples of etiquette here today in the age of sharing.

I would love to hear yours.

Between then and now, a seismic shift has seemingly taken place in the link building and SEO industry. Many of you reading this know the gory details, but if you don’t, I recommend reading Vanessa Fox’s excellent post, Your Site’s Traffic Has Plummeted Since Google’s Panda Update. Now What?

The answer is usually no

I’ve read many Panda recovery stories, read about sites that claim to have fully recovered, partially recovered, or not recovered at all. I’ve never really liked the word “recover,” because it makes it sound like the websites were victims, blindsided and injured by something they didn’t deserve.

Perhaps there are a few sites that fit that description. A few. But let’s be clear. It is and always was a strategic mistake to base your business model on receiving organic traffic from Google. And, I’ve been agonizingly consistent in my written and spoken conviction about this for a long, long, long time.

So, let’s move on to the question many sites are still asking.

Starting Over

After two years of trying (and not succeeding) to get back to where you once were, does it make sense to shut down your site and start over?

I know people are still asking this question because I’m being asked this question by many people who for years made fun of the content driven approach. Why go to the trouble and expense of being awesome when it’s easier to just fake awesome, especially since so many of the sites that rank high are awful?

It would be nice if there was a standard test you could take where you answered a series of questions about your site, and at the end of the test you were given a simple Start Over/Don’t Start Over answer.

But, the answer to that question begs another question: Are you going to do things differently with the new site than you did with the old site?

If not, then it really doesn’t matter anyway.

Short. Sweet. True

Every website has its own unique historical link/social growth and attraction footprint. And, because of this, there cannot be a one-size-fits-all answer to the starting over question. I’ve advised many sites to shut down completely. I’ve also advised sites to alter their current course and continue. But honesty compels me to state that it’s all still a guess. An educated guess, maybe, but a guess nonetheless.

This much I can tell you with confidence: by studying linking data, it’s much easier to spot a site that needs to shut down than it is to spot a site that has a chance of succeeding. And based on the variety of linking scenarios I have studied thus far, there are a lot of sites out there that need to shut down.

Here’s a few more things about links I have been told recently by content owners (who were told these things by their SEO or linking strategist).

1.  Anchor Text Will Cease To Be A Ranking Signal Altogether In 2013

To make such a statement is reckless. Of course it’s possible to engineer anchor text, and sure, you can still buy links with whatever anchor text you want. And, Google can spot the majority of these a mile away. But this does not render any and all anchor text links useless.

It is not the anchor text itself that matters. It’s the credibility and intent of the person who placed the content containing the anchor text on their site. Are you really going to tell me that if the Library Of  Congress site links to Consumer Reports magazine’s site using the words “Consumer Product Reviews” that this would be a useless signal? No way.

It’s all about source signal credibility –anchor text that originates on sites with no credibility versus anchor text that originates from sites that the engines know to be historically credible in the first place.

2.  Broken Link Building Is Not Efficient

For those of you new to broken link building, read Garrett French’s Link Building Outreach: 5 Steps To Maximize The Value Of Every Opportunity, and pay special attention to this paragraph.

Suggesting new, alternative page for now-dead links

Using a broken-link finding tool you may be lucky enough to discover a formerly valuable page of content that was widely linked, but has since gone dead, out of date or now contains only affiliate links. If this formerly useful page contained relevant content that your target market would find useful, it makes sense to research, rewrite and reach out to folks who linked to similar content.

Broken link building can be done brilliantly or comically bad. My website is ancient and hand edited, and filled with broken links. Even Xenu is sick of it.

As such, I receive several broken link alerts each month from well meaning folks eager to have me edit my broken links so they point to their site instead of the site that no longer exists. What a nice gesture. They want to help me keep my content useful. Except, they make a crucial kiss of death mistake right up front. They start their email as follows:

Dear Webmaster,

Delete. I’m not a webmaster, and my site is EricWard.com. My logo has my name in it. There’s a picture of me in the logo. For you to send me an email and start it out with “Dear Webmaster” means you have not visited my site. So, your credibility is now zero. Some even ask for anchor text.

