Recommended Web Tools Archives

Directories for Link Building

Starting a list of directories that I have successfully submitted this website. Directories can be a great way to implement a portion of your link building strategy (you have one of those right)

List will be added onto as I continue my ow link building process. In no particular order:

How to use a Bulk Class C IP Checker

Ok, what the heck is a Bulk Class C IP Checker?

First, we must ask the question what is a Class C IP Address:

From How Stuff Works:

Class C – Class C addresses are commonly used for small to mid-size businesses. IP addresses with a first octet from 192 to 223 are part of this class. Class C addresses also include the second and third octets as part of the Net identifier. The last octet is used to identify each host. This means that there are 2,097,152 (221) Class C networks each with 254 (28 -2) possible hosts for a total of 536,870,912 (229) unique IP addresses. Class C networks make up an eighth of the total available IP addresses. Class C networks have a first bit value of 1, second bit value of 1 and a third bit value of 0 in the first octet.

So a Class C Ip address is an IP address for small to mid-size websites. The domain names you and I would purchase fall into this category.

A bulk Class C IP Checker checks multiple domain names at once and displays whether they are hosted on the same server or not. Why would this be helpful?

If you were to purchase multiple text link ads for your advertising campaign, you want each link to be hosted on a different server. Search engines can tell where that link resides. Even though your links may appear on multiple websites, all those websites may reside on the same server. Search engines have a tendency to disqualify the extraneous links if they see they all come from the same IP address. So to ensure you get the most link-bang for your buck, you want each link to reside on a different server. Thats were the bulk checker comes in.

Bulk ip checkers are a dime a dozen, most webmaster websites have one. I will point you to Bulk C Class IP Checker at Authority Domains for two reasons.
First, the screen output is formatted nicely. They break out the domains by unique ips, duplicate class c blocks, duplicate ips, failed to resolve domain names and all domains/ips. Second, the tool will let you download the results in a cvs file, a function which a lot of ip checkers dont have.

Once you begin to develop you text link ad campaign, make sure you run the websites through the ip checker first. It would be a waste of money if you weren’t getting your dollar’s worth from the search engines for each of your links.

More link building help

Jim Westergren has published an article on link building that is a very helpful summary for beginners.

The article covers a breakdown of the structure of a good link as well as effective ways to get links. Overall, a very effective guide for understanding link building.

The best advice:

Use a mix of all the above ways to get links

In short, link building is not a cookie cutter endeavor. Use as many if not all of the methods Jim describes to produce a balance link building program for your site.

[tags]links, link building, westergren[/tags]

Use Competitive Analysis to assist link building efforts

Linking Matters has a great article on understanding your competition to help build links. Understanding how your competition is linked can help you identify the true competitiveness of that competitor as well as identify other linking opportunities for yourself.

[tags]links, link+building[/tags]

Learn link building from Linking Matters

Linking Matters is a great site for beginners to learn the basics of linkbuilding.

Linking Matters provides a blog and articles about the whole process of linking. But the best resource available is the Linking Matters Report.

This report walks beginners through the steps of understanding the purpose of links and helps them develop a link building strategy. It was invaluable to me as I began to understand the whole philosophy behind building links. There is also a workbook that goes along with the report that can be used to develop one’s own strategy. I found it more helpful to convert the workbook over to a spreadsheet and keep track of things that way.

Remember the key to any strategy is to put it into practice. Just do it.

[tags]links, link+building[/tags]

Links and Usability

Graywolf has a great post about inline linking.

I have to agree with him that I prefer resource links to be at the end of an article, rather than scattered through out the article.

Makes me think about how I write posts and how usable they are to my readers.

[tags]links, graywolf[/tags]

Using the Linkdomain: command on MSN

Who links to your site?

With MSN’s linkdomain: command, you can find everyone who links to your complete SITE (all pages) not just to an individual page on your site.

I am not sure whether MSN ranks these links in any manner, but it seems like more important links come first, especially in the first two pages or so.

How to use linkdomain?

It is fairly simple:

• Make sure you are on www.msn.com (note: I know some of you already typed it into your default search engine which is Google .) It won’t work on Google or Yahoo. Linkdomain is MSN search engine specific.
• In the search box type:
  

  linkdomain:www.yoursite.com

  make sure there is no space between the colon and the first ‘w’.

• click Search
• Study your backlinks to your hearts content.

Now, want a more useful way to use this command other than looking at your own backlinks? Look at someone elses. Who is your ‘competition’ linked by? Do they have links from sites that you should? Make a list of those sites and email them a thoughtful (and personal) email asking them to look at/link to your website.

via LinkBuildingBlog

Find Authoritative Web Sites With Hub Finder

In the process of building links to a website, it might be helpful to find “Hub” web sites which might be willing to provide a link.

