Quality Links Not Quantity
Where Have All The Quality Links Gone
Google have spoken about their policy of ranking websites that exhibit authority and high page rank. They have produced a toolbar option, the sidewiki for users to add relevant content to the search engine. During the Vince and caffeine updates, it was an opportunity to monitor traffic to my sites in other search engines. With Facebook getting a limited integration with Bing, there is a potential for quality links from facebook.
Linkbuilding is becoming less effective, so I am improving my page rank through article submissions with optimised titles and keywords littered throughout. Articles and press releases, if carefully constructed give some quality links. Similarily, directory submissions are still an active part of my SEO, and along with the articles, they have to be submitted to high page rank sites only.
Is it worth building directories anymore?
I’m sure you are all aware of the most recent Google update that took ages , maybe because of all the Google caffeine integrations. I was quite happy that my blogs got updated and i finally got a page rank on one of my blogs but i have been questioning the use of directories lately. As every SEO i have done quite a lot of link building in my time and i still do as i believe link building is a great way to rank for terms and keywords in Google and to drive loads of traffic to a your website. Link building to me means building a variety of links that will contribute to the required result in Google. These links good be directories, blogs, article submissions, blog commenting and some other types. I’m quite skeptical about the use of directories these days, it seems Google is punishing all the spam directories and in general devaluing all the directories. I had a list that i made about 6 months ago that listed ( The directory name, the url and the page rank) I went and checked the page rank of the directories after the recent update and most of the directories where significantly devalued, some of them went from page rank 5 to page rank 1 or zero, which is a disaster, for them anyway.
I also noticed that most of the directories that got devalued were the spammy directories, most of the good directories remained the same (page rank wise) or got devalued a bit. I personally believe that some directories are worth submitting to, but the majority of them are significantly devalued and if you are linking to them it might have negative effects for your website too. I’m still going to build directory links however i will differentiate the good links from the bad quality ones. I still think the best way to got about link building is to use a variety of links, we just have to watch from now on ,and not submit thousands of links to random directories as it will most probably have a negative effect!
Ari
There’ll Be No Cheating on My Watch
Affiliates and merchants have a bit of a mutual agreement that they must always moan about each other. One for how little the other does to help it and the other because they believe there’s some sneaky behaviour taking place.
Now, we all know there are a few affiliates out there who – while driving many genuine sales – have one or two little tricks up their sleeves to claim a few additional sales that they didn’t work very hard to generate.
It’s very annoying and can leave the merchant in a bit of a dilemma – do you continue to work with the affiliate because of the hit you’ll take in affiliate sales or do you take a moral stance and strike them off your list (or at least threaten to if they don’t change their ways) giving your affiliates who genuinely drive quality traffic and sales the opportunity to claim a bigger stake in your programme?
Save the channel from cheating affiliates
I’m a firm believer that all affiliates who ask to be on a programme should make the effort to promote the brand. Don’t ask if you don’t want to do it or are going to cheat your way through it! I’m very firm in my belief and won’t stand for other affiliates losing out because of a few individuals who want to make an easy buck.
That said I can’t, unfortunately, overrule my clients decision to keep an affiliate on the programme – only advise the client and make affiliates aware that I’m fully aware of what they’re doing and will start to refuse those commissions where I can prove they’re cheating!
I do fully believe in the power of affiliates – I wouldn’t be an affiliate manager otherwise – but I’m also aware that like every other industry there are a few bad eggs and I will do everything in my power to weed them out and make them known.
Welcome To ChannelFreakers
Welcome to ChannelFreakers, we are warming up our blogging fingers. More posts to come.