On the other hand, I found a broken link on a University site created by a professor in the college of business. The broken link was to a site that was devoted to online publicity. I emailed him and introduced myself, and asked if I could send him a URL that contained my library of 200+ content publicity and link building posts.

He removed the dead link, and linked to my site. Again, it’s about execution.

3.  Links Will No Longer Be The Most Important Ranking Signal In 2013. It’s All About Social.

Absolutely moronic, and I have no insider information. I have gut instinct and 18+ years of searching.

Let me ask you a simple question. If you ran a search engine, wouldn’t you want to choose your results from a variety of signals instead of just one user generated signal? And wouldn’t you want to choose which signals were based on the searcher’s intent?

There are a great many searches I do only after I have logged out of Google. What social signals is Google going to use then?

Example Search done while logged out for demonstration purposes only.

If I log out of Google and do the search you see above, I’d really prefer that I remain anonymous during that process. I wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea about Link Moses.

I’m kidding with this example, but the larger point remains.  There are millions of searches that people conduct every day in private, or in a way that will not allow for certain signals to influence the results. So, while I do think links are becoming one of multiple “signals of salience”, as they were elegantly described by Amit Signhal in this fantastic article, they cannot go away. Links contain far too much goodness to ignore.

So, keep the linking myths coming. Send me a declarative statement about links and SEO that you heard or read, and let’s see if I can refute it.

The only reason I’m picking five is because it’s the day after Christmas, and if I had written about all 500 myths I wish would vanish, you would not be reading this. Five seems like a digestible number in a post-holiday haze, so grab an Eggnog and let’s get to them.

1.  Infographics Are Awesome For Link Building

Completely true and completely false, because they completely ignore the larger point. Any infographic that helps make a complex subject easier to understand, and which has been created by someone with some background in the subject and some artistic talent will have the chance to successfully attract links. Those links can, in fact, help your search rank as well as (and perhaps more importantly), click traffic.

Take a look at these examples. On the other hand, if all you do is take a block of text and use a pretty font, and add some clip art, then don’t expect much. You get back what you put into it. Like anything else, there are brilliant and there are terrible examples and executions. As a linking strategy, infographics are alive and well. For those that know how to do it properly.

2.  Infographics Are No Longer Effective For LinkBuilding

See above, and then look at this search result for link building infographics. It’s been effective for me now for over a year. And all I’m doing is curating.

Infographics – Are they a good link building tactic or not?  For me (Pinterest/LinkMoses/), they are working quite well

3.  Links Pages & Pages With Links.html Or Links.php Aren’t Trustworthy

This one has been around for so long it’s become almost impossible to change people’s minds, no matter how well constructed the argument.  So, rather than construct another argument , I present you with two link pages below.

Visit each one, then tell me if one of them is not helpful and if the other one is absolute gold for the right pursuing site.

Not all “links” pages are useless

Visit this page. Now visit this page.

There. Myth exploded. Links pages are not bad just because they are called links pages or because they have the letters l-i-n-k-s in their URLs. If that were the case, no company related to sustainability would pursue a link from the Harvard site above; and that, my friend, is just plain silly. The effective use of this search operator is all in the hands of the searcher.

4.  Inurl: Submit

The classic Google operator that allows you to potentially identify sites that accept submissions, because they also put the letters submit in the submission page URL.

The conventional wisdom (and I’ve heard this one at more than a few SEO conferences) is that any site that actively seeks submissions via a submission form is not likely to be very credible. Baloney. It’s all in the intent and credibility of the content owner curator. Again, I provide an example.

You can’t get much more credible than commarts. How did I find that page? Via this search: library best web picks inurl:submitsite

5.  Guest Blog Posts No Longer As Helpful As Before

Another knee-jerk reaction to a few webmaster videos and anecdotal results. But, put aside the empirical aspect of this. Forget what you think is measurable, and let’s go with common sense for a moment.

