Are link exchanges bad for SEO these days? Also, is adding my site to free yet relevent directory sites a bad idea?
-
I operate a computer services company in Eugene, Oregon called "Eugene Computer Geeks". We do a lot of web design, and need incoming links to my site very badly.
Lately I've been asking clients if they would link to me, but they almost always ask for a link in return.
If we exchange links, does Google penalize my site? Would the incoming link be better for SEO if I'm not linking back to the other site?
ALSO
Is it possible that manually submitting my site to free, yet relevant web directories would hurt my rankings? It's not a big deal to me if it doesn't help my rankings, as I see a benefit to having my site listed, but wanted to make sure there wasn't a chance that it would hurt my rankings. As far as I know all the directories are free from SPAM, porn, warez, or anything like that.
Thanks!
-
A couple of clarifications here. Links from .edu (as well as .gov and .mil) are often thought to have more value because not everyone can register those domains, though there is debate as to whether they do have more value or not. Anyone can obtain a .org domain, no matter what its purpose.
Here's a good post from Cyrus on the SEOmoz blog about building links with directories:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-link-directory-best-practices
-
Cameron, You have services to offer, so you should also consider writing press releases about your company and your services. There are many free press release sites as well as paid ones. Most allow a link back to your site. Most allow you to use link text. Localize your releases and you should get visitors from them. make your releases interesting. Structure them well and they will help you These are one-way links.
-
Thanks so much! Such a well-written and helpful response. I will stop with the link exchanges and save up for Yahoo Directory. Really appreciate it!
-
Thanks so much for your response! Very helpful. I wasn't sure about getting into Yahoo directory, but will save up and do it. I'll stop with the link exchanges.
I posted on craigslist for professional writers and have had a ton of responses. I want to get really good articles on my site so that people will want to link to me.
-
Hi Cameron, First of all Link exchanges are programs in which one site offers to link to another site in return for a reciprocal link.The key component of a link exchange is the _requirement _for a reciprocal link.
Link exachange is good when the page to which your linking has a high authority, trust, meaning it ranks high in search engines, which will add value to your site as well. Usually sites having the domain extension ".edu"&".org"are considered to provide high value links. However links from authoritative sites are not easy to obtain.
Link exchange is good for incoming links as it bring lots of traffics towards your website and it does helps to navigate from one site to other to find valuable content.
Link exchange and reciprocal links are natural to some extent. On the other hand, obvious and massive link exchange schemes or networks can be detected algorithmically, so you end up penalised sooner or later.
Please check Google's policy on Link Schemes ( http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66356 ) express that excessive link exchange is bad.)
I feel that
Limited link exchange is good.
Aggressive link exchange is not good.I think that submitting your website on free directories & not on relevant web directories would hurt you because If you are not on the same niche directories it will affects in your visibility & overall ranking as well. So keep in mind that keep submitting your website to all free directories & as well as same niche web directories.
-
First, I would think about changing the approach with clients. We do a lot of web design here, too and we rarely put ourselves in as a link to our site. It must have a reason beyond getting our company a link.
Will you be penalized for doing reciprocal links. I do not believe so unless you are doing it on a big scale. My belief is that you won't help yourself either. Why, well you need anchor text in the eyes of Google, etc. So, you have to do a bit more work. I do not know if this will help you or encourage you, but I really liked this post by Wil Reynolds of SEER: On Google Making Liars out of the Good Guys.
I personally would say if you do a few manual submissions it may help, but another place you can rock your own world is Local SEO: Google Places, Bing Bus. Portal, Yahoo Local, Citation sites like Yelp, Citysearch, etc. Here is a good list I was turned on to by Miriam Ellis of Solas Web Design: http://searchengineland.com/top-50-citation-sources-for-uk-us-local-businesses-104938
If you do the citation sites correctly, verify your listings on the engines, and maybe consider shelling out the $295 for Yahoo Directory, it would likely help you a ton.
Best
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
-
Grr SEO linking.. I am not understanding why I wouldn't have lots more links.. Please help. Thanks
I have done the whole moz open exploer and I am not understanding why my site wouldn’t have more links registering to my website.. I have lots of sites(directorys and 3rd party) with my website domain in them. The only one that is linking to my site is BBB.com and my advertsing with saint paul press. www.somerersetautodealer.com But if I have links with all kinds of automotive directories why wouldn’t they register? I am sure this a simply answer or that I am not understanding something. Thanks for your help! Scott
Link Building | | Scott12340 -
Getting a sitewide links from one domain as oppsed to few links from certain pages, a good, bad or horrible idea?
Hello, I have a website that is performing really well in Google for country specific Real Estate Website. I have had this site for just about 2 years and I have 4600+ indexed pages, and about 50 of my main keywords appear in top 10 results on Google. I have now started a second site with a brand new domain, its only about 2 months old. This one is a Travel website and again its country specific (same country that real estate website is performing well in) and since its still building up the content and has barely a couple of backlinks, I am thinking of adding a linkback to it from my Real Estate Site. Is it a good idea to add a site wide link back from header section of the real estate website to my travel website? Both sites has same country and most of the keywords in both relate to this country. Or will I be better off adding a few text links from few pages with best Page Authority? Or - do you suggest that I do not link the two at all? Both sites are hosted on different servers, with different IP's and one is on windows server created in asp.net while another is a magento site. Any advidce / insight will be much appreciated and thank you in advance.
