Create your own landing page guidelines

SEO digest

For many Web sites, a healthy, normal link profile will include links that are exchanged with other sites. Many SEOs now advise their clients not to worry about whether exchanging links will hurt them if the links make sense for their visitors. As long as a site’s linking profile is not built solely or mostly on exchanged links, it should be okay for the site to exchange links with other sites — as long as it makes sense for visitors.

But when does it make sense for your visitors? You know your sites better than I do, so I can’t make that decision for you. Generally speaking, I would say that if you’re tempted to exchange links for the benefit you might obtain in search indexes, you would be better off to NOT exchange links. But that is only because you’re looking for a penalty if that is how you obtain links.

I remember setting some standards back in the day when I had an active reciprocal linking program. If I were to run a new one today, I would impose even more criteria.

Link reciprocation is mishandled in so many ways, it’s no wonder that sites get into trouble for excessive reciprocation. There are no generally accepted rules or guidelines, except that conventional SEO wisdom advises people to restrict their exchanges to relevant content.

I’ve always disagreed with the idea of setting that kind of limit on reciprocation. It doesn’t make any sense for MY visitors for me to only link to sites that provide content related to my own. Why? Because I’m a resource. I don’t try to trap people on my Web sites. I bring them in and help them find content I cannot provide. Along the way, I introduce them to content I do provide.

There are some common sense limits I would recommend for any typical business site:

1. Don’t reciprocate with adult-content sites unless your own business fits with that industry
2. Don’t reciprocate with sites that scrape content
3. Don’t reciprocate with any affiliate link farm sites, unless you have open, transparent contractual relationships with those sites
4. Don’t reciprocate with multiple red-flag industries (insurance, travel, mesothelioma, accomodations, airport parking, health, real estate, finance, etc.)
5. Don’t reciprocate with sites that have active reciprocation programs
6. Don’t put all your reciprocal links on one page
7. Don’t put ANY of your reciprocal links in footers or margins
8. Don’t put reciprocal links on the same page with each other

I use the “is it good for your visitors” rule of thumb because you run little risk of getting into trouble by providing your visitors with useful links. You can (and perhaps should) disclaim the links, so that your visitors know they are not endorsements. But if you’re exchanging links with other sites you should be vetting those sites so that your visitors learn to trust your links.

Affiliate link farms have become more sophisticated through the years. Some companies earn millions of dollars a year from their affiliate sites. Still, the search engines know what affiliate sites are and they look for additional value on those sites. If someone operating an affiliate site asks you for a link, what is the benefit to your visitors of providing that link? It would be better if you feel compelled to ask the affiliate site to exchange links because it’s a great site. You might be surprised at how useful some of those affiliate sites can really be.

It’s okay to exchange links with a site in a red-flag industry. They’re entitled to links, just as you are. But think about what you look like to your visitors: if you’re linking to 2 or more red flag industries, how does that help them? Now, I’m not saying it can’t be done successfully. I’m sure I could pull it off if I wanted to, and if I can do it, so can other people. But there should be a sense of purpose behind the links you provide.

If site with an active reciprocation program asks you to exchange links, you should refuse. Not because they are reciprocating links on an organized basis but because it is not worth your time to investigate the site to see if its linking partners are good sites, penalized sites, linking to spammy sites, etc. You certainly don’t want to trade links with sites whose only inbound links come from reciprocation. If you join a link management service, they should have rules that they enforce to help ensure you make good trades. But you should not invest your time in determining whether a site with a “linking partners”, “reciprocal links”, other obvious link exchange page or section has somehow managed to avoid sinking into the Web spam categories.

If you want to trade links with other sites, you should not be doing so for the purpose of improving your search engine rankings, PageRank, or other SEO concept. Your links should offer as much non-search value as the links you obtain, and you should only accept links that bring non-search value.

If you don’t act like a reciprocal link monger, if your pages don’t look like link spam, then you’ll know exactly what the sites you want to trade links with look like: they’ll be as picky and disciplined about how they exchange links as your site. They won’t have margin or footer links pointing to “partner” sites that are just reciprocal link partners. They won’t have a page or directory for all their linking partners.

Here are some examples of situations where it should be okay to group your linking partners together:

1. You’re a manufacturer linking to distributors or retailers
2. You’re a retailer or distributor linking to your manufacturers or distributors
3. You’re a professional organization or business association linking to members
4. You’re a member of professional or business associations
5. You have a contractual non-linking business relationship with several other companies
6. You sponsor sports teams or athletes with Web sites
7. You’re a sports team or athlete with sponsors
8. You link to multiple trade shows you participate in
9. You operate a trade show and you link to your vendors and presenters
10. You run a multi-author blog or network and you link to your authors
11. You’re an author contributing to multiple blogs or media sites
12. You’re a service provider linking to customers who have agreed to be online references
13. You’re a satisfied customer linking to service providers you want to recommend to other people
14. You’re a hobbyist helping connect your visitors to other hobbyists
15. You own several businesses, each with their own Web sites
16. Your company is owned by a larger company, whose brands all have their own sites
17. You run a directory
18. You have a great listing directories you think people will find useful
19. You worked on a project with several other people and want to acknowledge their efforts
20. You have won several awards
21. You give out awards (I don’t mean scammy SEO-friendly awards)
22. You are showcasing several people who use your products or services
23. You’re being showcased by several vendors or service providers

The list of potential linking partners may not be endless, but it’s extensive. All of these situations exist on the Web today and I don’t see sites engaging in only these kinds of link exchanges being penalized for grouping their linking partners on a single page or section.

Showing people that you are associated with multiple brands helps build your credibility. You should be proud of those relationships, and your pride won’t cause you to dither over whether search engines are going to care about the links. In fact, the more proud you are of your linking partners, the less likely you are to be violating any guidelines about excessive reciprocal linking.

It’s excessive if you don’t do anything BUT exchange links. It’s excessive if most of your links are reciprocated by sites that really don’t offer brand value. In short, it’s excessive if you’re exchanging links because you think you need links for search engine success.

You should only want to point links at Web sites that people would really want to visit. Why exchange links with sites you don’t find useful? You don’t need their links and you don’t need the search engine scrutiny that linking to them might bring you.

If you’re running one of those sites I’m advising people not to link to, here’s a clue: your site design is broken. Fix it. Make it something people will want to link to.

If you’re going to link to other people’s content, be discriminating, be picky, be editorial. Be careful.

And give serious consideration to disclaiming your links. You’re not responsible for the content on other sites but some people may hold you accountable for those links. Make sure your visitors know you cannot endorse other sites in general.

Some links CAN be used to endorse other sites. Your endorsements-by-link will be more meaningful if you make it clear to people that you ARE linking as part of an endorsement.

www.seo-theory.com

published @ October 27, 2008