Real Estate Forums

frobn · 05-21-2006, 03:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Miami Beach Condos

Kind of reminds me of the amnesty for illegal Mexicans. Those who break the law the longest, have the best chance for staying.

When I first heard the take on illegals breaking OUR law I thought it was an interesting that nothing was said of the multi-millionaires that hire all these lawbreakers. You don't have to look far in Miami Beach to find them, just look over your shoulder. Don't interpret my remarks to mean I am FOR illegals, I just wonder which is the worse crime, the one motivated by wanting to survive or make a better life for your family verses the crime motivated by greed to pay low wages? Eliminate the latter and you won't have the former.

SEOWolf · 05-22-2006, 11:51 AM

Trying to get back on topic – What I came away from after reading Matts Blog was that one of major causes of less frequent spidering may in fact be caused by the quality or lack thereof in your links.

HHI Golf Guys’ article pages are a good way to add useful content for visitors while still building link popularity.

Am I missing something here?

~VegasMack

HHI Golf Guy · 05-22-2006, 03:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VegasMack

Trying to get back on topic – What I came away from after reading Matts Blog was that one of major causes of less frequent spidering may in fact be caused by the quality or lack thereof in your links.

HHI Golf Guys’ article pages are a good way to add useful content for visitors while still building link popularity.

Am I missing something here?

~VegasMack

No, that's about it. I also formed my opinion in conjunction with Matt's comments/demonstration at SES where he showed how easy it was for Google to identify links pages, reciprocal links, three-way links, and paid links.

FWIW, I believe that reciprocal links will always be valuable - if they are done "correctly". What do I mean by that? In the past Google has made statements about link schemes and links to artificially increase PR, etc.

Combining all of this I believe that the content driven links / mini article approach is the way to go. HOWEVER, I would caution everyone not to go overboard with hundreds and hundreds of these types of links. First, you dilute the theme of your own site. Second, having too many of these would not seem "natural".

My plan is to have 3-4 of these for each state, then maybe 15-20 normal link exchanges following the combined articles (as well a link or two to specific state authority sites).

I would bet that this would be more than enough to move up in the rankings in most (but not all) markets. As I receive more requests for mini article exchanges I will re-evaluate my current exchanges and drop the weaker sites. I also may use a combination of root domain and sub domain links for mini articles and regular links.

HomeChoice.com · 11-16-2007, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HHI Golf Guy

No, that's about it. I also formed my opinion in conjunction with Matt's comments/demonstration at SES where he showed how easy it was for Google to identify links pages, reciprocal links, three-way links, and paid links.

FWIW, I believe that reciprocal links will always be valuable - if they are done "correctly". What do I mean by that? In the past Google has made statements about link schemes and links to artificially increase PR, etc.

Combining all of this I believe that the content driven links / mini article approach is the way to go. HOWEVER, I would caution everyone not to go overboard with hundreds and hundreds of these types of links. First, you dilute the theme of your own site. Second, having too many of these would not seem "natural".

My plan is to have 3-4 of these for each state, then maybe 15-20 normal link exchanges following the combined articles (as well a link or two to specific state authority sites).

I would bet that this would be more than enough to move up in the rankings in most (but not all) markets. As I receive more requests for mini article exchanges I will re-evaluate my current exchanges and drop the weaker sites. I also may use a combination of root domain and sub domain links for mini articles and regular links.

OK so what is done correctly? I have a spot on my site for reciprocal links because I would rather get the links back to my page then using a 3rd party relo company and the ability to meet a new broker in a state I do not do business in....
What I did is that correct? I put the directory on the main page and made it so that I am not trying to fool anyone. Do I need to add content to each state page so that it is relevant or not?

HHI Golf Guy · 11-16-2007, 09:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HomeChoice.com

OK so what is done correctly?

First off, you're responding to a post that's a year and a half old. Reciprocal links can help a site, but there are still better ways to get links.

If you want to work on reciprocal links, my suggestion is to put them on a sub domain of your web site. And instead of just swapping out links, swap out articles.

While you could arrange articles by state, I suggest that instead you categorize them in creative ways (i.e. tips and advice, beach living, mountain living, etc.).

When I create sub domains I also pull in RSS feeds on real estate news from major publications (i.e. NY Times, REJ, and usually a RE news feed from the agent's local market. I do not use sources like Inman that are published on a billion other agent sites. I mix and match just a few articles from many sources.

What I end up doing is creating a mini real estate news and information portal where I can also place link exchanges within articles. An article submitted by another agent will contain only one link to their site. Before I publish the article on my sub domain I will add other links to related sites. For example, if someone submits an article about Chicago I might place links to various Chicago authority sites where appropriate. If the article is about log cabin living I might place links to a log cabin magazine or homebuilder.

If you want to exchange links, this is the best way to go. You get a content rich, mini portal with plenty of outbound links to a variety of sites, not just link partners.

The only problem with this method is that the majority of potential link partners are just too lazy to take the time to write a few articles to distribute throughout the internet. Heck, if you blog regularly it's easy to put together an article by combining info from your blog posts.

HomeChoice.com · 11-17-2007, 06:21 AM

Sorry about the date didn’t check or I would have created a new thread.

So are you saying that the link thru articles is better because Google can’t figure out that this is another way of getting links? Or that is what the public wants?

HHI Golf Guy · 11-17-2007, 02:24 PM

I'm saying that at this date and time that web pages with quality content and links appeal to both human visitors and search engines.

If you try to "game" the search engines, your site will eventually be flagged and then possibly filtered or penalized. Look at what happened earlier this year with AA, REW, and others. Recip links didn't hammer them. It was the fact that these recip links created massive link networks that caused problems.

There is nothing wrong with exchanging links. You just need relevant content and reources to support the outbound link information on your pages. You also need to be very, very selective in choosing your link partners. Offering or responding to open calls for link exchanges is usually a bad idea.

Bigtoe · 11-18-2007, 06:28 AM

The whole idea of using links to rate the quality of a site is flawed. It started in the SEO community where people are trading ideas/links.

In the business world, competition precludes legitimate link exchange and thus renders all link exchange, including contextual, as spam. No matter how clever I link to an agent on the other side of the country there is no business advantage to it other than se manipulation.

If the search engines want to start/continue giving good results they will have to get away from counting links. There are a lot of quality sites being outranked by link spammy sites of low quality.

I am sure they are aware of this.

HomeSurfer.com · 11-18-2007, 09:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bigtoe

The whole idea of using links to rate the quality of a site is flawed. It started in the SEO community where people are trading ideas/links.

Totally untrue.

In the early days of the web, sites traded links because that was basically the only way to get traffic. There were no search engines unless you count Archie and Veronica.

Then Yahoo developed as a directory (at Stanford). Next, some early ineffective search engines like Alta Vista, Lycos, and so on began to take shape. Still, since search engines sucked unless you could pay for banner ads, the best way to get traffic was through links.

Sites that were similar to one another linked together. When a lot of sites linked to one particular site, it was seen as an authority -- an important site in that topic area.

Researchers at Stanford tested using links in search algorithms as a way to provide more relevant search results. It worked. Two search engines came out of that research. One is now called Google and one is used by Ask.com (Clever).

After the Google and Clever search engines came out, then SEO guys began linking campaigns as a way to boost search engine results.

HomeChoice.com · 11-18-2007, 09:44 AM

So Terry,

In the Game of Right vs Wrong - I have two choices 1st link to directories to get to other broker and agent (also need to pay) or create a reciprocal link so that I have a partner in each market and they have one here in Indianapolis. Am I wrong to think like this regardless of "g" and other engines?
I do like the area of content for each page. I will need to work on each MLS and state page.