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It appears that the standard practice of www.example.com/ would be the preferred method. A simple 301 for example.com to www.example.com is suggested.
There are two reasons for requesting links without the www. One is for branding purposes, the other is for manipulation. ;)
I've not checked lately, but it used to be that some search engines would count non www links and www links differently. You could theoretically achieve two separate listings based on the linking strategies.
example.com is a sub-domain of www.example.com and as mentioned above, can have different content. I've seen many topics in the past that discussed PR values between the two and the problems that arised when using the non www method of linking.
Here is the problem with picking one and sticking to it. If you pick the non www version, be prepared to constantly track your backlinks as 9 out of 10 people are going to include the www in their link.
When choosing the www link method, you avoid the above issues of backtracking. For that 1 out of 10 that links without the www, your 301 will whisk the visitor to the correct URI. If the webmaster on the linking site is checking their outbounds, they should see the 301, investigate and update their references accordingly.
P.S. Yes, a 301 will address the issue of redirecting www requests to the non www version. But why go through all of that?
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[b]Browsers[/b]
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The subject of relevant links is appears all over WW. I thought a single discuusion of the topic might be usefull, maybe even fun. It might also be usefull to discuss whether the relevancy of a link matters at all.
From my limited perspective the relevancy of links is, well relative.
A starting point
Lets use a site dedicated to antique and classic widgets as an example. These old widgets come in many styles and from many manufactures all around the world. Some are rather plain, functional devices, others are clearly in the luxury prestige category and, having been made in very small numbers originally, are valued accordingly.
Owning, maintaining and operating the antique and classic widgets is an expensive hobby for some. Others are in the business of selling these great old widgets, servicing them, etc. There are also lots of clubs dedicated to these old widgets, or a subset of them.
OK, from my perspective any link between any of the above mention groups could be considered relevant, at least in general.
But wait. Is a link from a luxury prestige old widget site relevant to a site focused exclusively on the preservation of the peoples widget which was manufactured, with modest and incremental improvements, in the multi-millions for over 50 years? I mean the luxury prestige old widget was only made for a few years and in very limited numbers. Can these two sites be relevant to each other?
Now lets go a little farther out.
Well, well..... after wandering around the web for a while the luxury prestige old widget webmaster comes upon a finacial website that is obvisously targeted at folks who have lots of money available, and who might easily be able to afford an old luxury prestige widget.
Should the old widget webmaster try to get a link from the financial site?
Should he link to the financial site?
Does it make sense for the old widget webmaster to ask the financial site for an inbound link while not offering a reciprical link?
Is it more relevant for the finacial site to link to the old widget site than it is for the old widget site to link to the financial site?
Now on to something closer to home.
The folks who own these old widgets love to get together and show their old widgets to other old widget owners and the public.
So the old widget webmaster goes wandering off about the www again and one day stumbles upon a website selling old clothes.
Man! He thinks this would be a great place for his target viewer to find old clothes to wear to events where they show their old widgets!
Is it really releavant fo the old widget webmaster to link to the old clothing site?
What about the old clothing site linking to the old widget site? Is that relevant to the clothing sites viewers?
Even closer to home
In his meandering about the old widget webmaster comes across the site of another old widget webmaster. The sites are very similar in focus, but the differ in the geographical origin of the old widgets.
Among the many old widgets on either site are a few from the others main point of origin.
Would links between these two sites be relevant?
Whoopssss....lost in cyberspace
Our original old widget webmaster, being somewhat short in the attention span department, got lost in cyberspace and wound up visiting Dans' Dishwasher Repair Site.
Dan doesn't even know old widgets exist, nor does he apparent care, but he apparent does know how to build a popular website. On top of that he has only a few out going links from his PR8 home page.
If the old widget webmaster could somehow convince Dan the Dishwasher Repairman to link to the old widget website, would it be a relevant link?
Back on the road again
The old widget webmaster wrote an article for his website about an up coming gatering of old widget owners and thier old widgets.
Would it be relevant for him to go looking for some hotel websites in the city where the event is going to be held and include them in his article?
What about hotels located on the way to the destination city?
Wait...."on the way"? From where? Where does the relevancy start or end here?
And then again...
Does any of this really matter? Is a link from the virtually unknown hammer forging site really less relevant than a link from the world famous old widget club site?
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The "relevancy" of links does not matter.
The myth that "relevant" links somehow matter for SEO has been going forever around here. I hope new webmasters don't read this board and turn down links :)
As many links as you can possibly get is the key. Buy, trade, swap, steal, or manufacture links. Just get them.