What separates an effective guest blog post from a useless one? Let’s start with the target blog. Is it a blog that has been around a while? What is the blog’s primary purpose? Is it comprised only of guest blog posts? What are the topics of the blog posts? Gambling, currency trading, Canadian pharmacies, electronic products, brothels? I’m kidding, but not really.

My dad used to tell me you are known by the company you keep, and this is true in the guest blog posting world as well. So, the way to use this tactic effectively is to think of it not as a mass shotgun approach, but a laser target approach. And that means a highly selective approach. I’ve heard some folks say that if a blog has the words “blog for us” or “be a guest blogger” that it means the site is worthless. This is another sub-myth of the guest blogging myth. Here’s an example.

As long as there have been SEOs or link builders making claims that come across as absolutes, I have argued vehemently that absolutes are a trap. You give me the topic and tactic, and I can find useful, or useless approaches. Call it link tactic profiling. Sadly, once a tactic gets labeled as worthless, it’s hard to fight that label.

This also represents a great opportunity for the forward-thinking link builder, because while others abandon a tactic they have incorrectly deemed as useless, you can deploy that tactic in a more nuanced and smarter way that will make it quite useful, indeed.

Have a good linking year!

I have a vivid memory of speaking at one of Danny’s conferences ages ago and telling the audience that the search engines had no mandate to freely give us marketers whatever linking data we wanted. That the link: operator was not a birthright, and that someday it would all go away. And, away it has gone (from Google, but FYI the little known engine DuckDuckGo.com supports link:). Have a look.

My Alma Mater Has 100X The Links Google’s link: Operator Shows

In the years since, a new industry niche grew, an industry of third-party data providers that aimed to provide that which the search engines no longer would: Extensive backlink data and metrics. Please let me state for the record that this column is not an indictment of these third-party services.

Whether it’s Majestic, OSE, ahrefs, or Blekko (which was a free secret link data weapon for many of us for a long time), the companies that take on the monumental task of creating a private crawl of the Web for the sake of providing competitive linking intelligence do a fantastic job. I use many of them, including my own private backlink data tools.

The trap is not the data itself.

The trap is in how you interpret the data and what strategic moves you make as a result.

Most linking data providers have a tiered fee structure for access to linking data, and rightfully so. There are significant costs involved in crawling the Web, extracting and storing key data (follow, PageRank, anchors, etc.), and maintaining historical data for clients that want to track such things over time. And, somewhere along the way, the various bits and pieces of collected backlink data turned into KPIs for link building related activities.

And, it’s in those KPIs where the traps can be found. What many of us forget is that no matter how good the linking data is from any third-party provider, it’s all still a proxy for Google. We use this proxy data because the search engines will not give us the exact thing we most want, which is the accurate linking data the search engines have.

So, in the absence of that, we are all dependent upon third party providers for data. Again, let’s be clear. These services provide an awesome service and I’m glad for the data they provide me.  But, here’s where that data can trap you.

Anchors Aweigh?

A year ago, if you were examining your backlink profile, and were comparing your site to your competitors using any of the third-party data providers, you might have looked at a signal such as anchor text; and, based upon seeing how a competitor had a larger number of exact match keyword anchor text links than you did, you may have decided to alter your strategy so as to close that gap.

Does This Mean I Win?

You built exact match keyword anchor text links to catch up to a competitor because according to the data you were looking at, that was a metric that stood out to you as a likely reason that competitor was outranking you. This all seems perfectly logical.

But, let’s look at what was going on behind the scenes during that same year. The search engines were busy devaluing anchor text links as a ranking signal. \

In other words, the very thing the proxy linking data was telling you you needed turned out to be completely wrong, but you couldn’t know that because the search engines don’t broadcast what they are devaluing beforehand, at least not in an overly obvious manner. We find out after the fact, usually in a panic because a site’s rankings have tanked.

