Backlink 101, Day 8 : Map your site into the Neighborhood
All we ever hear is numbers numbers numbers. So and So has this many links, we need this many links, how many links can you get us, buy 100’s of links cheap, get your link on 100 pages, argghh!!
The Numbers Game Died
The numbers game died a few years ago. There’s another line of thinking out there that you might not know about.
It’s not always “He with the most links” who wins the game. Often, “He with the right links” can win the game as well. Really, pretty often. He with the right 10 links can beat the guy with 1000 of the wrong links. I see this last one, all the time.
I’m sure most of us have looked at search results, and followed it up by checking the backlinks of the top 10 sites, and then scratched our heads and said “Uhm, why is that site in the top 10? It only has X amount of links! Doesn’t make sense.” I know I used to do that a lot. Upon closer inspection I’ll usually find that the sites with fewer backlinks that rank on the first page of search results have links that are more relevant, or more trusted, or seem to come from the “right places” (trusted industry related sites).
Sure, there’s different ways to play the game of SEO. Go for volume of links or go for Trusted links. But few go on the angle of “get the right links” and you might not need as many links as you thought you did.
Problem with the Volume War
See, a problem with going for volume is that you can’t stop. You and your competitors might be running in a dogs race always trying to get one more link than the other guys….you buy ‘em in volumes…you trade ‘em in volumes, you 3 way ‘em, you site-wide ‘em. You do what ever you can to get your total backlinks up, up, and away.
Problem with that is, is that you often get links from non-trusted sites (artificial backlink sites) or you get them on “Links” pages. Which this officially tossing a sign on your site saying “Google, kick me, I’m an artificial SEOd trying to artificially inflate my backlinks”. You get them for 200 directories, which another “Google kick me, I’m an artificial SEOd” sign.
And the more you get, the more you fall. The more you fall, the more you cry : “I must need more, more, more”. That’s when the more further you slip. It’s really a bad SEO trap that’s been laid out for you.
Getting trusted backlinks, Map the Neighborhood
Now, getting trusted backlinks is way better. Finding sites that have “Real backlinks” (not SEO’d sites), and getting your links on real pages is really cool. Winning by trust can be done, until the engines start to say “here’s the neighborhood, but you’re not in it” and wa-la, yea, you’re trusted too. Just not by your peers, and your rankings slip again.
I truely believe that the engines are trying to find the neighborhood. And that the numbers game is dying big time. So, remember that site that ranked high, yet had few backlinks?
Take a look at the drawing below:
Ok….see the dot I pointed with the red arrows? Those sites might not have the most backlinks, BUT they’re in the center of the activity. They got the right links, the hubs and the authorities. They don’t have a link from everyone, but They got the right links.
Getting a few of the right links, from the right places can be more valuable than getting 100 links from the wrong places.
( Jim Boykin, Internet marketing specialist, and CEO of We Build Pages )
June 13th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
maskudnya maps of your network apa mas
June 13th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
maksud mas chodirin, Map your site into the neighborhood yak?
Ada safe environment yg kita musti cari buat naroh link kita. Yaitu yang setema, dan nggak over-optimized.
Satu lingkungan yang beberapa site nge-link satu sama laen, dengan tema yg sama, dan masing-masing webmaster pemilik site-site ini, perhatiin bener outbound link di site mereka. Masi banyak kok webmaster yang bela-belain waktunya bikin lingkungan link kayak gini. Aku masi sering nemuin, yg akhir-e aku ikutan naroh link di lingkungan link seperti ini. Pernah aku request sebuah siteku, ditolak hanya karena gara-gara outbound link-ku di satu page lebih dari 50 link. Ada yg bilang OBL diatas 30 itu linkfarm, ada yg kasi angka 50.
Intinya mereka tetep bersikeras pengin jaga, neighborhood mereka nggak kemasukan site yg bawa “tinta yg bakalan nge-rusak susu yg udah sebelanga”.
Pokok-e Jangan smp link kita ada di lingkungan yg salah, dan nggak setema. Akibat-e kayak yg tak tulis di atas, PR kita mrosot-mosot terus.
Perang banyak-banyak an dah bukan jaman-e mas. Sekarang yg penting ” the right links, from the right places.” Klo site kita tentang mobil, ya cari backlink dari site automobile, ato auto-motive, ato minim auto related.