Link Building | | waituk_sanjeev0 -
If a bad link domain drops from my site do I regain authority.
Hi Guys, I wanted to know for example if 2 years ago I purchased SEO from some guys that were building links to sites that had very high PR which was important way back when. And now those links are negatively affecting my SEO stopping me reaching position 1 for a term 'replacement keys' and we are stuck in position 2. If the sites were to be reset or domains sold for those sites that were linking in do you think this was remove the penalty on us as a knock-on effect. Thanks James
Link Building | | jameslane880 -
How to do SEO for a social networking site?
Howdy SEOmoz fans, We are about to launch an educational social networking site. We have planned a lot of good strategies for offline and online marketing. Coming to SEO, how we can do search engine optimization effectively for our social networking site. The home page will be sign up page and there wont be any content in it. It would be great if you can suggest us prefect SEO tactics for our site. Thank you.
Link Building | | jjv0 -
Sort of lost my way - Links, SEO
Not sure where to start with this so please bare with me. I do the SEO for our company website (we're a small family business), I'm not an SEO'er by profession (I'm a carpenter/joiner) but been doing our site for ten or so years. About 12 months ago sort of let go of work & web things a bit due to very sudden family bereavement which kind of hit me hard. So when I did get back into doing bits on our site I probably then concentrated a little bit too much on content building rather than going after links etc. As a result we've dropped in the SERPS a bit, but having said that still just about clinging within the top ten for our terms. Since I've started again we've had Panda/Penguin and I'm a little unsure how to go about getting links in, most of my competitors are using things like blog commenting (just random blogs that are do follow) , recip linking (any sites as long as they give a link!) etc basically things that long term will hold no value long term (or possibly none even to begin with). All this brand stuff leaves me at a loss, we're a small family business as our the majority of our competitors so not 100% sure that the branding stuff I'm reading about is relevant? As I say I've got some pretty decent content, some of which I am trying to push with mixed results – we're not in a very sexy niche so not much chance of it picking up links naturally! Another thing I am noticing is in my niche I don't think any SEO companies are involved with my competitors, most of our competitors are ranking their home pages for every single related search term, whilst I've have always tried to create a page for each search term and I have these pages ranking. For example my main search term, lets say 'wooden doors' I rank an internal page for this term whilst everyone else seems to rank homepages. I'm finding it hard to get new links into this page, so one idea I do have is elsewhere on my site I have a guide to fitting the doors (with videos, pictures and text) so what I'm thinking is place this guide on my 'wooden doors' page making it a bit more linkable (it's fairly new and not yet gained any links, so no loss to move it) and would also mean a variation of anchor text. A good idea do you think? Some of my other content has been linked to by colleges in the UK, unfortunately all the links are behind moodle log-ins (give me a decent link you leeches! Lol) ! I am thinking of getting in touch with other colleges to see if the content would be useful, but actually getting hold of the person responsible for the subject is proving difficult! I've also done a bit of guest blogging, however I'm torn between writing decent stuff for our blog or giving it away (I wouldn't like to give something away thats poor, ok or doesn’t make sense) to other blogs. Sorry for the ramble (if you've made it this far then thanks for reading!)! Would appreciate all advice. Ultimately would love to get an SEO'er involved but looking around the good un's are out of our price range so I may seek some training as it may prove more beneficial.
Link Building | | Jon-C0 -
Back to Basics: Lets talk link directories :)
Hi, Ok, bit of a muddy subject for me because lots say it's a good method, great for getting things started and some say it's a complete waste of time and it's spammy. But I guess the difference between the two opinions is quality! I have stopped using directories but think it's time to add some diversity to my link profile. In the past I have used this - http://www.directorycritic.com/free-directory-list.html What are your thoughts on that list? Does it actually fall into the spammy category and I should be looking for a much higher quality list. Cheers
Link Building | | activitysuper0 -
Content and Relevant Links
Hello, My website started to offer guest blog posting and was wondering if it is a good idea to have an anchor text link to a not relevant website in the author bio. The content the guest blogger gave me is relevant to my website but in the author bio there are a couple of anchor text links that are linking to a completly different industry. Thanks in advance for your help.
Link Building | | Shawn1241 -
Multiple same domain links on Open Site Explorer
In doing competitor link analysis on Open Site Explorer, I've noticed quite a few links coming from the same domain listed separately. This seems to be especially prevalent with Google directory listings. For example, I'll see a link to the site from google.hu/...., google.am/..., google.kz/..., etc. In some cases, it will be prefixed with an IP address, followed by the subfolder address. Correct me if I am wrong, but these seem to be all counting as separate root domains that are linking to the site. How is this done? Are directory submissions given to each country's google directory? Does an original DMoz listing get re-submitted to all of these? Just looking for some clarification on this and how it's accomplished. Thanks everyone!
Link Building | | NiallTom0