martinibuster on Neighborhoods

Just found this post by martinibuster at SEW forums. If you’re into linking this is a must read.

What
I’m getting at is that when you make a map of all the sites linking to
you, and who is linking to them, it says something about your site,
patterns arise. These patterns are very important, because Google is
very much interested in statistics.

…The question I would like to pose is, if you have a golf website, is it
normal that you share a hundred backlinks with hundreds of seo
websites?

…I’m sure the notion of avoiding being mapped to directories that are
heavily mapped to SEO link networks will not sit well with many that
have a financial interest in those directories, but come on, it’s also
common sense.

I posted a bit about these neighborhoods and their role in the Sandbox in my Guide to Beating the Sandbox (WMW – Supporters only). I’ve aways thought directories were a great tool for link building, but lately I’ve scaled back a bit, and am now only working with those that I think are part of good neighborhoods.

Interlinking sites… Again… Ugh

I’ve seen a lot of threads about interlinking over the years, and frankly, I’m tired of reading/talking/hearing about it. In case you’re "new here" and want to hear the latest pundits on the issue, check out Threadwatch and WMW.

If you want to save yourself some valuable time, here is my answer (in a single sentence): If interlinking your sites is good for your users, do it!

Mr. Ploppy’s Press Release Tools

Stuntdubl’s blog continues to dish out the good stuff. Today it’s Mr. Ploppy’s Monday Morning Tool List Volume XVII – Press Release Tools. It’s got a great list of free newswires – crucial if you’re trying to quickly build permanent oneways to a new domain (on a budget… and aren’t we all). Don’t just read it, bookmark it.

I am wondering though, who is this Mr. Ploppy? Is it Todd’s alter ego? His imaginary friend?

This Just In: PageRank MATTERS!

I guess I should share the blame here: I’ve been saying "PageRank
doesn’t matter" for some time now. I remember the old days (2003). The
toolbar had made us all obsessed with green; in fact, we were fixated
on it, when we should have been looking at other link metrics along
with it.

And thus started the myth that "PageRank doesn’t matter". I’ve heard
pretty much every expert weigh in on the issue, and make the same basic
point. Mike Grehan is only the latest to do so.

What’s more, one question I was asked last week had me slightly
dumbfounded for a moment: "If you’re saying I can’t value links that I
buy based on PageRank, how do I value how much I’d be prepared to pay
for them?"

This is the stark reality: People still actually buy and sell links valued against Google’s PR score. Which is ridiculous.

Let’s step back a bit. Is
PageRank "ridiculous" as a useful link popularity metric? What is a
better metric to judge "rough" link popularity/power? Yahoo backlink
count? That says nothing about the importance of a page’s backlinks; it just gives you a count, and the sites themselves. Of course, you could go to each of those sites, and count their backlinks. But that’s just a recursive link popularity algorithm–umm, PageRank?

I’m not saying PageRank is the end-all or the Holy Grail. It isn’t.
It’s just a starting point. After checking out a page’s PR, I look for
authority backlinks (.edu, .gov, DMOZ, topical authorities), I look to
see if the backlinks are mostly on-topic, I look to see whether or not
its links have been obtained organically vs. rented or traded, etc. But
I do start with PageRank.

Let’s be honest: PageRank still matters. And it will for a while–unless, of course, Google stops showing it

Do Links from PDFs ‘Count’?

This is something I’ve wondered about before, but never pursued much: Do links from PDF’s count towards link popularity?

I can’t say that I know for certain. I do know that Google often caches an HTML version of a PDF document, converting URLs and links within to normal HTML links–so, my guess would be, that links from PDFs do count.

The question was asked at High Rankings in Worthy Links In Readable Documents, Links in PDF’s:

If a client produces numerous PDF Fact sheets that are available for download from their site will links to URLs in the PDF’s have any weight when it comes to link popularity?

xScottx replies with some good, hard evidence:

…when searching for backlinks in Google for some sites, PDFs sometimes show up….so it seems that the links in PDFs do count for link popularity.

And fathom seems to agree. Does anyone know for sure, either way? Feedback appreciated…