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Unnatural linking methods can get your site banned

An artificial link structure is a way of linking websites together in a method designed purely with the aim of getting higher search engine rankings.

A few years ago, artificial link structures were popular and successful.

I interviewed a webmaster who owned a cluster of 20 or 30 sites all about different kinds of posters. The sites were linked together using multiple links.

The sites ranked well and he was earning about $5,000 a month in affiliate commissions.

Unfortunately for him, those golden days didn’t last. Eventually, all the sites in the cluster were penalized by Google. I don’t think any of those sites exist any more.

These days, the search engines are smarter. Excessive crosslinking is likely to get your sites penalized by Google and especially by Yahoo!, which is stricter than Google.

Some affiliates now do tricky things such as getting domains registered around the world in the names of friends and relatives, so that their artificial link structures are not obvious.

For long-term success, build a genuinely useful, interesting website that people WANT to link to. If you do that, you’ll automatically have a natural link structure. Here are some other factors which seem to ring alarm bells, and what to do about them:

• Having a large percentage of reciprocal links could ring alarm bells. Good, popular sites have lots of one-way links. Try to get one-way links to your site, for example, by writing articles for other sites. In my experience, reciprocal links are still very helpful, but make sure they’re not your only linking strategy.
• Having identical anchor text on all links to your site looks artificial. When sites link to you, try to persuade them to use a variety of key phrases in the anchor text (the words people click on). One way to do this is to provide the HTML code for them to paste into their sites.
• Sudden huge increases in backlinks (inbound links) look artificial. People doing something unusual get huge surges in links. Get links to your site steadily, a few at a time, in a natural way.
•  Links to “link farms” are dangerous. Link farms create pages of links which are cut and pasted into large clusters of sites. To search engines, these are “bad neighborhoods”. Also, it’s not a good idea to link to sites which have huge directories indiscriminately linking to anyone. Link to good, useful sites related to your topic.
• It’s possible that getting lots of site-wide links could cause you trouble. “Site-wide links” are links which appear on all pages of a site, linking to your site. That’s an unnatural pattern, but probably less harmful than some of the other factors. A wonderfully generous man is linking to this site from more than 2,000 pages on his site. You probably want to avoid having a large number of friends who do that.

If all this seems terribly complicated, take heart from the fact that the search engines’ ultimate goal is to deliver good search results. Build a useful, interesting, high-quality site and you’ve taken a huge leap in the direction of search engine success.

Excessive crosslinking an expensive mistake

Crosslinking means linking websites you own together.

Crosslinking is acceptable to search engines. Excessive crosslinking is not.

If you link in a logical, sensible way, crosslinking is accepted by search engines.

For example, in an article about purple widgets you could link to a site you own that is all about purple widgets.

Excessive crosslinking means linking sites you own together in multiple ways and doing it so much than you attract a penalty from a search engine. Both Google and Yahoo! warn you against excessive crosslinking.

This site was penalized for excessive crosslinking.

I hope the following story will help other sites that have been penalized.

Getting a Yahoo! penalty lifted

In mid-2005, after a long wait, Yahoo! lifted its penalty on AssociatePrograms.com.

Because Yahoo! never explained what I did wrong and what I did right, some of the following story is guesswork. That’s the way things often are in search engine optimization.

I linked three of my sites together. That helped my visitors and helped me. I added a few more links, and a few more, and then dozens of links. Things went well for many months.

I added more links, and Yahoo! penalized me. Google didn’t.

As far as I was concerned, there were good reasons for the links. I guess Yahoo! didn’t see things my way.

For ages, while the site remained in the Yahoo! directory, it was nowhere to be found in the Yahoo! search index.

Then for a while a search at Yahoo! for…

url:http://www.associateprograms.com

…revealed that AssociatePrograms.com WAS in the search index.

However, being there didn’t do me any good, because none of my pages was showing up in any Yahoo! searches, in spite of having No.1 and No.2 rankings in Google. I was obviously being penalized.