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I?ve had good success by creating a special ADD URL page on my site. Use your strongest keywords, along with the words ADD URL, LINK EXCHANGE, etc., in the Title, Description, Keywords, File Name and page copy.
On the ADD URL page create a form for your exchange partners to provide you their info such as Site Title, Description, Site Category, Site Description and Email Address.
Create a links page structure that includes a Categories page (your main links page) then below the categories page, the individual category pages.
Then create an assortment of links describing YOUR site for people to copy directly into their sites. In the different variations of links ALWAYS include your most important keywords. You should have plain text and image (banner) links to give your exchange partners a choice. In the text versions include very brief and extended versions. Don?t forget to add keywords to Alt tags in your images.
Structure the ADD URL page so at the beginning you mention you want to EXCHANGE URLs. Then place the form for your exchange partners to provide their site info. Then provide your link info. At the top of page where you mention exchanging, provide a hot link to bring them lower on the page where your link info is.
Place a link to your ADD URL page on your home page.
After about 6 months (or 50-100 links) you may want to add your second most important keywords to your links and banners.
You?ll receive link requests from sites that you don?t want to link to. I just ignore them.
You should also a create ?link exchange request? email that you can copy from your word processor into an email. Use this email to proactively search for link partners. Don?t worry about the PR of your link partners (as long as they are not banned!) Just make sure that the visitors of your link partners sites will have a high propensity to purchase from your site.
I should end by saying I?m sure others have their own opinions and may disagree with some of what I?ve laid out. I can only tell that this has worked very nicely for me!
[b]GRML Web Browsers for bar graphs[/b]
[b]Web Browsers (GRML)[/b]
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[b]GRML Web Browsers for bar graphs[/b]
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[b]GRML Web Browsers for bar graphs[/b]
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By adding a link to an authority site on a related topic, Google immediately recognizes the stature of that link. As many SEO contend - you also transfer PageRank that if no link were present the PageRank would be passed within your website internal links (the so-called PageRank drain).
If your investigation stops here, it is obviously that no benefits are apparent (if no reciprocal link is return). PageRank is however, "liquid" it follows all available paths every link through a site and out of the site, and to other sites.
Authority websites have many incoming links they also link appropriately to other authority sites, and sites of lesser authority, thus your passed PageRank (like a river) flows to all of the new sites. In turn, these sites, link to more sites, some of which are lesser of an authority and your passed PageRank continues expanding outwards.
Most of the fore-mentioned sites additionally, have listings in many directories such as DMOZ.org. DMOZ.org (and others) is considered a hub (an aggregation of topics by linking out to sites deemed to have quality information). As hubs, contain a vast assortment of quality topical information many of the authority sites link to hubs again passing your PageRank on.
Your PageRank passes through all the naming link conventions (categories) and if you have a listing that PageRank you passed to the authority site comes back to you.
Additionally, many of the sites along the link upstream also link to hubs for the same reason (more quality information) and your PageRank that followed these paths filter through all the naming link conventions (categories) and again if you have a listing that PageRank you passed comes back to you.
Additionally, any site that was not even in that authority link upstream yet has a listing in DMOZ.org receives some of your passed PageRank from those authorities linking to DMOZ.org. If these sites have, a link to you that PageRank you passed comes back to you.
Not forgetting all other major hubs, both general all encompassing directories and specialty topics oriented ones, if any of these authorities sites link to these directories and you are also listed, and/or sites linking to you are listed again your PageRank is passed back to you.
In my opening comments, "many SEO firms are stuck on a bad premise". I submit that few, if any, have taken the time to investigate all "link paths" to ensure there was nothing "downstream" that sends their PageRank drain back.
The essence of the World Wide Web is "connecting" and the more you "actually connect to" the more you get in return. The simplicity of the web is "getting linked" and forward thinkers make meaningful linkage, but if you only look at your immediate adjacent returns - you are not seeing the whole picture.
[b]GRML Web Browsers for bar graphs[/b]
[b]Web Browsers (GRML)[/b]
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[b]GRML Web Browsers for bar graphs[/b]
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[b]GRML Web Browsers for bar graphs[/b]
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I think few people would link out on the page on which they hope to finalise a deal.
I have several trainees building content and I always ask them to try to find at least one good high quality source to link out to for every info-content page they make. If nothing exists on-line I tell them to mention book/title/author. (mostly they are pages of which some data was used anyway).
I do not ask a reciprocal link back. I just think it makes sense.
I guess it depends on the industry your in, but in anything semi-scientific I think it just looks better/more authoritative if there are sources mentioned.