What is a Hub web site?

Hub Finder defines them as:

sites which have co occuring links to related authoritative websites on a particular topic

It might be a little more clear to say:

“A resource site which links to numerous authoritative websites. These websites are based on a particular topic or keyword.”

Again from Hub Finder:

Pages which link to similar resources may be authorities on that topic. That means that some of these pages may be more inclined to be receptive to link requests and their links may have a greater implied value

Hub web sites are like authoritative resource websites. A link from such a site might prove invaluable in many ways. First, a link from such a site will most likely group a site with other authoritative websites giving the new link much more credibility. Second, such hub sites typically carry a fair amount of traffic. Thirdly, as authoritative sites themselves, a link from them carries a fair amount of weight.

It might be better to explain this giving two examples. I will use my paisley sock company example. I search on Google for paisley socks and I find the top ten sites for that term. Is there a site that points to 2 or more of those sites? If such a site existed wouldn’t it be great if I could get my paisley sock site listed there too?

Second example. Say I am already aware of the competition in the paisley sock field. I have a list of my top 5-10 competitors. Is there a site that links to 2 or more of my competitors? If there is such a site, would it be nice if I could get my site on that list too?

This is where Hub Finder comes in. It can find those sites!

How to use Hub Finder:

On the Hub Finder page there are numerous fields and buttons. I am not going to discuss all of them, only the ones that will provide a basic understanding of the tool.

Method #1:

• Subject: Enter the keyword phrase/subject you are interested in finding an authority hub site for.
• Results: Choose the number of top sites you want the tool to use. Typically just choose 10. These are not the sites you are looking for. The sites you are looking for are the ones that have links to THESE SITES.
• API: Choose both.
• Min Match: The hub you are looking for should have at least how many of these sites linked? 2 is the minimum. Start with 2, if there are lots of hub sites that are returned then up it to 3, and so on. If you can find a Hub Site that has 3 or more of the key sites linked, then that is definitely a site you want to try to get to link to you to. Not all keyword phrases/subjects/groups of site will have a 3+ hub site. There may not truly be a hub site for the particular topic you have entered.
• Depth: leave at 50. I haven’t found clear indications on the site how this setting influences results.
• Link Type: Choose either Domain or Page. Both should be run separately.
• Click the Query button

Understanding the results:

The first list of sites are the sites that Hub Finder found to be relevant to the topic/keyword phrase entered. Call these top sites or key sites. You will find more than 10 here usually. Why? Though 10 was the number selected from the Results setting, the API setting was set to both. Hub Finder found the top 10 results from BOTH Yahoo and Google. Though you would expect to find the total number to be 20, sometimes it is less. It sites overlap from both engines, they typically are not listed twice.

The results that appear below in the light blue box are the results you are interested in. On the far right it lists the name of the website. These sites are the “hub” sites. The columns to the left indicated which of the top sites/key sites are linked by this hub. There are some sites which always turn up here: DMOZ, Angelfire, Geocities, etc. Those are not the ones you should be interested in.

Method #2 is similar to #1 with one exception. Instead of entering a subject or keyword phrase, enter a list of known sites into the box at the bottom.

Results can be saved by clicking the Download CSV button.

The instructions on Hub Finder are sparse. So if I am mistaken in any of my directions please correct me. That aside, it is an extremely useful tool. More useful than some tools that I have paid money for!

Text link ads are for advertising

There is a debate amongst the web community about the nature and purpose of text links ads.

I offer my the following as my humble (and novice) opinion:

Text link ads are, as stated in the name, ads. It is all about advertising. This is, and should be, the primary function of text link ads. Some websites are advertisers; they place ads on other sites. Other websites provide adspace; they accept advertisers. It is really that simple. It is a market exchange of information.

As an advertising medium, text link ads are not the flashiest. They are nothing but simple text. However, it is this simplicity which makes them user and customer friendly. Part of the debate revolves around this issue of customer friendliness. The web is full of obnoxious (and customer unfriendly) advertising such as pop up ads and flashy banner ads. I define customer friendly as any means of advertising which does not take away from the customer experience. Clearly, we all want advertising to have a good ROI. However, I think reputation and customer friendliness have to be a factor as well. Being flashy and “in your face” does seem to have its rewards. However, building a long term relationship with your customer/reader/user demands that you respect them. The “in you face user car salesmen” approach does not build long term relationships.