An example of SearchEngineLand.com’s backlink profile

I use anchor text as one example, but you could just as easily use any of the many well-known metrics and still fall into the same trap. Follow/nofollow, TLD distribution, deep link ratio, the number of signals that can be measured borders on the absurd; yet, many people make strategic decisions based on the very signals Google may, in fact, be devaluing at the exact time you are pursuing them.

I’d love to tell you there is a perfect link profile that can be replicated across all sites, but there is no such thing, and no metrics, no matter how accurate, are going to answer for you the most important questions of all: what is it that Google is truly looking for, and how can you get it?

The answer to those questions may well indeed be found inside the mountain of data we can all access if we’re are willing to pay for it, and many of us are willing.

But, having the data and knowing what to do with it, especially in today’s world of continually changing signals, is where the real expertise is going to surface, and where we, as the linking strategists, are going to earn (or not) our keep.

I poke fun at myself but at the same time there are a few things that longevity is quite good for. First, I have seen just about every linking scheme ever created, whether by clients eager to get my opinion of them, by seeing them in a backlink analyses, or by being the recipient of a spam email trying to sell them to me.

Other advantages to linking longevity are being able to watch in real-time over time as the tools and techniques and strategies have changed. Getting to watch the search engines make changes to algorithms to both combat spam and improve result credibility.

Watching entire niche industries sprout up related to links, many of which are brilliant like this one, or downright moronic, (and I won’t link to them here, because there are just way too many).

Links Held Hostage?

With that backdrop, this past month I must admit I learned about a new linking related scam that I truly did not see coming. Links being held hostage.

I pride myself on knowing all things links. On knowing not just the obvious, but the arcane, the linking minutiae from the nooks and crannies that few people think about and which often ultimately help define success for clients.

But for the remainder of this column, I wanted to focus on alerting you to a scam that you may or may not have already been victimized by.

Link Removal Ransom Note

As a result of Google’s directive that webmasters make an effort to remove obviously spammy links (especially if you received the unnatural links warning), there are  companies that are creating link spam networks, putting links to your site on those networks, providing details for how to reach them by e-mail, and then waiting for you to come ask them to remove these obviously spammy links.

The catch? They want you to give them money to take down the links. Links that you never put there in the first place.

In other words, there’s a new link network in town, and your site has taken up residence in that town without you knowing it, and the only way for you to move out is to pay a fee to have the moving company remove you.

That’s a nice metaphor for what really amounts to links held hostage. Link extortion might be a better term.

Regardless, the point here is that as often happens, there are unintended consequences to SEO and linking related actions and search engine efforts to identify spammers. This new niche of having to pay a ransom to have a link removed is just one of them. There are others, just not quite as clever.

But Wait, Can’t Link Disavow Help Save The Links?

Another scenario might be best labeld the “Preemptive Disavow”. What’s a preemptive disavow? It’s where you tell Google you want to disavow links pointing at your site even though they don’t actually point/link to your site. It’s for protection just in case they ever do. While that sounds silly, I’ve been asked that exact question more times than you might imagine.

The logic behind it seems sound. If you know about a spammy site that has linked to other sites in your niche, and you are worried that it might link to you and try to seek a ransom to have that link removed, why not just disavow that site before it has the chance to hold you hostage? Brilliant, right? I’m not so sure.

To me, every minute of time you spend not improving the content experience of your site but instead on cleaning up a perceived link mess that may or may not exist is a waste.

To be clear, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t try to clean up legitimate link messes that you yourself know you created, like when you made that decision to buy 150 exact match anchor text links from that link broker. That’s an obvious problem, and you need to clean it up, or at least try.

If those sites now are demanding a fee, and calling it an “administrative removal fee”, then as much as I think that’s a bogus thing to do, it’s their prerogative to do so. And I’d never pay that fee. I’d disavow a link before I’d pay one red cent to have it removed, because whether you call it extortion or ransom or links held hostage, it’s just wrong.

