Link Building Tip Video 3 - Avoid Site Wide Links

Posted by Pixelhead

Today, after consulting with Lizzie, she said I should do a post that talks about avoiding site wide links and/or links that appear to be paid links.

I also decided to do this video after reading Norhafidz post Free No Reciprocal Web Directory, where he talks about building one way links, and veering away from the method of reciprocal linking .

Today’s Link Building Video

Link Building Video Review

Focus of the video is on site wide links..don’t do it…
Steer away from site wide text links.
Buying links - look at it more as paying the site owner to review the links not to list your link.
Site wide links can be in header or footer or even in the blog roll.
Blog roll links are the only exception, and only use the actual site name, not a keyword link.
One page one way links are the way to go.

As I was listening to the link building video, several things came to me:

I am not too crazy about my voice.
This is more of a weekly Link Building Tip than a daily link building tip.

One thing that Norhafidz post brought up that I would like to say:

Paid directory listings are not all bad… the lower cost ones, I look at the fees as a cost of reviewing the link to be put into their directory and not as buying a link. Many directories that are so called “free directories” have extremely long submission acceptance periods, this fee insures that this time is drastically reduced. Many times, free directories have express listings…I will with a little due diligence do these if the category page I want is cached and if there is actually a possibility of my listing appearing and staying on the page. When doing the express listing, I also make sure that my listing won’t be labeled as a paid or premium directory listing.

What about you, do you steer away from site wide links? Got any Link Building questions I maybe able to help you answer?

Technorati Tags: link building,SEO,SEM,paid listings

Written by Pixelhead on September 10th, 2008 with 32 comments.
Read more articles on Link Building

A Quick Way to Build Backlinks and Get Higher Search Engine Rankings (October 20th, 2008)
Ways to Get Your Website Indexed Fast - FREE Links with Possible High PR! (October 17th, 2008)
SEO Tip: Video Optimization (October 14th, 2008)
Link Building Tip Video - Create Keyword Rich Content (October 3rd, 2008)
Link Building Tip - Deep Linking (September 18th, 2008)

32 comments

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MOin
#1. September 10th, 2008, at 9:00 PM.

these days i am posting less on my blog and spending all the time on link building so in next pr update my traffic boosts up and i then give all my time to posting currently traffic is almost nothing what do you think is this way okay? i am currently posting once or two in a week? need you suggestion.

and your video series is so much helping i love watching them and keeping your points in mind while doing the linkbuilding business.

JBO
#2. September 11th, 2008, at 10:16 AM.

I have a few blogs, I link to my blogs via the blogroll- this is ultimately a sitewide link.

Do you think this is damaging now?

How about the top commenter plugin? do you think this could be viewed as a damaging sitewide link?

Norhafidz
#3. September 11th, 2008, at 12:00 PM.

yea, I agree with you Adam, they are not bad at all. But I felt the trends of submitting to paid listings is “fading” based on the deflation of the alexa rank of one of the popular web directory. Also, IMO, the changes in Google does contribute a lot in this deflation rate.

Nicole Price
#4. September 11th, 2008, at 12:54 PM.

Sound advise. Thank you.

Seems like a nice office that you have there. What is the painting on the back wall?

Pixelhead
#5. September 11th, 2008, at 3:25 PM.

MOin, twice a week is a nice posting rate..just as long as you stay consistent with it, so your readers know what to expect and when. Consistency is one of my biggest problems…also be sure to build some deep links…that is another video.

JBO, be careful with that type of linking. I have had sites that were dropped because they were interlinked…loosely linking your own sites is a good practice.
I have not heard anything about the Top Commentator links, but they are temporary if you are not consistently on the list…I think of them as something like blogroll links, but I guess you could almost say you are paying for them by commenting. I have not heard if Google views them as paid though…good point to think about.

Norhafidz, we are certainly more cautious about which directories we are willing to spend money on…I believe you are right about the deflation value. I myself don’t bother with Alexa, and am paying less and less attention to PR…but good links on pages with PR are still sweet.

Nicole, yea our basement is our office..behind me is the pool table which is cluttered with papers and such..never used…the picture is one of Lizzie’s..you can see them all in her FatLady Art Gallery.

Marketing Minefield
#6. September 11th, 2008, at 4:59 PM.

I always steer clear of site wide links… there are too many stories out there of webmasters being punished and dropping down the Google rankings.

I own a few related sites and instead loosely interlink them from different pages using different anchor text.

MOin
#7. September 11th, 2008, at 6:42 PM.

Thanks a lot PH for a nice reply but can you explain in few words what did you meant by deep links?

Pixelhead
#8. September 11th, 2008, at 7:24 PM.

Marketing Minefield, loosely linking is a great practice..Make sure that all the sites have a different IP address as well.

Moin, Deep linking is linking to pages within your site. For instance if you were trying to rank for Visual Search with SearchMe you would want to get some links to that post. Many times I suggest to my clients that they build “landing pages” for the keywords they want to rank, and then build some links to those pages.

Oliver Mahoney
#9. September 11th, 2008, at 10:03 PM.

Many thanks for posting this, i’ve found it a nightmare marketing my new site with a low bidget.