As an advertiser, text link ads are a great way to place key ads on key sites. It can get expensive. More on that later. As an adspace seller, text link ads are a great way to earn money from your site.

Secondarily, text link ads can be used as a means of linkbuilding. There are many caveats here. Because of the sheer number of caveats is why I consider linkbuilding as a secondary use of text link ads.

Text link ads can get a website noticed and crawled. Have a new site? Spend the money to place ONE text link ad on a popular site. Your website will get crawled fairly quickly. Keep the text link ad in place for several months and your site will also benefit from that popular site’s visitors.

It is not feasible for new sites to develop a full fledged linkbuilding program, unless of course they have deep pockets or access to a lot of start up money. It is just too expensive to do all at once. The new site CAN start small and grow slowly. There is much to be said for the start small and grow slowly approach. Namely, it saves money, allows for mistakes, and helps you learn.

Those large sites who use text link ads as the sole means of linkbuilding maybe facing a dim future. Search engines such as Google are beginning to recognize which link are text links ads. They are devaluing such links within their link popularity algorithms.

There are two resources that I recommend for learning more about text link ads. First, Text Link Ads has an excellent resource on how to use text link ads for link building. Second, Linkworth has numerous articles about text link ads. Both are resources are worth reading.

Free Backlink Tool

Who links to your website? What anchor is used to link to your website?

We Build Pages has developed a new free tool to help webmasters answer such questions. The Neat-0 Backlink tool finds all the backlinks to the entered URL and returns the Anchor Text used.

How to use such a tool:

• Find out WHO links to a website
• Find out what KIND of sites link to a website
• Find out how MANY sites link to a website
• Use the tool to find out WHO links to COMPETITORS
• What ANCHOR TEXT a COMPETITOR uses

The tool could be improved by making it clear whether the backlink is solely to the entered URL or to another interior page on that URL.

Via the Link Building Blog

Link Building Blog Review

The founders of Text Link Ads, provide helpful posts on the topic of link building.

The Link Building Blog does not discuss all a webmaster needs to know about link building. Posting once a week, on average, is not enough content to cover even such a niche topic. However, what they do post has been extremely helpful.

The beginner will find three essentials from reading this blog. First, quality posts. The Link Building Blog does not post fluff. You can guarantee either original top of the grade material or highly recommended material from other quality blogs/resources. Second, exposure to a number of other QUALITY blogs. Three, links to tools and information that WILL help any link building effort. Indeed, their post for October 3 is great example.

Link Building Summary

It is easy to want to cheat when it comes to link building. Why? Because it takes work AND time.

One of the reasons this website exists is to try to find the web tools and information that will lessen the amount of your work and shorten the amount of time it takes to get web development tasks accomplished.

This article on link building is the summary of a round table discussion. It provides a great overview of link building and a few tips and tricks as well.

Via Link Building Blog

Link Hounds Link Building Resources

Link Hounds is a link building tool and link building resource website. It is run by Aaron Wall over at SEOBook.com.

I worried at first that the site might be a platform for selling his SEObook. Though he does mention it twice, it is hardly a hard sell. In fact, quite the opposite is true. The site is geared towards providing helpful resources for free. From reading other things he has written, I know that he is dedicated to making SEO as inexpensive as possible. This wesbite is offered in that spirit. All in all, the site is an excellent resource for beginners.

What can you find at Link Hounds?

Linking Tips and Resources

A general listing of various link building resources. Find links to technical documents about link building and link building theory. A list of other recommended link building sites. A short list of recommended places to get links.
A list of recommended link building tools. A list of recommended link building services.

SEO Tips

General recommended tips for effective SEO. This page is kept simple and is generally geared to the true beginner.

The items of greatest value on the Link Hounds site are the two link building tools.

Link Harvester is a tool that examines a website or webpage and finds all the other sites that are linking to it. The list of features (as listed on the website) include:

* quickly find almost every single site linking into a domain or page.
* scrapes past the 1,000 search result limit by making domain filtering a snap.
* grabs number of pages indexed.
* grabs links to any page.
* grabs total inbound links, home page links, and deep link ratio.
* tool is fast and free. which is great considering all it does.
* grabs C block IP address information.
* tool provides links to Wayback Machine and WhoIs Source next to each domain.
* free & open source. grab the source code here (requires DOM XML support to run)
* uses the Yahoo! API so it complies with their TOS.

Why use this tool?

Find out who links to your competition and then try to get them to link to your site as well.

The tool is free.