Though it might have been wrong in the first place to buy those links, don’t financially reward those who sold them to you be giving them still more money to take them down. Disavow them. While you’re in the disavow mode, in your comments section on your disavow file, let Google know about the link ransom scam.

I’m making a plea here to all ethical linkers. Don’t let the link extortionists succeed. Together maybe this is one link scam we can stop before it gets too big to stop, and before unknowing small businesses and less savvy webmasters get taken for a ride.

If you haven’t read it, have a look: Google’s August & September Updates: Panda, Knowledge Graph, Page Quality & SafeSearch.

Google did what? OK, so now what do I do?

When Google announces changes, especially this many so close together, my hunch is the first thing some SEOs do (after eating a bottle of TUMs) is try and determine the extent to which various changes will impact their websites.

For example, if you’re a content creator, you probably look to see which of Google’s changes impact page specific issues.

If you’re a PPC strategist, you likely look for changes related to landing page issues. And if you’re a linking strategist like me, you look for the changes that could affect your existing and future approaches to link building.

There’s no shortage of “experts” who will try to give you answers. But answering these questions takes strong analytical skills and a fair amount of experience.  You can’t expect a new link builder to recognize every possible implication of every algorithm change. Having a blog and three clients doesn’t make you an expert.

At the same time, some of the best advice I read comes from people new to the field, and I also ignore plenty of advice that comes from people considered to be geniuses. I also ignore myself, frequently.

There are very few people with the experience and historical perspective (and results) to put together a solid strategic response to every algorithmic change. I’m comfortable advising on the linking strategy side of the street, but will readily admit that I don’t have a clue as to what the PPC implications, or banner Ad impact is for any given algorithmic tweak.

I stick to my core area and I know what I know, but more importantly, I know what what I don’t know. And I wont refute people in public because I feel there are more constructive ways to provide helpful information.

With that preamble, as a content linking strategist, when I read about changes made to search algorithms I use the below technique to determine just what, if anything I need to do about them.

I call it the “ACLSI” Response Plan. I call it that to myself. I’ve never mentioned it in public until today because this is really deep into the minutiae of what I do as a linking strategist. So go ahead, make fun of my OCD, but trust me when I say that having OCD has been a huge help to me as a link builder.

ACLSI – Algorithm Change Linking Strategy Implications

First, I take each change that’s been announced by the engines themselves, and I ask and (try to) answer the following four questions:

1. This algorithm change impacts my own on-site self links in what ways?
2. This algorithm change impacts my own on-site links to external sites in what ways?
3. This algorithm change impacts existing links from other sites pointing to my site in what ways?
4. This algorithm change impacts future linking strategies in what ways?

Here’s an example of what I mean using Barry’s article above as my framework. Below I take five of the 65 algorithm changes Google announced that I felt had implications for linking, and I answer my four linking implication questions for each change.

In other words, I take the specific Google change and apply it directly to link building, as follows.

How To Evaluate Google’s Announced Changes

Google said…

“We improved our web ranking to determine what pages are relevant for queries containing locations”.

Algorithm Change Linking Strategy Implications:

1. This algorithm change impacts my own on-site self links in what ways?

Do I have pages that are relevant for searches that are showing a geographic intent?  If so, do I need to make changes, or test changes to make sure I am providing geographic signals that Google could reward?

2. This algorithm change impacts my own on-site links to external sites in what ways?

This is a little more delicate.  We’d need to know more about the sites you are linking to. Do you own them, are they paid links, are they swapped or incentizized links?

3. This algorithm change impacts existing links from other sites pointing to my site in what ways?

If you want to reach searchers in specific geographic areas, you need to know if you have links pointing at your site (or should have) from pages with geographic content signals in those areas. If you don’t, well, I could spend a month on this one, but it involves what I call “Scoping A Local Link Universe”.

