How to (quickly) evaluate a link offering
I was asked in a personal email how I evaluate a link for potential purchase, and after I told M.Cutz (???) my process I thought it would be a good post here. So here goes.
Dear Matt(sic),
I use MajestisSEO, SEOMoz rank and a few other tools to evaluate links. I get several emails everyday asking to sell links. Despite these being major pains in the arse (ha ha! still talking Britty and I moved 9 months ago!), but a few have had good links. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to go through every site to analyse (spelling like them still too!) the many sites they send me.
Here is my normal routine;
1. Cut and paster all URL's into Majestic SEO's Bulk Backlink checker (https://www.majesticseo.com/reports/...cklink-checker). This gives you a general idea of the decent sites.Tip - ignore the 10 url limit. I have put 100 in before. This gives you a few things like number of links, IP's and Class C subnets. It also gives you a trust rank flow.
Anything over ten to twenty I continue to analyse.
2. Next i run the Bulk BL checker again, but run it on all internal pages. I use ScreamingFrog to scrape the pages and cut and paste the urls from the top 2 subdirectories through it. Just sort by URL and cut and paste
3. Next I look at the canonical tags in ScreamingFrog and make sure the haven't redirected the URL with a canonical tag or a 301. This is an old trick many use to sell seemingly high-value links.
The reason they do this is that 10 outbound links versus 50 outbound links is very different. Links will dilute the impact these links have.
4. So now I have found the decent pages I may want links on
5. Now I search the page for my keywords. If they are already there and are links to another site I reject the page, unless it is linked out to a reputable site like wikipedia or GamleAware. If there are no KW's matching mine then I continue.
6. I search google (use rank tracker with Overplay) for the keywords I want and note where this site rankings on the SE I am targeting (Ie.Google-US, Yandex-RU,Baidu-China).
You can also use other tools to identify the strongest keywords (like Keyword Cloud Finder) and match them up to your targeted terms.
7. I choose the strongest keywords and strongest pages (Majestic or SEOMoz's Moz Rank) and identify the pages that have EXISTING CONTENT WITH MY KW. I want to change this to a link to my site.
Tip - you may want to look at the page age as well. Older pages may have BL's (check Majestic) that make them more valuable.
8. Approach the Webmaster/site and make your offer. Terms should be no less than this;
- Max outbound links on the page (forever!) = 5 to 10 depending on the strength of the page. I would rather have a link on a PR4 site with 10 links rather than a page with 50 links and a PR5, but I also don't want them to add 49 links after the first month to the other 10k people they emailed. - Offer 50% less for a 6-month prepay. Pay through Paypal (so you can dispute if they remove it - but only within a limited time frame. Don't leave feedback. This will be your "bullet in the gun" should they not deliver your terms - Put your terms in a one page agreement stating these terms.
9. I use Link Assistant to track my link health and to make sure nothing has changed as time goes on, but there are many good tools out there for this.
10. Recent testing of Penguin 3.1 and 3.2 by several people including myself has shown sitewide links on related websites are performing great. You can find these on several link broker sites but buyer beware - they will not agree to any terms so you have to monitor the links you buy. Even Teliad, which tracks link placement daily, makes errors.
So don't buy 100 BL's for $10.00 each. Buy 5 links for $200 each. If you can get a sitewide on a related site that has good rankings $500 isn't unreasonable. Believe me on this fact!
The last tip I will give, and only because of Penguin, is if I am spending a lot on a single link I research and monitor the heck out of it. I analyse the sites linking to that site the same as if I were buying from them.
It's not whom you link to, it's who links to who links to you.
Bonus Tips -
I have tested this over and over in the last 2 months and I can say that footer and sidebar links are not a negative if used in moderation. I keep my mix around 15% max for each.
Do not link to your homepage with your top "hollywood" term more than 30%
Do not link to your site with your brand (especially big brands) more than 30% - and this includes ALL links - both natural and engineered
Use Majestic, SEOMoz or Link Assistant to analyse your own site for strong pages. I also use Rank Tracker (change the seting to pull all instances in the top 100, not just the first listing of your site)
[CENTER]
Identify the strongest keyword and use this. You already rank for it and google sees it as a good page.
Link to a trusted or high-ranking competitor like GambleAware or COGRA. Linking to trusted sources add to your trust.
Use Google KEI Adwords tool to identify relative longtail versions of your keyword. Google is using LSA (Latent Semantic Indexing) HEAVILY so I never use the same KW combination more than twice in a typical link building session.
BIG BONUS! - It costs a pretty penny but use Marketwire with a marked up (optimised) image and pay the extra for the SEO integration. This will syndicate your article throughout multiple reliable sources like Yahoo News and Google News, as well as many web-based reputable publications like The Chicago Times and other papers.
Set up Onlywire to run on those article URL (which they will furnish). This will add multiple social network links/bookmarks to your article (LINK!).
I also setup Onlywire to run on the pages I bought links on.
Penguin is all about preventing our types from engineering results so as I mentioned earlier, they are looking at who links to who links to you.
I also do a bit of Pinterest and other 2.0 site submissions just for good measure.
Set-up Rank Tracker to run every other night (double the human emulation settings if you are not present to alternate IP's through OverPlay) and monitor how long this takes for each keyword and even the URL's of the pages you placed the link on.
Eliminate the losers unless you paid in advance. If you pre-paid then find a different page or request the webmaster to let you do a guest post in a strong related subdirectory. He gets free content and you get a permanent page because I have never had one remove unique content from their website.
Sorry about the absense lately but between selling Vanguard, moving to Malta and conferences I have been up to my neck in chores.
For those of you interested in this type of information (a bit advanced but easily learned) my next conference is the ICE conference in London next month and delivering my usual Top 12 SEO Tips for 2013 (for Gaming Affiliates) to help beat the 'Big Boys'.
I'll be covering some really cool ways to create backlinks using mashups for instance.
Come to learn, not to listen to a 45-minute commercial.
No booth, no sponsorship, and they definitely are not paying to fly me there so no hidden agendas or BS loaded questions from the gallery. Just 100% information, tips, tricks, tools and real, current case studies.
I am also doing one-on-ones like I usually do, so if you aren't the public speaking type I am meeting people face-to-face for 30 minute sessions (you buy the coffee!) with no strings attached throughout the conferences (All 8 of them). I was not invited to the A4U conference so don't look for me there.
I am also looking for a couple good people that want to live in paradise (Malta) and do what they love to do so I'll be chasing that as well. (Anything to do with SEO)
Hope this helps a few people out and come back and share your results. Contribute!
GaryTheScubaGuy