Here are the steps I took to get the Yahoo! penalty lifted…

I checked the Yahoo! guidelines

I went to http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/deletions/deletions-05.html and checked the Yahoo! quality guidelines carefully to ensure I wasn’t breaking any of their rules.

I removed almost all the crosslinks among the sites I owned.

I tried the Yahoo! feedback form

If you do a search at Yahoo! and scroll down to the bottom of the page you’ll see this:

“Help us improve your search experience,” and a link that says: “Send us feedback.”

So I clicked on the link and wrote a polite message in the contact form saying AssociatePrograms.com pages were not showing up in the search results, although they were being found in Google.

I waited several months. Nothing happened.

I wrote a polite email

I hunted around the Internet for helpful articles and at WebmasterWorld.com I found an email address…

webmasterworldfeedback AT yahoo DOT com

I wrote to that address and asked for a review.

I won’t tell you word-for-word what I wrote, because I don’t want Yahoo! to receive dozens of emails that look exactly the same.

Explaining that my site appeared to have been penalized by the Yahoo! search engine, I said that the only possible reason I could think of was excessive crosslinking.

I explained that I respect search engines and see them as my friends, so I’d removed nearly all of the links between AssociatePrograms.com and other sites I own.

After deciding that it might be easier to get ONE ban lifted, rather than multiple bans, I mentioned only AssociatePrograms.com.

I wanted to give Yahoo! a strong reason for replacing my site in its search index, so I wrote…

“AssociatePrograms.com has been a respected directory of affiliate programs ever since it was launched in 1998.

“It has ranked highly in Google for years, so if it is not found in Yahoo! that reduces the effectiveness of your search engine.”

I didn’t expect it to make any difference, but I also mentioned that I’d been buying advertising on Yahoo! for several years.

I said I’d done my best to co-operate, and repeated my request for a review.

I waited, and waited

I’d been warned that I’d have to be patient. Getting a review can take weeks.

However, it was only after waiting four months that the site reappeared in Yahoo!’s search index. It looks as though I’ve been forgiven.

I can’t say for certain that my email did the trick.

However, the site I mentioned in the email is no longer penalized.

Of the other two sites, one has been freed from the penalty and is ranking well in Yahoo! but the other still appears to be heavily penalized.

Is your site in the Yahoo! search index?

To see if your site or page is listed in the Yahoo! search index, Yahoo! advises you to enter an identifiable phrase (5-10 words) in quotes, that matches the title or text on the web page you are looking for into the Yahoo! search box at: http://search.yahoo.com.

“If your site appears in the results, it’s listed in the Yahoo! Search Index, and you don’t need to complete a feedback form as your request will not be processed,” Yahoo! says.

If your site was once in the index and is currently not found in a unique phrase search, and you feel that site is in full compliance with the Yahoo! Content Quality Guidelines, you can inquire about your site’s status by completing the following form: http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/ysearch/cgi_urlstatus

If that doesn’t get you anywhere and you’ve waited several weeks after fixing everything wrong with your site, you can try this Second Review Request form:

http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/ysearch/cgi_rereview

I’m trying to get another penalty lifted

What if your site IS in the search index but is obviously being penalized? Yahoo! doesn’t really tell you, except to direct you to its Quality Content Guidelines.

At the bottom of that page, Yahoo! asks: “Is this enough information?”

I’ve clicked on “No” and told Yahoo! that another of my sites IS in the search index but is obviously being penalized (because of my past excessive crosslinking, I assume). I’ve politely asked for a review. Now I’m waiting to see what happens. I’ve been waiting a long time.

I’ll update this article if there’s any news.

If your site is being penalized by Yahoo!, I hope this helps.

Good luck!

Google bombing works at MSN and Yahoo!

Google bombing is endeavoring to get a web page ranked highly for a phrase by persuading websites to link to the page using the phrase as the words in the link.

Adam Mathes apparently invented the practise in 2001. He persuaded blog owners to link to a friend’s site using the phrase “talentless hack”.