4. This algorithm change impacts future linking strategies in what ways?

If you don’t have links with geographic specific signals, a strategy to pursue them may be required. You may also consider seeking changes to pages that already link to you that my be missing geographic signals that should be included.

Google said…

“We changed to fewer results for some queries to show the most relevant results as quickly as possible”.

Algorithm Change Linking Strategy Implications:

1. This algorithm change impacts my own on-site self links in what ways?

Did pages from my site vanish from those results? If so, Google is telling you it does not find those pages to be relevant. If you feel they are relevant, you may need to modify your on-site linking structure and anchors.

2. This algorithm change impacts my own on-site links to external sites in what ways?

Very little if any impact.

3. This algorithm change impacts existing links from other sites pointing to my site in what ways?

Some impact on existing inbound links. While you might be tempted to seek changes from sites that are linking to you, this must be done with caution. A great example is when you go after existing links that did not contain anchor text and ask the site linking to you to add anchor text. That is often the very last thing I would recommend. It looks unnatural.

4. This algorithm change impacts future linking strategies in what ways?

If you were already pursuing highly credible links, the goal remains the same, and that goal is becoming a “most relevant result”. This could dictate a stronger content creation effort to ensure credible relevance signals are more likely to be earned.

Google said…

“This launch helped you find more high-quality content from trusted sites.”

Algorithm Change Linking Strategy Implications:

1. This algorithm change impacts my own on-site self links in what ways?

If your site already has pages ranking highly, you can likely assume it’s a “trusted site” as Google describes. If this algorithm change results in more of your pages ranking highly, I would not do a thing. If this algo change did not result in more of your pages ranking highly, I would suggest an on-site link architecture review might be worth it.

2. This algorithm change impacts my own on-site links to external sites in what ways?

Very little if any impact.

3. This algorithm change impacts existing links from other sites pointing to my site in what ways?

If you have already earned links to one of your pages from a credible source, should you consider seeking additional links from that same credible to other pages on your site? Could this give Google the signals it’s looking for to deem more of your pages as trusted?

4. This algorithm change impacts future linking strategies in what ways?

Which sites is Google showing multiple times throughout the top 100 results? Examine their back link profiles for tells. If Google likes them, there’s a reason. Find that reason via link analysis, and determine if it can be replicated, or mimicked and improved upon.

Google said…

“This change helped you find the latest content from a given site when two or more documents from the same domain are relevant for a given search query.”

Algorithm Change Linking Strategy Implications:

1. This algorithm change impacts my own on-site self links in what ways?

If Google wants to show the most recent content from your site, are you providing time/date of authorship signals that Google can identify?

2. This algorithm change impacts my own on-site links to external sites in what ways?

Very little if any impact,with caveat and a question: would inserting a link on an already existing page of your site to a recent news story about a relevant topic make your page more relevant to Google? Only testing could provide an answer to this one, and even if it works for one site, it might not work for all sites.

3. This algorithm change impacts links from other sites pointing to my site in what ways?

Very little if any impact on your exiting links.

4. This algorithm change impacts future linking strategies in what ways?

If you have multiple pages on your site that are about very similar topics, and if those pages also have multiple links pointing at them from other sites, you may want to take one of your similar pages and re-purpose its content so it focuses on a topic that’s less similar. I’ve done this myself with remarkable results. I used to have two different pages that contained similar content related to link bait. I changed the focus of one of the pages to be more about training and consulting, and now each page ranks highly for different queries.

Google said…

“We currently generate titles for PDFs (and other non-html docs) when converting the documents to HTML. These auto-generated titles are usually good, but this change made them better by looking at other signals.”

Algorithm Change Linking Strategy Implications:

1. This algorithm change impacts my own on-site self links in what ways?

How do you self-link to your own on-site PDF files?  How hard are they for you to find when you try to find them via a Google search?  Dependo9ng on your findings, you might test what I call the “HTML Wrapper” page approach, where you use a static HTML page that is optimized with title signals and contains a link to the associated PDF file/document.

