Alexa Rank and Linking from Article sites.
-
We are creating unique content and submitting our articles to article sites. I have some questions about the best way to go about this.
1. We are being very careful to create unique content for each submission - so we are not submitting the same article to multiple sites. Each submission is unique, so 1 article per 1 article directory.
2. When I did my research about these article sites at Alexa.com, I noticed that a lot of the article sites are ranking very well globally, but that a lot of them are #1 in Alexa for India. They are still ranked for other countries with very top ranking, for example, they may 9,000 Alexa rank in India and then 18,000 in the U.S. which is still very high.
3. We are trying to reach U.S. customers mostly, so I am wondering if we are still getting value by linking to these sites who have global reach (even though they are ranked best for India).
I would think that this is very beneficial still, but I didn't want to get the wrong kind of traffic by getting links from sites that are primarily getting their traffic from India, even though they are also getting tons of traffic from the U.S. - I am assuming this is OK because a 18,000 or 19,000 Alexa Rank in the U.S. is still excellent and I will benefit by this. But I wanted to be sure.
Feedback?
-
Why wouldn't you submit to multiple high ranking content directories sites? If a few pick you up great....
Are you worried of a dupe content penalty? Are you using C tags to avoid this?
-
Hi, James, that's what most people are telling me about Alexa. But I still have not had a single answer about the India question which was my main concern. thank you.
-
thanks for the input. I agree it's a good method. why I think there has been debate also is that people usually submit the same article to hundreds of sites or dozens of sites. Someone alerted me to the fact that it's better to write 1 unique article per site and not to submit it elsewhere. that seems to be working so far, because it's good original content.
-
Alexa is not the best way to track a website, it only looks at people who use the alexa tool bar, it is evident that many indian webmasters are using it.
I would look at OSE data for the domain, PR, how many pages and most importantly check out other articles on the site too see the pages it is going on...
-
Got ya. I misunderstood from the original post. In that case, there's nothing wrong with what you're doing, and it's a fairly popular method for building links (although there's a bit of an ongoing debate about using this method).
Best of luck!
-
I'm just looking to increase search rankings in this instance. I'm doing so by providing quality and unique content to article sites with a link back to our site.
-
Yes, it is compatible with both Firefox and Chrome. You can find it here: http://www.seomoz.org/seo-toolbar
I'm not sure we're distinguishing between traffic from the article sites and traffic from Google search. Are you looking to bring visitors directly from the article sites or are you looking to increase your search rankings?
-
Thanks for the info, Julie. I'll look into MozRank - but the question remains in terms of sites that have strong traffic from countries like India. Is it bad to get links from these sites even if they also rank in the U.S.? My experience has shown that these sites have so far helped, since they have strong presence globally, even if the majority is from India, they also seem to have strong share in other countries as well. Any thoughts on that?
-
Jeffrey,
Thanks for the suggestion. Where do I get the Mozrank extension and does it work w/ Firefox?
What is wrong with article sites if they have PR4-7 and the content submitted is unique? We are seeing tangible results so far. We also do daily blogs and content on our own site.
-
Jeffrey,
Thanks for the suggestion. Where do I get the Mozrank extension and does it work w/ Firefox?
What is wrong with article sites if they have PR4-7 and the content submitted is unique? We are seeing tangible results so far. We also do daily blogs and content on our own site.
-
I would not use Alexa as your basis for evaluating site strength -- in my experience Alexa numbers are not only wildly innacurate, they're not even useful qualitatively. For example, one site I own gets about 17k visits per day. It has an alexa rank of 33,000 in the US. Another site I work on gets about 100 visits per day. It has an alexa rank of 32,000.
The two sites are miles apart, but Alexa not only doesn't see that, but actually misjudges which is more popular. This is true again and again with Alexa rankings. I imagine the problem is with the incredibly small sample set of toolbars users, combined with the fact that there's probably some niche bias among the users.
MozRank or MozTrust are both far better metrics for the SEO benefit of a link (as is just searching for various keywords and seeing if the directory actually ranks -- which I'll bet it doesn't, being an article directory). I haven't yet seen a good 3rd party source for the actual traffic of a site.
-
Have you considered using the Mozrank instead of Alexa? This might be a better metric, plus it's easy to see if you use the MozBar extension for your browser. I definitely recommend this instead if you're attempt to obtain links for SEO value on any site (not just limited to article sites).
I'm not sure I would recommend article marketing for traffic like you're going after. Creating great content on your own site or guest posting on related industry blogs will almost certainly be a better strategy than submitting to general article sites.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Baidu Webmaster Tools: How to setup in "Site Properties" the field "Affiliate subject"?