Here’s another example. If you type the phrase “miserable failure” into Google, you may see George W. Bush’s biography as the first entry on the search results page.

The technique works because Google places a lot of importance on “anchor text”, the clickable words in a link.

You can use this fact to help your pages rank highly in search engines. When asking other sites to link to you, provide them with a snippet of HTML code to paste into their pages. With any luck, they’ll use it unchanged.

However, don’t make the anchor text exactly the same in all links. To search engines, that would look like an artificial link structure.

Google bombing works at MSN and Yahoo!

I’ve just checked. If you type “miserable failure” into the search box at Google, Yahoo! and MSN today, the Bush biography is the No.1 ranking site on all three major search engines.

This was true when I tested it in February 2005 and again in December 2005.

So choosing your anchor text carefully is still very important for all three main search engines.

2007 Update

In January, 2007, Google wrote an algorithm which reduced the impact of many prank Google bombs, where people linked to pages which did not contain the phrase used in the links. So when linking to any page, always use relevant phrases.

One-way links: Why you need them and how to get them

One-way links are links to your site from sites which do not receive a link from your site.

They send a powerful message to the search engines - that your website is so valuable or interesting or useful that other sites want to tell people about it.

One-way links are wonderful things to have because they increase your link popularity - the number of pages linking to your site. Search engines such as Google place huge importance on link popularity when ranking your site.

You can also receive direct traffic to your site from people who click on the links.

All links to your site are good, but where possible always aim for topic-related links.

Late in 2005, Matt Cutts of Google made it plain in his blog that Google frowns upon sites which “overdo” reciprocal links. Heed his warning and try to make as many of your links as possible one-way links.

Ways to get one-way links

• Create a useful, interesting web site and other sites will naturally link to it. The vast majority of the thousands of links to THIS site were not requested.
• Submit your site to major directories, such as Yahoo! and DMOZ.org, in the appropriate category.
• Write articles and submit them to newsletters which are then archived online.
• Hunt for sites that complement yours and ask them to publish your articles.
• Submit brief, useful hints to newsletters for the same reason.
• Submit articles to article directories.
• Publish articles on your site and invite other sites to publish them on their sites, with a link to you.
• Write testimonials for products you love. Companies often post testimonials on their site with a link to the submitting site. Joe Vitale has taken this tactic to extraordinary lengths. For examples, trying doing a search on Google for “joe vitale +testimonial”.
• Participate helpfully in forums which allow a text link to your site in a signature. Read the forum instructions first, or you risk making an ass of yourself.
• Consider buying text link ads on other sites, for example from Linkadage or Text Link Ads. (Remember that Matt Cutts has written unfavorably about buying links.) Better still, arrange for articles to be published on other sites with a link to your site in them. You may have to use some innovative thinking to achieve this. The results make the effort worth while.
• Buy ads in newsletters on your topic which are archived online.
• Locate industry-specific directories and submit your site to them. For example, if your site is on a health topic, look for health-related directories.
• Give away free ebooks and white papers that contain links to your site.
• Create simple web-based free software. Tell other sites, newsletters and forums about it and ask for a link to it.
• Create downloadable software which contains links to your site.
• Get listed in business directories.
• Create a blog and get it listed in blog directories.
• Join business associations which list their members’ sites online.
• Write regular news releases and submit them to topic-related web sites and Internet news wires such as PRWeb and Business Wire.
• Make arrangements for other sites to archive your newsletters on their sites.
• Get your white papers published on other web sites.
• Submit your free ebooks to ebook directories.
• Submit your downloadable software to software directories, such as Download.com
• Locate a popular site in your niche which would appreciate having you as a regular columnist. Write tips, lively commentary, product reviews, or whatever topics suit your niche.
• Syndicate your material to other sites. Create a content syndication feed (RSS feed) and include a link to your site. Use PHP rather than Javascript to ensure search engines parse your headings and links.
• Do something funny or outrageous or brilliant and people will link to your site without being asked.
• Use gimmicks. If people see something odd on a website, they’ll often tell other people about it. You can also alert newsletter publishers and suggest they mention your gimmick in their newsletter. For example, Jim Crawford tells us how to make a sound play with a mouseover.

