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Building my blogroll
Posted on February 16, 2007 - Filed Under Admin |
I am going to start building my blogroll to recognize those who have commented on SEO Buzz Box.
Here are a few of my rules:
- You must have a real first and last name to be identified by via a text link.
- Your blog must be related to SEO and internet marketing.
- You must have commented here a few times and said more than, “Great post”. :)
- Your blog must not be monetized with TextLinkAds or have any relationship with PayPerSpam, sites that have Google Adsense or other ads that do not pass pagerank are fine.
- You must not take part in SEO contests to assassinate a persons character or rankings.
- You must not incorrectly call out people (this includes search engines) to gain links from other SEO’s (disagreeing or posting legitimate concerns about quality is fine).
- You must not have a blogroll and site full of links to people who openly break search engine guidelines.
Those are just a few rules I thought up for rewarding those who comment with links, am I being too harsh? Is it wrong to descriminate against those who do not follow search engine guidelines or push the limits algorithmically? Can you increase your rankings via disassociation by only acknowleging those who you believe “get it”? All this does not say that I do not like those who I do not agree with, if I met you in the bar we could become best of friends. Would I be doing what I claim the SEO elites do? Help!
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February 16th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
hum…I wonder if I’ll get on the blogroll…terms seem reasonable.
February 16th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Actually, I’ve been thinking alot about your post earlier in the week about the SEO elites. And today I’m spending a bit of time trying to find sites that aren’t the SEO elites. One reason is that most of the “big” sites seem to just report all the same info. And they all sound alike. I’m bored of it. I want personality. I want different points of view.
There’s a whole bunch of interesting people out there and I want to know what they have to say. I’m really looking forward to your blogroll.
February 16th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
I agree with just about every one of those bullet points.
More and more blogs these days are trying so hard to make an extra few dollars a day- trying to follow in ShoeMoney or John Chow’s footsteps- they over monetize and degrade the overall quality of their blog. I honestly am less likely to take a post seriously, and actually respect it’s content, if there are ads jumping out everywhere. At that point, I feel like they’re posting just to make money, not posting to truly share information and host discussions on interesting issues.
A step beyond that is those overuse the same ads we see on every other blog out there. Your example of Text Link Ads is perfect. I can imagine in the beginning they had a great conversion rate in the webmaster community, however now everyone and their mother hosts that exact same banner, and frankly, I’m getting tired of seeing it.
Anyway, I’m going to stop this comment before it breaks out into a full rant, however I did want to quickly comment and say I agree with you, hah.
Regards,
Harry Maugans
February 16th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
>>am I being too harsh?
i think not. by establishing a linking policy on your own website, you’re telling me that you’re going to responsibly define your website as a member of a good neighborhood. nothing wrong with that.
February 16th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
“You must have a real first and last name to be identified by via a text link.”
Ya know, you can always link to people using the blog title instead of the guy or gal’s name. I don’t hear anyone saying “I won’t ever talk about JayZ, Flavor Flav or Bono on my blog because they don’t go by their real names…” Just yanking your chain dude. Your blog, your rules.
Seriously though, I’d just create a blogroll based on SEO-related sites I read on a daily basis. You scratched my back so I’ll scratch yours isn’t all that Google-friendly, not that I’m saying you should care what Google thinks.
February 16th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
When you link out you are building your link profile which is helping establish the neighborhood you want your site in. It would be just as inappropriate for you to link to autoinsuranceforcheaprates.com on a rain barrel site as it would be for you to link to people that don’t subscribe to your ideals.
I believe declaring your intentions regarding linking, nofollow, and content is the best policy, it’s good for your readership and helps establish like minded relationships.
It’s easier to let your readers find you for what the site truly represents if it’s overtly discussed than to leave it to them to figure out.
February 16th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Jim Boykin - Not that I always agree with your technique but you have a very good SEO blog and were generous to link to me in the past. (linked)
Nathania Johnson - You and me are on the same page, drop in and comment a few more times and you are linked. Did you know that your entire blog is using the nofollow tag on all links? Don’t feel bad if this is just a mistake, I often find/notify people who have nofollow incorrectly enabled and have warned many people inlcuding Nick Wilson from Performancing about this in the past. Nick never linked to a single thing and even kicked me out of his performancing for not agreeing so all reference to him might be pruned from this blog soon.
Harry Maugans - Same thing I said to Nathania and as long as your last post “Blog Review - John Chow” was not “paid” you are in (kidding), thanks for commenting.
Corey - Your blog appears to not be related to SEO but you are in luck, I am going to be expanding webmaster404.com to include design and webmastering soon, remind me to link you there.