This set-up also helps when asking for one-way links. It is often extremely difficult to get links from governmental and edu sites because they have a policy of not linking to .com's and/or commercial sites. Showing your "independant strength" by not failing to link out to recognisable authorities helps in these cases.
Now when addressing possible algo-consequences, check the research papers.
Many mention link hoarding, link sinks or mutual admiration societies as leaning towards spam. As mentioned above, the web needs links, the search engine's algos need them and even non-outlinking webmasters need them :).
Outside Teoma, I have not checked the consequences, but I would be suprised if the major search engines would not build in some "thank you we will let this page rank higher" for a good link out.
Not linking out, except for your link farms or reciprocal links, also makes your site an identifiable non authoritative hub or authority, to be placed on the same heap as your link partners.
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One small point I would note is that exchanging links / banners / etc with others gives you an opportunity to sell your site that often goes underused.
Most people (myself included) are guilty of creating template, key word rich descriptions and titles for our links.
But how many people take the time to read the message that they are conveying objectively?
"Widget World - widgets galore - blue widgets, red widgets, green widgets - all the widgets you need!"
This may seem like a good idea from a SEO perspective (er...or not - but you'll get my point), but it's not particularly attractive for a potential customer.
If your business was paying for a traditional advertising campaign (newspaper ads, posters, etc), they would take the time to design each one and come up with a distinct message for each, all fitting in with your corporate branding.
So why not do the same for a link or banner exchange?
Would you simply blow up a quarter page newspaper advert to be used on a billboard or would you design something new?
By taking the time (and it doesn't have to be that much time) to customise your adverts for the content and context of the site that they will be placed on, you can help to maximise the impact of your inbound links.
Also, from a SEO point of view, if you customise your text ads to the keywords of the page that they will be displayed on, it will help that page be viewed more.
It wont change your traffic overnight, but every little helps! :)
At the end of the day, even if you are getting inbound links for the sheer purpose of Google rankings, then it is still worthwhile to maximise the traffic you get from your efforts. :)
[b]Web Browsers - Bar Graph MDI[/b]
[b]Web Browsers - Headlines MDI[/b]
[b]Web Browsers - Pioneer Report MDI[/b]
[b]Web Browsers - Tree MDI[/b]
[b]Web Browsers - Bar Graph MDI[/b]
[b]Web Browsers - Headlines MDI[/b]
[b]Web Browsers - Pioneer Report MDI[/b]
[b]Web Browsers - Tree MDI[/b]
You may want something like >> blue widgets UK > blue widgets UK > blue widgets UK > the greater chance you will rank.
But this is a double-edged sword. Most sites are not just relevant to one specific phrase therefore each anchor you develop for >> blue widgets UK > blue widgets> widgets > blue widgets UK > blue widgets UK brighton > blue widgets brighton > widgets widgets is better than any other adaptation. Google also looks at information is close proximity to the anchor itself. With the "title attribute" you can't get any closer to the anchor itself. Also assuming since this is a higher level page (with many inbound links) this also usually means many outbounds links as well. As with my previous statement -- info in close proximity to the anchor add relevancy - so each page within a specific link hierarchy should have other links (above, below, left or right) of related topics going to different pages - thereby drawing relevant weight (and relevant PageRank transfers) from each other.
Also - it is believed that Google compares the Page Meta Title for link relevancy. Therefore if you are receiving links from an external sites/pages where the page title is called "Links Page" there is less relevancy.
This last point is the number one reason why sites that do lots of link exchanges don't improve much - all links to them are generally stuck on a non-relevant pages. (or less relevant pages).
In a link exchange campaign - sharing "free" knowledge with another website owner gets you the best possible exchange... and each of these links will be far more valuable to you than "any old link on any old page".
In the greater scheme of things it's more about who is pointing to those pages that are pointing to you and what those third party pages are saying than what you are saying about yourself.
[b](web browsers) Bar Graph MDI[/b]
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[b](web browsers) Pioneer Report MDI[/b]
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[b](web browsers) Pioneer Report MDI[/b]
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I've been following the discussion about Google and mirrored information for some time. It is "common knowledge" that Google penalizes page rank when it determines that content is duplicated somewhere else. In fact, I've read many experts stating that there should be no duplicate domain names and no duplicate content anywhere.
On the face of it the arguments appear to be sound. Google obviously has several billion pages in it's database and could, it appears, easily determine if content is duplicated. It also seems, again on the face of it, that it's reasonable to check for duplicate content, as this is the "mark of a spammer" and not necessary on the web with hyperlinking available. At least, this is the common wisdom.
However, sometimes what seems reasonable and possible is not: not by a long shot.
