Google’s Rage: On Links, Pizza, And My Uma Thurman Fetish

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

This article at SiteProNews should be read by everyone, in or out of the real estate industry. It’s the perfect article for learning how to do link building the right way. Below are a few snippets from the article and my comments:

Google loves links and they admit it. Webmasters figured this out and came up with all kinds of different techniques for getting links to their sites – link baiting, reciprocal links, ninja links, 3 way links, one way links, contextual links etc. The problem is a lot of the techniques are frowned upon by Google. They want you to get links the natural way and not to try to cheat the system.

I hate to say it, but SEO gurus have killed SEO. Early webmasters figured out how to get ranked by playing around, experimenting with this, jostling with that, tweaking and retweaking – you know, like a 4-year-old with Lego blocks. It worked. We all learned how to win at Google (and if you don’t win at Google, you don’t win online – right?).

Well, we decided to start teaching everyone else how to win too. Now, the whole world wants to win at Google. How do you win at Google? Links, links, and more links!! So the whole world is chasing links – hot links, cold links, chain links, kinky links, whatever kind of links we can get. And that’s not good.

Look at this way. You’ve got a hot date on Saturday night. You find out that your date really likes pizza. So you drive all over town sampling the pizza at every place you can find that sells pizza. You get so riled up about pizza that you rush and rush and rush to get to as much pizza as you can find that you don’t have time to talk to and get to know your date a little bit. No time for conversation, you reason, we’ve got to get to the pizza! Fun date? Doubtful.

Those who are chasing links in this manner are missing the point. Whether you are lusting after pepperoni and mushrooms or links on rye, you aren’t doing yourself any favors by pigging out. Eventually, it will catch up to you and you’ll look like Elvis Presley just before he croaked. Yes, you’ll have left the building (figuratively speaking). But I digress ….

Links. Need ‘em? You bet. Need ‘em all? Not on your life. which ones are right? Well, let’s see ….

* Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

* Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?

It’s getting harder and harder to tell a bad neighborhood. But you can still spot them. If you see a web page with a lot of unrelated links on it, it’s not good. Get away from there! Like Jed in Beverly Hills.

Secondly, think about your customers. What do they want? Have you asked them? You should.

I am so amazed at the number of business that do things without getting feedback from their customers. Will they benefit from your actions? Will they get angry and go somewhere else? Will they think you’re a goober who has flipped his lid? You probably shouldn’t do it.

So, that takes care of what not to do. What about the shoulds?

What is not acceptable? I guess you have to ask yourself “Does this help my users?” It definitely is not a black and white situation and has plenty for room for interpretation.

Bottom line. You’re there to help people, right?

No matter what business you are in, you are in business to help others. Whether you are helping them buy real estate, trade currencies, purchase diapers that won’t burst mid stream (did I say that?), or drink the kool-aid (oops, slipped again), you are in business to help your customer get what she wants. Ask yourself on every link: Will this help my customers?

Reciprocal linking, in general, is a bad idea. That’s because one-way links are more valuable (and more natural) than reciprocal links. You want links from sites that are related to yours. That means giving them something to link to. You also want sites with a higher PageRank than yours. But to do that you have to attract their attention. Uma Thurman has attracted my attention and I guarantee you she didn’t do it chasing pizza. You get my drift, don’t you?

But I don’t want to say all reciprocal linking is bad. If there is another business related to yours that your customers would benefit from knowing about then by all means approach them with an offer (even outside of Vegas this type of solicitation is legal; just ask your attorney). If they say Yes,” link. But don’t go crazy with reciprocals. People will say bad things about your reputation.

What is the most valuable lesson to learn about links?

* Build a site with tons of unique content, provide lots of value to visitors and eventually links will come with time. I have received several one way links from the Sarasota Herald Tribune (my local newspaper) from articles they wrote about my website and blog. I imagine this is the way Google likes to see links built.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.