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Link exchanges are a good way to help increase your traffic
and improve your page rankings in search engines.
Unfortunately, not all links are created equal. There are
more and more websites using deceptive link strategies that
not only don’t help your traffic but can hurt your
reputation.
Link Exchange Scams to Avoid
Author: Leslie Truex
Link exchanges are a good way to help increase your traffic
and improve your page rankings in search engines.
Unfortunately, not all links are created equal. There are
more and more websites using deceptive link strategies that
not only don’t help your traffic but can hurt your
reputation.
Link exchanges with disreputable sites can actually hurt
your Google page rank and, in fact, lead to a penalty by
Google.
Everyday I get several emails from webmasters asking me to
exchange links with them. In their emails they are very
complimentary about my site and “remind” me how important
reciprocal linking is to a website’s success. They have
already, in good faith, added my link to their site and
provide a page URL that I can check to make sure its
acceptable. In return, they ask that I provide a link to
their site from my website.
Lately, nearly every link request I’ve gotten has been
deceptive. For a link exchange to be fair, there not only
needs to be a link to each other’s sites, but visitors need
to be able to find those links preferably with a link to a
“links” page from the home page. What I have discovered is
that the link to my site is posted at the URL the webmaster
sends me, but when I visit the home page, there is no link
to the links page. There is no way for the other site’s
visitors to find my link.
I feel certain that other sites are getting the same types
of emails, but I wonder, do they check out the link? Do
they verify it can be found from the other site’s home
page? In a Google search, I found just a few articles
related to dishonest link exchange schemes. Nevertheless, I
was shocked (although I’m not sure why with the rampant
dishonesty on the Internet) to find several other ways
dishonest webmasters trick people into linking with them.
Since web traffic and internet marketing is a must for
online success, it’s important that all good webmasters
know how to protect themselves from link scams.
Here are some tips to avoid a bad link partner:
1) When you receive a request to exchange links, check that
the site is one you want to be associated with. If you are
building a business online, you need to protect your
reputation, so don’t accept any and all exchange request.
What is the quality of content on the site? Does the site
offer information relevant to your visitors? What is its
Google page rank? (You can use the Google tool bar to find
this out.) A “0 “ isn’t necessarily bad as it could be the
site has not been indexed, but it could be under a penalty,
so you should research the site carefully.
2) Verify your link is actually on the page. Deceitful
webmasters may hide the link so it can’t be seen and
therefore can’t be used by the site’s visitors. You can hit
ctrl-a to highlight a page to find any hidden text. Other
times, a dishonest webmaster may just not add the link at
all.
3) If your link is there, click it. Verify it goes to your
site as some deceitful webmasters have it link back to
their homepage.
4) Check the code of the URL. Right click the link and
choose “properties” from the drop down menu to see how the
link is coded. If you see a java script, other coding other
than htm or html, or if the link has “rel” in it, don’t do
the exchange. These tactics are used so that the search
engines will ignore the link and therefore it won’t help
you with link popularity and page rank.
5) Also check the page code (Choose “View” from your
browser task bar and then click on “source”) to make there
is no direction to a robot.txt file telling the search
engines to ignore the page by having “No Follow” or
“Disallow”.
6) Go to the home page of the site and find out how
visitors can access your link. Most of the bogus exchanges
have pages and pages of links, but they aren’t actually
connected to the main site, so people can’t find your link.
If you can’t find the page your link is on from the home
page, no one else with either.
Having many sites link to you is a good thing not just in
generating traffic but in improving search engine page rank
as well. Nevertheless, you need to be cautious of the
company you keep. When you are asked to exchange links,
watch out for the six tactics listed above to insure you
are getting a fair exchange and not hurting your page rank
or your online reputation.
Leslie Truex has been helping people work at home and
online since 1998 with her website Work At Home Success.
Get her free ezine with telecommuting jobs, home business
and marketing advise, scam alerts and much more.
http://www.workathomesuccess.com
__________________________________________________________
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