Bgunu kira-kira. Thanks
June 14th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Lah kalo ikut paid review, kan gak ada yang setema mas Djarot ? gimana nyiasatinya ? ( malah curhat ) sebenarnya yang kasih batasan itu linkfarm apa bukan itu siapa mas djarot ? apa dari crawler search engine pa cuma pengamalan aja….kok saya sempet denger juga, asal di bawah 100, masih gak masuk kategori link farm….
June 14th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Untuk site paid review sebener-e aku mo ga kasi komentar mas, xixixixi… Karena emang itu kerugian ikut paid review.. aku udah nulis di sini tentang “Pay-Per-Review“.
Google nggak suka dengan ‘paid link insertion’ ( quote mas Pogung ), jd klo kita kedetect pasang link karena di bayar, sangat riskan buat PR kita.
Jalan tengah?
Jalan tengah.. uhhm.. sebenernya aku pernah liat blog PR 5, traffic tinggi, maen paid review juga.
Setelah tak liatin bener², dengan tujuan mo tau niche dia.. ternyata blog dia ngga punya niche..
Dia nulis tentang semua hal.. tentang internet, tentang money making, tentang software, tentang buku, tentang movie, tentang real estate… semua… Mungkin karena ini, dia bisa masuk ke niche manapun. Tapi yg ginian, aku juga ga rekomendasi. Sebuah blog, musti punya niche.
Google Guideline
Yang aku baca di guideline google juga gitu. jangan lebih dr 100 outbound link per page. Tapi banyak juga webmaster di digitalpoint yang mencontohkan beberapa directory yg menggunakan paginasi di link page nya, per page hanya ada 20-an link, dan mereka menuding keras site-site ini adalah link farm. karena mereka mengklaim, site mereka ikutan drop karena dilist di sana. Ga ada ukuran pasti dilapangan.
Playing it Safe
Aku sendiri maen safe juga kok. Klo aku diajakin trade link dengan seorang webmaster yang di blogrollnya udah puluhan lebih, aku pasti nolak. Karena webmaster ginian udah pasti ngga perhatian dengan masalah outbound link. Yah, hari ini mungkin cuman ada 20 link, tapi karena (udah keliatan klo) dia jenis webmaster yang ngga care dengan masalah “safe environment” , “keeping away from the bad neighborhood” dan “staying away from creating the bad neighborhood it self”, aku nolak. Mungkin seminggu yg akan datang bogroll dia udah exceed 100 link? Link kita ada di lingkungan yg salah lagi..
Oh iya, aku quotin salah satu jawaban webmaster jenis ini. Dia nge-reply kayak gini neh, setelah tak saranin buat perhatian dikit tentang outbound link:
“thanks for the suggestion. but we dont care about these sites becos these are for providing back links only, thats it.”
Po ra sangar kui.. !!! Yang ginian ini neh yang ikutan mbangun bad neighborhood.
June 14th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
MANTAP jawabanya
Btw, web masternya gak donk tentang pentingnya tema yang sama kali mas 
yang penting, saya dah tau mana yang bagus bwat backlink, mana yang enggak…Thanks for your answer Bro 
kalo terpaksa, maen Blog tanpa niche boleh juga tu mas. Kabuuurrrr
June 18th, 2008 at 8:17 am
kalau buat list do follow blogs kaya punya saya ini termasuk menyalahi Google Guidelin ngga yah mas? mohon nasehatnya ya
matur suwun
June 19th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Yup. Page tsb akan di detect link farms. Ada lebih dr 100 link keluar (outbound links) di sono. Cara nengahinnya gampang kok mas. URL di list tsb di nofollow ajah. Ikutan di DoFollow Revo ngga berarti kita ngelepasin diri dari aturan maen pokok kok. Guiedlines google segitu per-pagenya, ya kita maen safe, jgn smp segitu per-page nya. Kita nge-remove attribute nofollow di blogroll di link author comment dan di comment, tp kita juga musti tetep jagain kualitas kekuatan per-page (page strength) di blog kita. Klo outbound link di blogroll (yg notabene dofollow) udah ada 20an link, kita nulis kontent jangan berisi lebih 80 link (klo ngga kita kasi attribute nofollow).
Gitu deh kira-kira.