Hi ,
International SEO | | lcourse
finally I managed to setup my site in Baidu Webmaster Tools with the help of a freelance staff member in China. Site is verified and sitemap submitted. In section "Site Properties", field "Affiliate subject" I can't figure out after extensive search what I need to setup here for a foreign company without any presence and without company registration in China. Anybody can help? When I click on this field, it indicates "Site association subject is a necessary link for mobile resources to enter search." so my site will not show up in mobile results without it? Grateful for any tips on how to resolve this piece of puzzle of the baidu setup.
Thanks0 -
Comprehensive KW Ranking Database for Canada - better than SEMRush?
Is anyone familiar with other tools like SEMRush for competitor research in Canada to see what sites are currently ranking for? I'm not sure that SEMRush has the most comprehensive database for Canada and I'm looking for THE tool in Canada. Thanks!
International SEO | | accpar0 -
Can you target the same site with multiple country HREFlang entries?
Hi, I have a question regarding the country targeting aspect of HREFLANG. Can the same site be targeted with multiple country HREFlang entries? Example: A global company has an English South African site (geotargeted in webmaster tools to South Africa), with a hreflang entry targeted to "en-za", to signify English language and South Africa as the country. Could you add entries to the same site to target other English speaking South African countries? Entries would look something like this: (cd = Congo, a completely random example) etc... Since you can only geo-target a site to one country in WMT would this be a viable option? Thanks in advance for any help! Vince
International SEO | | SimonByrneIFS0 -
How to handle rel canonical on secondary TLD's - multi regional sites.
I currently have a .com domain which I am think of duplicating the content on to another tld, CO.UK (and regionalize some aspects like contact numbers etc). From my research, it seems that in gwt you must then indicate which country you wish to target, in the co.uk case the UK. My question is how should I handle rel canonical in the duplicated site. should it rel canonical back to the .com or the co.uk? Any other pointers would also be appreciated. Thx
International SEO | | dmccarthy0 -
Improving Search Rankings in other Countries for an existing site
Hello SEOmoz, I have a very well respected international client who ranks high in the US and for English language Google search results worldwide. However, the client's foreign language pages for specific countries do not show up on the first page of SERPs in those specific countries. The foreign nation/language pages are served on the same root domain as the main English language site it this fashion: www.client.com/france www.client.com/brazil Here are my questions: What can we do from an SEO standpoint to improve SERPs in Google.fr or other countries What is the best way to prevent duplicate content errors or prevent the wrong page from being indexed abroad. What are some best practices when using Google Webmaster tools in this regard? Thanks
International SEO | | BPIAnalytics0 -
International Link Building - France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Switzerland
I've got a partner agency (non-SEO) in Europe who wants to send some additional SEO business our way, but I don't currently have a system in place geared specifically towards international, country specific link building. Does anyone know of any resources (blogs, lists, tools) specifically geared towards getting links from country specific TLDs for France, Spain, Germany, Italy and Switzerland? (.fr, .es, .de, .it and .ch are the TLDs.) .co.uk sources would also be handy. A list of potential link building sources in those countries would be most helpful. I fully understand the SEO elements in play for international SEO, I just don't have any decent resource lists for those specific countries. Sites in those countries that accept guest blog posts, language specific infographic sites, foreign PR platforms, high-quality non-penalized directories...really anything would be awesome! Thanks in advance folks!
International SEO | | Point_It0 -
CcTLD not ranking in other country.
I'm trying to rank a .im domain in Australia and having a hard time getting any traction at all. GWT won't let me geo-target the domain for Australia. It is currently set for Isle of Man. Thinking of registering a .com.au (same domain isn't available, but I can get something close) and mirror the site completely. I'd canonical all urls on the .com.au to the corresponding .im pages - would this make a difference? Also, since the linkbuilding is being done for the .im domain - I think I'll have to start over on the .com.au domain. Thoughts, tips and insight highly appreciated mozzers!
International SEO | | bobjones0 -
Geo Targeting for Similar Sites to Specific Countries in Google's Index
I was hoping Webmaster Tools geo targeting would prevent this - I'm seeing in select google searches several pages indexed from our Australian website. Both sites have unique TLDs: barraguard.com barraguard.com.au I've attached a screenshot as an example. The sites are both hosted here in the U.S. at our data center. Are there any other methods for preventing Google and other search engines from indexing the barraguard.com.au pages in searches that take place in the U.S.? dSzoh.jpg
International SEO | | longbeachjamie0