Reciprocal links help you in two ways

Reciprocal links are arranged when two web sites agree to link to each other.

Reciprocal links are also known as “link swaps”, “link exchanges” and “link partners”.

A common misspelling is “reciprical links”.

Reciprocal links help you in two ways:

1. They increase your web site traffic, from people who click on the links.

2. Reciprocal links also play a major role in boosting your rankings in search engines.

Warning: Late in 2005, Google’s Matt Cutts made it clear that it’s possible to “overdo” reciprocal links. Getting good, solid, reciprocal links should be part of your links strategy, not your total marketing strategy.

When ranking sites, the major search engines take into account the number and quality of the sites that link to you.

Persuading good quality, relevant sites to link to you can be tedious, time-consuming and frustrating. Here are some tips to increase your chances of success.

One way to find link partners is to do searches in major search engines such as Google and Yahoo! to find sites which complement yours but are not direct competitors.

Many sites also link to direct competitors, figuring that the benefits outweigh any disadvantages.

Examine their links pages

A refinement of this strategy is to visit your competitors’ sites and complementary sites and examine their links pages or resources pages.

The sites you’ll find there are potential reciprocal links partners. They should be linking to you.

Now visit THEIR links pages and examine them, and so on down the chain.

You should end up with a long list of good sites with which to exchange links.

How to set up reciprocal links

• Find GOOD QUALITY, complementary sites.
• Place a link to them on your site.
• Only AFTER you’ve placed a link to them, email the owner of the site a short, friendly note. Address him or her by name. (If the name isn’t on the site, you may be able to find it at www.whois.sc)
• Genuinely praise something on the site. If you can’t find something worth praising, delete the site from your list.
• Tell the web site owner you’ve linked to their site, giving them the URL of the page where you’ve place your link.
• Ask for a link back to your site, suggesting a page where the link would be appropriate.
• Three weeks later, if there’s been no reply, send a brief, polite reminder. It’s easy for emails to be lost or overlooked.
• Use the phone and/or snail mail. A link from a good site is a very valuable thing. If you can’t get noticed by email, consider trying a phone call or posting a letter. They’re more expensive but also more likely to attract the answer you want.
• Keep an alphabetical record of sites you’ve linked to and requested links from. You need to know who you’ve contacted and who you haven’t.

Want links from pages with high PageRank?

To boost their PageRank, some webmasters concentrate on getting links only from sites that have high PageRank. (If we all did this, no new site would ever get reciprocal links.)

If you want to try this approach, PRsearch is a useful free search tool to use. It gives you Google search results PLUS PageRank.

You type in a key phrase and can quickly see the PageRank of pages optimized for that phrase.

You can also click on the number beside the words “inbound links” and you may find more sites with high PageRank.

Really serious ways of getting links

You can arrange newsletter article exchanges with other newsletter publishers in your niche, preferably with newsletters which are archived online.

Some webmasters also arrange “article swaps”. You write an article to be published on their website and they write an article for your site. This gives you an in-context link, which is much more effective than a mere link on a links page.

Reciprocal links websites

You can search in Google for link exchange websites which publish directories of website owners who actively exchange links with each other. As a general rule, the easier and more automated link exchanging is, the more risky it is that you’ll be doing something which the search engines don’t like. You don’t, for example, want to get involved in link farms which link to totally unrelated websites.

A topic most SEOs already know, but it is nice to have confirmation from Google. A Google Groups thread has Googlers responding to a Webmaster who’s site dropped from a PageRank 4 to a PageRank of 0. It appears this site saw a drop in PageRank, but not a drop in rankings, because it has done Paid Review posts without a disclaimer, said Google.

Anyhow, I would just move all the paid posts to a category “paid reviews”, add a disclaimer to each saying, this is a paid review, then nofollow the link to the company to not share any pagerank.