2. This algorithm change impacts my own on-site links to external sites in what ways?

Very little if any impact.

3. This algorithm change impacts links from other sites pointing to my site in what ways?

Google mentions “other signals”. What would those be? If you were converting a PDF file to HTML, and had to place that HTML page in the search results, what signals could you use? What’s wrong with the original PDF title? Did it have a title? Are their links to the original document that could be better optimized to include useful title signals?

Do some searches using Google’s PDF filetype operator, click the “view as HTML” version, and note the title of the document. If Google changed it or seems to have made it up, try a search using the exact the exact title Google selected, enclosed in quotes. This may lead you to the signal source that Google used for the new title.

4. This algorithm change impacts future linking strategies in what ways?

Based on your findings from the research above, you may want to give greater thought to how you format PDF documents and metadata. Give Google what Google is telling you it wants.

Takeaways

The above examples are just a sample to show the process I go through as I try to parse algorithm changes and apply them to my own linking strategy consulting sessions with clients. The included examples are not exhaustive, nor am I advocating my recommended strategy changes would be appropriate for every site.

I provide this framework as a way top illustrate how I go about the process of developing strategies for content promotion and linking, in this case, to appeal to Google algorithm changes in ways that wont be violations of Quality Guidelines.

Lastly, while most clients are looking for answers to Penguins and Pandas, there are far more nuanced linking strategies that can result in organic improvement, and direct click traffic.

There have been many tools created to help manage the processes of link building content advocacy. Most of the tools are designed to help analyze backlinks, help pre-define link prospecting query strings,  provide some sort of page scoring, or identify a contact address. Some tools are costly, some are free. There have been many great write-ups about them, none better than Debra Mastaler’s Big Roundup of Link Building Tools.

Yet some of the simplest browser based link building tasks remain a real pain. Here are a couple free tools I couldn’t live without.

Send Tab URLs gives you a new menu option (Firefox)

Problem #1

You have been searching for target sites for an hour, and after opening and closing 112 URLs, you finally arrive at the point where you have 19 great target sites remaining, all open in 19 individual tabs on your browser.

Now what? I would like to take each tab’s title and URL and save them in a nice portable way so I can come back to them later, or share them with a colleague or client.

The Solution

I know you can always bookmark a set of tabs. But what if you want to do more with those URLs, like save them to your inbox or send them to someone? You may have read about Send Tabs in one of my previous posts, but I want to mention it again here because I continue to use it every day, and it’s a must-have.

For Firefox Users, go get the add-on Send Tab URLs. When you install this free add-on, Send Tabs adds a menu option on Firefox’s File menu that says “Send Tab URLs” (see figure).

Whether you have 5 or 50 tabs open, clicking the Send Tab URLs option will pull up a dialog that will let you do a number of things with all those tabs.

It captures just the title tag and the URL, and one of your options is to email yourself the list of them. I email them to myself, and then I save those emails in a project folder. If you want to get even fancier, take a look at Copy URLs Expert.

For Chrome users, you can install Export Tabs (also free) and accomplish the exact same thing. With as much target site prospecting we all have to do, this incredibly simple add-on is a huge time saver. I’m baffled that browsers that allow for tabbed browsing do not have this functionality built in.

For IE users, I cannot find an add-on that does the same thing. If you know of one, please drop a link to it in the comments.

Bonus Solution just for Chrome users: If you have a long list of URLs in an email or spreadsheet or Word or Google doc, and you need to open all of those URLs, Export Tabs will allow you to copy/paste a list of URLs and then open them all in individual tabs for you.

Problem #2

You have found what looks like a fantastic page of resources/links, and you need to click on each of them to check them out and vet further.

Draw a rectangle around links and open them in new tabs

The Solution

Yes, you could CTRL-click or just right-mouse-click-open over and over. A better (and free solution) is to try Multi-Links for Firefox. Multi Links lets you open, copy and/or bookmark multiple links on a webpage at the same time rather than having to open them each individually. You do this by drawing a rectangle with your mouse around the links you want to open.