Regards,
Oliver Mahoney

Eva White
#10. September 12th, 2008, at 7:19 AM.

Links are always welcome, but not all of them turn out to your advantage you will see. I guess its all a question of hard work. If you do it, you can get quality links to your site.

Sinead
#11. September 12th, 2008, at 3:18 PM.

I like your video! I read an article recently about how video marketing is becoming more popular. This is the proof i think

John Walters
#12. September 13th, 2008, at 12:43 AM.

How did you come to the conclusion that sitewide links are bad? I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m simply curious.

I have a network of sites with every site listing every other site on blogroll. So that’s a sitewide link to/from/on every page. There are about 20 sites.

I should change this right? Maybe I’ll nofollow them as I only really want them for traffic and not SEO?

John

John Walters
#13. September 13th, 2008, at 12:46 AM.

And also, using your example, you said just use Halloween online as your anchor text but after viewing your last video I would have expected you to say use different anchors such as pumpkins etc.etc.

Cheers,
John

DaveB
#14. September 13th, 2008, at 12:58 AM.

Thanks for shedding some light on this. I can see how Google discounting these links would help them combat paid linking. However, I wonder if the benefit from one link within a single blog post is greater than that of a sitewide link.

Pixelhead
#15. September 13th, 2008, at 1:33 AM.

John, as DaveB said it was an effort by Google to combat paid links, because they feel that site wide links tend to be paid links. I am not sure exactly where I heard it…maybe SEOChat …If Halloweenonline.com is the name of the site, I would use that in the blogroll…not a fan of using keyword links in Blogrolls..

DaveB, a few site wide links are not bad, but I wouldn’t focus on them…if you do get a site wide link that isn’t in a blogroll, make sure it is a good relevant site. And make sure the site does not sell a ton of them…the fewer the better.

China Dad
#16. September 13th, 2008, at 9:50 AM.

I experienced when I get a sitewide link, especially in a blogroll, I get a small but steady influx of people. While a good and strong link adds to my ranking and google and gets me more readers from there a sitewide does the same: more readers. They don’t come from google but they come from the site that has linked to me. It equals out I guess.

Norhafidz
#17. September 13th, 2008, at 11:54 AM.

agree with eva, it’s all a question of hard work.

Nicole Price
#18. September 13th, 2008, at 12:30 PM.

Wow! A very talented lady. I am not an expert but there are some nice comments praising her work. I like all of them.

Google Chrome Forums
#19. September 14th, 2008, at 2:56 AM.

Very smart suggestions here, and I know for a fact these work.

Gary Diamond
#20. September 15th, 2008, at 9:11 AM.

I have to agree with Eva White with her comment, its the quality of links that you have not the number, I would say

Davin
#21. September 17th, 2008, at 3:42 AM.

My friend told me that he just known about new way to build link with eBay…Have you heard this before? He didn’t explain to me how to do it although I’m very interested. No doubt with eBay PR.

Jenna
#22. September 17th, 2008, at 3:22 PM.

Awesome advice! I enjoyed the video as well : ]

Greg
#23. September 18th, 2008, at 8:09 AM.

One way links carry much more weight when building PR. I have been removing most of my reciprocal links on my sites and my traffic keeps going up. Any link to your site can only help but links out can hurt. Build directories for your own sites and for others to add links, seems the safest approach for a linking strategy, and hopefully relevancy. my niche directory Niche Directory.

Sarah
#24. September 18th, 2008, at 8:34 AM.

Thank you for showing a online video , how to to link building ,
keeping writing these kinds of video for newcomer like me

VIDEO
#25. September 18th, 2008, at 12:40 PM.

thanks for showing me how to build links

Pixelhead
#26. September 18th, 2008, at 2:20 PM.

Davin, I stay away from Ebay…I would hate to get use to the traffic, and have them cut you off one day…not a fan of ebay..but don’t let me stop you.

Greg, thanks for posting and for letting us know about your Niche Directory.

To all, a new Link Building video is due to be published this afternoon. The video is actually on Viddler now…the blog post here will review the video and give a bit more info.

matt
#27. September 20th, 2008, at 1:10 PM.

Site wide links can be used in header or footer right ?
And can we add sponsor links on left or right side {text}Will it be good one?

video
#28. September 20th, 2008, at 8:01 PM.

Video blogs are coming along!

Aran
#29. September 24th, 2008, at 1:14 PM.

Video tips are so much better than reading huge amounts of text for me, I had a site wide link from a directory earlier this year and it nearly killed my serps completely. Deep links are great, but really hard to get, lots of work, if anybody has any good deep linking ideas, I think we would all be interested.

Contract Cleaning Designer
#30. September 26th, 2008, at 9:48 AM.

I do actually agree with the majority of that, however I wouldn’t stop doing sitewide links entirely, but your suggestions are obviously better.

Kenney @ Work From Home Blog
#31. November 13th, 2008, at 8:40 PM.

Great informative video. The no “site wide link” suggestion flies in the face of what many online marketers think. lol.

Jordans
#32. November 17th, 2008, at 7:40 PM.

I agree with some of your terms, but not all. I understand the link should be under a blogroll, but not always.. -_-

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