Let's begin with the technical side of things. You've got domain x and domain y with exactly the same content. How on earth would Google be able to figure that out? Let's say Google had 3 billion pages in it's database. To compare every page to every page would be an enormous task - quadrillions of comparisons.
Now, if site x had page "page1" which linked to site y which also had "page1", then it would be possible for Google to determine the duplicate content. Conceivably, it could check this out.
Not only is the task enormous, but the benefit is so tiny as to be insignificant. Duplicate content does not imply in any way shape or form spamming. In actual fact, a duplicate site is generally going to lower page rank of BOTH sites. Instead of having 100 links to one site, there will presumably be 50 links to one and 50 to another. This would tend (all things being equal) to lower the page ranking of both sites. So Google gains nothing by this incredible expenditure of resources.
There are several reasons for duplicate content which have nothing to do with spamming. Sometimes the content is actually duplicated, and sometimes it's just that there are several different domains (at least the www and non-www versions) for the same website.
Mirroring a site for load balancing - This is very common. The purpose is to split up the traffic between two copies of the site.
Mirroring for region - Sometimes site mirroring is done simply to make it more efficient on the internet backbone itself. You might put an identical copy of a site in Europe, for example, to reduce traffic across the Atlantic, which should make it faster in European countries.
[b]Bar Graph MDI (bar graphs, GRML web browsers)[/b]
[b]Headlines MDI (GRML web browsers)[/b]
[b]Pioneer Report MDI (GRML web browsers)[/b]
[b]Tree MDI (GRML web browsers)[/b]
[b]Bar Graph MDI (bar graphs, GRML web browsers)[/b]
[b]Headlines MDI (GRML web browsers)[/b]
[b]Pioneer Report MDI (GRML web browsers)[/b]
[b]Tree MDI (GRML web browsers)[/b]
[b]Bar Graph MDI (bar graphs, GRML web browsers)[/b]
[b]Headlines MDI (GRML web browsers)[/b]
[b]Pioneer Report MDI (GRML web browsers)[/b]
[b]Tree MDI (GRML web browsers)[/b]
I have this vivid recollection of visiting a Silicon Valley dot-com in 2000. They were bidding to provide the back-end for an e-commerce project I was working on for another dot-com. See how incestuous the whole thing was?
We talked for a while about their technology. I noticed a couple of dozen people scurrying around in the open bay of the converted light industrial warehouse. I asked the CTO what all of those people were doing.
"They're in marketing and sales", he replied confidently.
"So who are your current customers?", I couldn't help but ask.
"Well, our infrastructure is still being rolled out", he answered.
"Umm.. you mean, your datacenter is still in the works?"
"Well, yes. But, the application itself is still evolving."
I could tell where this was headed. "What percentage of this functionality we've been talking about is actually available right now, today?"
He at least had enough shame to avert his gaze as he admitted, "Well, we're almost there. I'd say 75% of the functionality is there right now. But, by the time we finish your project, we'll have all of the desired functionality for our product."
These guys had over $10M in funding, and had been in business for four months before we spoke with them. Their revolutionary new technology was essentially an Object Perl framework for building websites. They had no customers. They had no product. They had lots of money. All of their managers were under 30 years old.
THAT was a dot-com.
[b]Shareware Junction Pioneer Report MDI (GRML web browsers)[/b]
[b]Shareware Junction Bar Graph MDI (bar graphs, GRML web browsers)[/b]
[b]Shareware Junction Headlines MDI (GRML web browsers)[/b]
[b]Shareware Junction Tree MDI (GRML web browsers)[/b]
[b]Joe User GRML (web browsers)[/b]
There are several different ways of having a site link to your site.
1. Standard link exchange. Visit sites and e-mail exchange requests. Try to point the webmaster to the details page for other linking options.
2. Standard "content-based links page". Every topic has it's own links page. Everyone is invited to sign-up and add their links to a relevant page on their site. Mention a link back is appreciated, but not required. This gets you a few links back. Another side benefit, to other webmasters, is if they have a good site. Other members of your site often add a link to their site because it's interesting and related to a topic on your site.
3. "Content development" angle. Webmasters who sign-up, and promise to add some relavant information to the database, can check off a "I'm a webmaster" box. They are allowed to paste a URL of their banner into their user profile. If its adding brand new information, they get their banner displayed near the top of the data entry on the main data page. If they "update" information, their banner appears near the bottom of the results. However, it is still on the same page. This helps webmasters to improve their search engine visibility more than anything else mentioned. Their banner is one of a few external links on the page rather than one of many.
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