# Best Way To Build Links?



## BIGNUMPT (Aug 31, 2006)

What's the best way to build links ?

I gather that even a banner ad classes as a link according to some! Are sites that offer reciprocal linking any good and if so who would you use ?

Does entering details into an online directory class as a link ?

Would a nice email of introducton to webmasters be a good idea and if so what type of business' would you target ? I've an artist who is currently drafting some ideas for me so he'd be an obvious choice but i'm open to suggestions 
Ta
Bignumpt


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

There are a couple of different theories on building links.

There's one train of thought that says you should just concentrate on building the most amazing site, spectacular products, and memorable service that makes people want to naturally talk about you and link to you (without you having to ask). For example, you probably won't see threadless.com or cdbaby.com sending emails asking for a link back.

There's another train of thought that says you should try to get as many links as possible. You can add a "link to us" page on your site (that might make it easier for the "natural" linkers to link to you), some people send out emails (which can sometimes be seen as unsolicited spam), and some hire companies, independent contractors to build links for them.

I've seen both ways work. 

If you have a site that's really good, and you see a site that just naturally compliments what you're doing, sometimes it feels natural to want to contact them and link to their site (and possibly ask for a link in return). 

If you focus on doing things that help your customers/site visitors and not search engines, then I think you'll fair much better overall. Meaning, think to yourself, would I be asking for this "link exchange" if search engines didn't exist.

People used to link to sites because they wanted to share some of their favorite links with other people, or relevant links that they thought their site visitors would enjoy. With the Google PR and search engines, it's made people a bit more jaded 

That's just my two cents though. Hopefully others will share their experiences and opinions here as well


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## BIGNUMPT (Aug 31, 2006)

Cheers for that Rodney,

I've found linking tools out there in net land www.marketleap.com that show the links to any website .

I didn't realise that posting in this forum or other forums eg CafePress , Search Engine forums etc will show up as links to your site!

I presume therefore, rightly or wrongly, that submitting your details to a directory will also show up as a link ? It would appear also, that links via Google take a little longer to show themselves than with than Yahoo or MSN. No idea why this happens though ! 
Once again cheers for the reply


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## Twinge (Apr 26, 2005)

BIGNUMPT said:


> It would appear also, that links via Google take a little longer to show themselves than with than Yahoo or MSN. No idea why this happens though !



Google simply does not show all inbound links with their "link:" query. They may show only what they think is important enough to be shown, or only pages that rank high enough... I haven't heard any solid explanation of what actually gets shown here. However, it isn't them slacking - it's them specifically not showing everything.

Last I checked (several months ago), I had maybe 5 links show up from Google, 500 on MSN, and 1000 on Yahoo. I've heard other people have gotten similar results. Yahoo is probably your best bet for checking actual numbers of incoming links, though Google may ignore many of these for whatever reason (again, I'm not sure here; it's possible Google does still account for inbound links they don't show).


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## BIGNUMPT (Aug 31, 2006)

Cheers for the reply Twinge,

You're currently showing Google 15,MSN 154 and Yahoo 1224 if the software is to be believed. 

Me,well i've a total of 48!!!!! Having said that it's doubled since last week, wehhhaaaaay.


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## burgensteen (Jun 24, 2006)

Thanks for posting the link back site address,
Most useful


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## Chris (Sep 19, 2005)

I'm of the thinking (and in fact the web design company that I work for agrees) that putting reciprocal links on your site may actually cause damage to your ranking.

Focus on building content that isn't using some 'trick' and you'll be much better off.. the search engines are far more sophisticated than Joe Average can hope to keep up with and they WILL ding you for trying to pull a fast one. 

There's a reason why we offer a content writing service as well.. believe me when I say that Search Engines can 'read' your page, not just recognize words and/or links.

That being said, links are a great way to get exposure for your site.. but try to make it one-way if possible. 

C.


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