For Chrome users, give Linkclump a try. As with Multi-Links, Linkclump gives Chrome users the ability to drag a selection box around links using your mouse and then open them as new tabs, in new window, save as bookmarks, or copy to clipboard.

There are many other remarkably useful task oriented add-ons that can be helpful to link builders. I try to spend time every month looking through the add-on galleries for each browser to see what’s new.

Below are the gallery links if you’d like to check them out.

• Firefox Add-ons – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/
• Chrome Productivity Add-ons – https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/app/7-productivity
• IE Gallery Add-ons – http://www.iegallery.com/Addons

It's not too late to escape link building prison

It’s been a long, painful Spring and Summer for a lot of websites and link builders. I took a month away from it all for personal reasons, but I did conduct a couple linking strategy training sessions, and kept on top of things via my iPad.

In this time, I read a few hundred posts about Panda’s and Penguin updates, unnatural link warnings, freaked out Web marketers, and noted a general consensus that the Summer of 2012 is when the scales finally tipped the other way and Google officially became the enemy.

Link building is now the absolute most loathed job on the SEO foodchain.

And of course I disagree completely.

I’m in the camp that wonders why it took so long to stop trusting anchor text so much. Exact match domains?  Stupid signal. Blog networks and sitewides? I can spot those without my glasses or an algorithm and I was a C student. Scraped content? Man, people have been scraping my articles since before my hair started turning gray.

In every way and with every change, small or large, everything that has come to pass over the past year and culminating this Summer was destined to happen, and as much as I know this angers a lot of people, many of us have been telling you what was coming for years.

Danny Sullivan’s Oscar worthy rant about links and his subsequent post Link Building Means Earning “Hard Links” Not “Easy Links” was for me an epic moment in the history of our still young industry.

Danny summed up what so many of us have been screaming at link chasers forever, but with the magnitude of his audience and the humor and eloquence he displayed during a remarkable extemporaneous speech, he can reach so many more of you than we can. Please, if you haven’t listened to the audio and read his post above, do yourself a favor and do so.

Doing What Works

I understand it’s hard to make a change when what you are doing is working. You had high rankings based on a manipulated linking strategy all along and you knew it, and you also knew Google was getting smarter and smarter, but you did nothing or as little as possible to prepare for the slaughter.

Why not? My hunch is because you hoped the slaughter would spare you. You convinced yourself what you were doing was fine. You weren’t like those “other” guys.

There’s been no shortage of warnings. Now Is The Winter of Linking’s Discontent and Don’t Blame Google For Your Own Linking Failures are both four years old. Part of me does sit back in my chair with a bit of smug content and wonder why more people didn’t listen.

But rather than write a manifesto (and I’ve been tempted) about what your linking strategies should be today, I would like to try and do something that will in some small way distill down all the anger, resentment, confusion, he said/they said, we said into something that I think turns the now vast sea of link building bullshi* in a two single drops of truth.

Drop #1:

Outside of content creation for your own site, everything you’ve done to create links that would help you rank higher at Google is a form of manipulation. You were simply hoping the form of manipulation you were using would not be discovered and discounted.

Drop #2:

 Any link you could obtain without there being a layer of quality control, selection, or curation between you and that link was a link that could not be trusted, and you knew it.

I have no doubt people will fight me on these two drops of truth, but I’ll stand by them. There’s still plenty of room for bonafide linking strategies for sites with worthy linkable assets that are willing to pursue them. I think it’s time you stop acting like you have been screwed over by what’s happened and is still happening, and move forward.

There are many of us in our field taking brand new sites to great heights, both in rank and click traffic, developing unique linking strategies that are custom designed just for the sites we are working with. It’s time to break free of  your self imposed link prison.

It’s time to create something real about something you are passionate about.

Let the right people know what you created and why.

Watch it work.

Just like it always has.