Greed can be devastating. Greed for links to promote your website isn’t any different. The lure of easy money is evil. If you have been considering bad ways to build links, you will make dollars today but you will repent later. The only asset you have on the Internet is your reputation and you will do well to guard it by not resorting to dumb link-building strategies that some webmasters and blog owners resort to. Here are five link building tactics you want to avoid: Mail Spamming:
It is has been an old gripe on the Internet but it shows no signs of abating. The spam is still on and I am sure your email inbox is inundated with a million mails that barged in even though you didn’t ask for it. Spamming is bad and the last person who should be resorting to this is you. We need to strive to make the Internet a better place to thrive in and you need to contribute by the simple act of abstaining yourself from its evil lure. It’s easy and hence it’s damaging.
Inundate Forums:
Another variation of email spamming is forum spamming. You won’t even last long on most of these forums because anti-spamming is religion there. If you do decide to go against the rules and consider spamming your marketing messages in the forums, you will either end up being kicked out or engage in a raging flame-war on the discussions (you will mostly be kicked-out). This enjoys an all-time top slot next only to email spamming as the worst strategy to build links.
Mindless Link Aggregation:
Dumping your website link in a page full of other links is another dumb strategy. Google places a lot of emphasis on links that come through meaningful content — Someone writing about you, a review, an honorable mention or people linking to your content because it is popular. Link-building is like dumping garbage and expecting people to find you in that stink.
Lost Directories and Directory Submitters:
Submitting your link to a hundred or two hundred directories is not going to be of much help because again, those directories exist solely to make money off you but not to provide valuable links to users. If you do the research, you will find a few directories where you will do well to submit your site to. There are even some special directories like dmoz.org which still use manual approvals to ensure quality. You might want to enlist your website in MSN, Yahoo and Google too. Also, keep off the automatic directory submitters — they are by no means automatic and most directories will again ask you to register yourself and input your site details. This is very time consuming for no obvious returns of your investment on time or money or both.
Content Rip-off:
One of the dumbest things you can do is to actually rip-off fairly authoritative content from some popular blogs or websites and waiting for them to come chasing after you — the off line equivalent of desperate attention-seeking by stealing an expensive car and ramming into a police head quarters. Some people might even sue Google. These are mindless tactics to get popular and are an absolute no-no when it comes to link-building.
There are much more difficult, sweat-inducing ways of doing link-building and you are better off slogging than doing any or all of the above.
Happy linking !
Tags: directory submission., link aggregation, link building, mail spamming
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June 16th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Very well written and explained article. I can see where this information will help a lot of people. Very nicely put, it is important to have the information well written so that people can understand the point that is being made. Link building is a portion of what you really need in promoting your website. Many people fail to see that there is much more involved in marketing then just this aspect.
June 16th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
I’m glad that I have not done this on my new blog because I know this will get me a page rank of 0. Another thing that I can add to this is that if you are promoting your link building so much. Google will penalize you for doing so because they are afraid that your site will become to powerful for even Google to control. It would be wise to do your SEO on intervals so that you wouldn’t be banned from Google.
June 16th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Another horrible way to build links is comment spam. I hate seeing people write meaningless comments on my blog just trying to get a link. Don’t they know that most bloggers delete comments that are obviously spam? Very informative post. Keep up the good work.
June 16th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
I’ve been victim to these kind of tactics. Endless Email spamming. Clicking on links that lead you nowhere but to their sponsor ads. Links that are hidden behind a different keyword. That’s just tasteless practice. And I agree, content rip-off has to be the worst of all things you could do.
June 17th, 2008 at 7:14 am
It’s a good thing I have read this blog post before trying other tips I’ve read from other money making blogs. Some people would really do anything just to earn money; I’ve even read some blogs saying that spamming really works but I hate spam so why would I even spam other people.
June 18th, 2008 at 3:09 am
Well great point. Another thing to add is commenting a lot. Everyone has to remember that any comment that is linking to your site reflects your site, simple as that. Most of the time bloggers just want to comment for the sake of commenting itself not knowing that they are giving their site a bad image.
June 18th, 2008 at 9:45 am
I’m glad I don’t do any of those. When it comes to link building I think quality is better than quantity. So making sure that your link is placed on quality websites is better than having you link placed all over the internet on sites that wouldn’t benefit you in anyway. Another nice article.
June 18th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
To cirereves: You have actually seen a blog suggesting that spam actually works? What planet are these people living on? Spam is not worth it at all. The penalties far outweigh the benefits. I am glad that you are taking good advice. It is amazing to me what people will write in a blog.
June 18th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Whilst this article is not as comprehensive as it perhaps could have been, it is useful for users who have no real knowledge of link building who need to realise that not every link is a positive one. Google calculates pagerank by judging the quality of links in as well as the quantity.
June 18th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I’m admitting this right now, one guy who spammed my forum, one thing he forgot, is that I used to be a mod on his forum. He never un-modded my account.
Wipe an hour of his work in 30 seconds, and wiped his entire board in the same amount of time.
In other words: If you spam, don’t be surprised if your old dog bites you in the ass.
June 20th, 2008 at 11:25 am
I think that most people go wrong in dumping their links with others. As said, google will try and give extra weightage for those meaningful links. it should be proper. All spam will be easily found by google. Just have your content fresh and do follow the above tips. It will do good.
June 20th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Its another great explanation from you. Nice tips about what we have to avoid. I’m sure everybody hates spam, whether its an email spam or a forum spam. I think our reputation is the most important thing that we have in the internet. I never submit my site in very many directories because I just don’t think its effective.
June 21st, 2008 at 1:56 am
This article is spot on the need to build links the honest way rather than through the back door. It is better to work hard to get a legitimate page ranking rather than using dirty tricks to get it. Not only is this dishonest but also not good for your business in the long run when your misdeed is discovered and you are banned.
June 21st, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I am not sure darts that because he spammed your forum that the right thing to do would be to get even in the long run. Because what goes around comes around and in the end you are really the one who will end up losing. I would never, ever wipe out anyone’s work that is just going to show you are worse then they were for spamming.
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:22 pm
very informative! Great information and rules to live by. I don’t know how many posts I’ve deleted from my forums where people just come in, write an ad to post and leave or better yet post one meaningful post with their link in the signature line. I always have a SLEW of people who just create an account with their link in their profile and then never post a single time too! Great work. Love it!
June 24th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Sadly, I am new to all of this and I am guilty of a few of these things. I know better than to send eMail spam or to spam forums or blogs.
I have been working like mad to find link exchange places though. I didn’t realize that they are pretty much useless. I am ready to start contacting blog owners now and ask them to do a small blurb about me in return for advertising on my site or something.
thanks so much for the information.
June 24th, 2008 at 11:55 am
This is a great article for anyone to read so they know what not to do with their links. While it is important to share your link, and try to build your business, it is important to show some restraint while doing it.
June 24th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
The last one sure cracked me up. If they sue Google , they’d probably only burn a deep hole in their pocket.Yes, I have seen some mindless sensationalism being perpetrated as a bait for links. I don’t see much merit in that because the site loses it’s credibility and what good is the content of a site which loses credibility with it’s life blood , the readers ? I agree that the traditional methods of link building are slow , but rewarding and more durable when quality traffic is the chief focus.