X-Cart forums

[RandyK]

Rookie question: I am starting my link campaign. Most companies request that I cut and paste some prepared HTML into my site that adds their link before they will recipricate. Where exactly do I paste this HTML?

[carpeperdiem]

What page do you want these links on?

I am NO FAN of link exchanges. They typically negate any SEO value. If you must, a suggestion: make a "static embedded page" - then load up your links page with the html. BUT -- to preserve your link juice, you can (some will say this is evil) add a nofollow tag and target="_blank" to the link. For example:

<a href="http://www.domain.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Link Name</a>

This will keep the value of the incoming link (assuming the incoming link doesn't use nofollow) and still link out.

BUT, in my opinion, link exchanges are usually done for all the wrong reasons, and defeat the purpose of your store. The GOOD incoming links are from respected media sites. Most other incomings are not worth the code.

[RandyK]

Thanks for the guidance. I have to say though that I am a bit confused. Everywhere I read it talks about the importance of having quality, relevant incoming links for SEO purposes. Frankly, I would rather not spend time trying to develop these links if they aren't going to matter. Can you give me some examples of what you consider a respected media site? Also, I currently have an embedded static page that has approx. 80 outbound links to other relavent sites, which I basically cut and pasted from one of my other sites. Would you recommend I get rid of this?

[PhilJ]

This might be of interest...

[balinor]

You misunderstand...INCOMING links are valuable, OUTGOING links are not, and can in fact hurt you. Also, Incoming links are only valuable IF they are relevant to your market, and have a decent PR. For example, if you are selling baby supplies on your site, an incoming link from a video game store isn't going to help you. Link building is by far one of the most challenging aspects of SEO, and creating an outbound page of links isn't great, as Google actually penalizes for that kind of thing. The best kinds of links are ones from highly relevant sites - trade organizations, chambers of commerce, discussion forums on your industry, blog postings about your industry, etc. Random links on your buddies sites, or sites that want to 'exchange' from you aren't the way to go.

[carpeperdiem]

As Padraic said, the quality/relevance of the incoming links are worth far more than quantity.

A PR6 on a site that is the leading blog for discussion about your customer that links to a specific page, with the name of your product in the link is worth many times more than a "our friends" link to your homepage from a site that is not related to your products.

There are 2 basic issues: 1) SEO value; 2) do you really want to send your customers away from your site for any reason?

The value of an outbound link is negative PR/SEO value.
The risk of losing a customer to an outbound link is worth even less.

In my opinion, focus on getting inbound links that are not reciprocal, and the incomings must be from high PR sites that are relevant. That's why "media" is a good start. (I consider blogs and messageboards to be media.)

This is turning into SEO discussion... if it continues we can move this to SEO sub-forum.