The tool does have some limitations on use. If the tool returns a 403 error, try using one of mirrored sites. The 403 Error simply indicates the tool has reached its search capacity for the day. This limitation is due to its use of the Yahoo API and conforming to the Yahoo Terms of Service.

Hub Finder

Hub Finder is similar to Link Harvester except that it looks at a community of websites. Enter multiple websites and find out who is linking to all of them or some of them, etc. Such a site (or sites) might be a very viable link candidate.

Both tools are very helpful. Use them to get a picture of the competition and to find possible link candidates.

My one suggestion for the site is to change the picture of the cute little puppy dog to one of an actual hound dog of some sort, preferably a bloodhound.

Link Building – Learn from the Best – Eric Ward

I wish I knew the “expert” (I hate using that term) of every area discussed on this site. However, when it comes to link building one name keeps coming up over and over: Eric Ward. What can an expert offer a beginner? Won’t he talk over a beginner’s head? I am glad to say that he is highly readable by even the newest of newbies. All of his articles are easy to understand and are moderate in length. Here is recommended reading on link building from his website:

• Linking Campaign Primer
  Identifies 8 essential elements that are need to manage a link building campaign
• What Makes A Site Link Worthy?
  Key Quote:
  

  Useful content gets linked.

• A Technique For Selecting Sites For Link Requests
  A gentle reminder that building links produces traffic in and of itself no matter their effect on SERPs.
• Looking for Links In All The Wrong Places?
  Key Quote:
  

  In their frenzy to build links to curry favor with the engines, web site owners miss a far more important audience using topical tools

• Linking’s Holy Grail: The Passively-Obtained Backlink
  Encouragement to be “strategically active” in link building.
• What Your Link Request Should Contain and Why
  Build one way/reciprocal links by simply asking the RIGHT way.

Nuggets from Aaron Wall’s interview w/ Jim Boykin

Here are the nuggets from Aaron Wall’s interview with Jim Boykin, founder of WeBuildPages.

Recommended SEO Reading:

Search Engine Fast Start by Dan Thies
this is free for subscribing to the SEO Labs Newsletter.

Google Secrets by Dan Sisson
$70

SEO Book by Aaron Wall
$80

Linking Matters by Ken McGaffin
Free

Key Quotes:

You have to turn your site into a resource and get Real Links from within your neighborhood…
so making good resource sites is what needs to be done today…

Every day I say a few times over the phone “It’s Links Over Time – not tons of links at once”, and “It’s not the number of backlinks, it the position in the Neighborhood that matters.” You’ve got to get links from the right places.

Find who’s linking to your competitors, and get links from them

I believe getting 100 links from outside the community are not worth as much as 10 links from within your community, so if you’re seeking links, where do you want to put your efforts?

Read the entire interview.

The Future of Link Popularity

Stuntdubl has thoughts about the future of link popularity.

Key thought:

Personalized search is the solution to the flaws in pagerank and link popularity that we have all been manipulating for so long. If you are an SEO, I really hope you see it coming. If you are focusing ONLY on link development and gaining business from top search engine listings, I urge you to diversify you methodology.

List of Top Directories

I came across this site from a blog I just read and I closed the blog window and have forgotten the source!

Anyway…We Build Pages is an internet marketing firm. They are offering a directory submission service to the top 28 directories. Most beginners, cannot afford the $1500 to get submitted to all 28 directories. However, WBP has been extremely generous in posting the list on their website. There are a lot of directories out there and most are next to worthless. Use this list to know which directories are worth the time and money to submit to.

Why submit to directories?

1. Directory traffic. This is often small but highly relevant.
2. Search Engine traffic built off of link popularity. Quality directories can provide quality links.

Where there is money involved it helps to know where to spend it. Thanks to We Build Pages for posting the list.

UPDATE: via link building blog

Link Snobbery

What exactly is link snobbery?

I myself am very picky about the links I will put on this site whether free, reciprocal, or paid. Am I a link snob? I am very concerned about links being quality, relevant, and of value. All links need to serve the interest of my readers.

In my efforts to build links to my site I have come across the following response from possible link partners: “We only trade links with sites whose link page has a PR of 4 or more”.

Are they being link snobs?

Determining the quality of a link by some means of quantification (in this case, PR) over a means which determines relevance and value, seems to me to be a form of snobbery.

I can easily accept a simple answer like: “Sorry, we are not interested in trading links at this time” versus “Sorry, we are not interested in trading links at this time because your page PR is not high enough.”

The “PR answer” is given out by site owners who are solely looking out for themselves. It would behoove them to think more about their readers. Serve readers by providing them with quality, reliable links of value. In the end, this will be better for a website than simply focusing on PR.