Then when one member suggested complying with Google’s recommendation and then submitting a reinclusion request, Google said not to bother.

Excuse me, but what reason do you see to file for reconsideration? I already see nofollows in there and the site appears to be doing fine. Not seeing PR does not mean a penalty.

So all the PageRank reductions, most without any traffic drops means those sites were not penalized. If you read the thread carefully, you will notice how the Googler keeps sharing how well the site ranks and that PageRank, in this case, is not an important factor.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Clarification: Admin Aaron is not a Google admin. Google did recommend sending a reinclusion request in this case. Google did not say it was a penalty, but they did not say it was a penalty. In either case, the site ranks incredibly well with a PR0. Sorry for the mis-information, I am still under the weather.

Every so often, search engine marketers are reminded that they are at the mercy of much larger powers within the online ecosystem. The recent update to Google’s PageRank has proven to be one of those moments.

PageRank, a propriety aspect of Google’s algorithm, is defined as a system for ranking Web pages that “relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the Web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value.” The firm’s Web site specifies that “votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.”

As a result, a gray market for links from sites with strong PageRank has emerged, much to Google’s chagrin. Those who continuously eye such details, including the search consultants of SEOmoz, have noticed that even the most reputable of all sites have experienced a drop in home page PageRank. On October 24, the firm assessed 32,856 domains to reveal that none had gained PageRank and 1,264 experienced a drop in PageRank. Furthermore, the five biggest losers had implemented paid links. The firm replicated the assessment on October 29, to find that 5,499 pages gained and 9,527 pages experienced a drop.

For Roman Godzich, SVP of Smooth Fitness, the PageRank update was a good thing.

“Google was getting too polluted,” he said. “I had noticed that a competitor had achieved the first organic position for no obvious reason other than the fact that they had 60,000 inbound links from irrelevant sites.”

As for the site he manages, it has only experienced a drop in PageRank, and not a drop in traffic.

On the other side of the argument sits Keith Levenson, whose stable of sites includes creditcards.net. He sees the Google update as unfair, making an analogy with Google’s advertising products being, in fact, paid links.

Regardless of where one stands on the issue, there is one point of agreement: There are more changes to come.

While Matt Cutts, Google’s unofficial SEO blogger, has not published any comments, he did e-mail this statement in late October to online blog Search Engine Journal, “The partial update to visible PageRank that went out a few days ago was primarily regarding PageRank selling and the forward links of sites. So paid links that pass PageRank would affect our opinion of a site. Going forward, I expect that Google will be looking at additional sites that appear to be buying or selling PageRank.”

Enter just the word http for your search to find the top 1000 PageRanked sites.

Enter only www in your search to see how Google ranks the top 1,000 sites.

Manually type the following prefixes and note their utility:

link:url Shows other pages with links to that url.

related:url same as “what’s related” on serps.

site:domain restricts search results to the given domain.

allinurl: shows only pages with all terms in the url.

inurl: like allinurl, but only for the next query word.

allintitle: shows only results with terms in title.

intitle: similar to allintitle, but only for the next word. “intitle:seoforgoogle google” finds only pages with seoforgoogle in the title, and google anywhere on the page.

cache:url will show the Google version of the passed url.

info:url will show a page containing links to related searches, backlinks, and pages containing the url. This is the same as typing the url into the search box.

spell: will spell check your query and search for it.

stocks: will lookup the search query in a stock index.

filetype: will restrict searches to that filetype. “-filetype:pdf” to remove Adobe PDF files.

daterange: is supported in Julian date format only. 2452384 is an example of a Julian date.

maps: If you enter a street address, a link to Yahoo Maps and to MapBlast will be presented.

phone: enter anything that looks like a phone number to have a name and address displayed. Same is true for something that looks like an address (include a name and zip code)

site:www.somesite.net “+www.somesite.+net” - (tells you how many pages of your site are indexed by google)

allintext: searches only within text of pages, but not in the links or page title

allinlinks: searches only within links, not text or title