Halfdeck - HA, come on homie, we have become quick friends in webmaster groups, let’s have your first and last name, don’t be shy now. ;)
JLH - LOL, what is it with Google Groups people and secrecy? Sebastian is either running from the law or a bookie, I never could get his name? Sorry this must remain in my rules, names are extremely important though I did link to you in a post recently.
February 16th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Why do I feel compelled to ask for another link? ;-)
February 16th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Do you mean me? not that I’d consider myself an SEO blogger I sometimes write about SEO issues, I’m not hiding from any body as far as I know. John Honeck if you’d like to put a name with the initials :)
Maybe Sebestian is a name like Cher or Madonna, eventually they just don’t need the last name.
February 16th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Aaron Shear - Added
John Honeck - Added
Sebastian did tell me why he must remain anonymous, had somethin’ to do with tinfoil and T2 units taking over the world. =P
Come on Halfdeck, make a name for yourself! ;)
February 16th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Like my whois says, my real name’s Tetsuto Yabuki. I’m not running from the Feds, but I don’t like walking with an X on my forehead, which is why I prefer my nick. But hey, anything for a link.
February 16th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
LOL…good man and you are correct I could check your whois but was just waiting to get the ok from you. You know, Godaddy offers private domain registration?
Adding you now…your name is like that of a samurai.
February 16th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Whether or not I qualify for your blogroll, Aaron, I think it’s an excellent set of rules. Sort of a League of Honorable Persons. Great initiative.
February 16th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
You sure do qualify Barry - added :)
February 17th, 2007 at 1:00 am
Aaron,
That last John Chow post was not paid. I’ve never once done a pay-to-post entry. I’m actually building a list of sites now I’m planning on reviewing (for free). Notice the new category I created called Reviews, which I placed John CHow in? I created the new category with intentions of adding lots more reviews down the line. No money, haha.
Regards,
- Harry Maugans
February 17th, 2007 at 1:26 am
Why do you hate TLA?
February 17th, 2007 at 6:32 am
Harry - I know that post wasn’t paid, just giving you a hard time, once I get to know you, you will be added to my blogroll, thanks for stopping in.
Ahmed - Go the the TLA site and read the following:
“Improve your traffic and search engine rankings.”
“Only TLA can deliver an ad that does both.”
That is extremely misleading, I once filled a directy with paid links and watched Google strip away it’s ability to pass pagerank real quick.
But you know this already, I do not hate TLA, I dislike misinformation. Think of all the fools who did PayPerSpam that had no idea they are losing something more valuable that money, PageRank!
February 17th, 2007 at 7:00 am
A reasonable policy. But why the heck are you linking to your own stuff with rel=nofollow?
February 17th, 2007 at 7:42 am
Hang on…
you filled a directory with paid links and that got f’d up, so you automatically assume that TLA ads do not work in boosting search engine rankings?
I’m sure you’ve got a more detailed explanation, and I agree that paid links a la TLA is not the best way to do things, so maybe i’ll pick this bone with you some other time :)
February 17th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Sebastian - I nofollow low value content, think of your index.php (which has the higher PR value) as a clipboard, if you link to an old post you tell search engines that you believe it is higher value, sounds funny but I consider some of my posts of little value. Don’t want to promote a negative site flavor if you follow me.
Ahmed - You are a smart one, google talk me sometime and I might share a little more. ;)
February 17th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Holy crap, just read your newest post about blogrolls bleeding PageRank or not. Aaron, I fear you suffer from PageRank addiction, or perhaps even PageRank paranoia ;)
I know how you feel. Been there, done that, couple years ago. I even wrote a nicely working PageRank generator back then, still active BTW.
It’s not worth it anymore, PageRank is just a minor factor in the SE game nowadays. Trust me, LarryPage-Rank really has not that much to do with page rankings, just ignore it.
Sebastian
February 17th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Are you sure that those who say that pagerank doesn’t matter have not just been defeated because it is something extremely hard to understand?
If pagerank doesn’t matter why is google concerned about paid links passing PR, Wikipedia and other things?
I believe it is still extremely relevant Mr. Sebastian and are you now safe to give me a first and last name so I can add you to my blogroll? :)
February 17th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Aaron, PageRank is really sexy and not that hard to understand. When creating or debugging site architectures I can “think PR”, but being a multithreaded mind this process runs with extremely low priority.
Think of a link as a truck. Its cargo is human traffic, whilst PageRank, TrustRank, PopAndWhateverRank, topical weight and all that travel as stowaways in the driver’s toolbox.
Looking at PR issues distracts. Just make sure that PR can freely flow, that means don’t construct nofollow/JS/redirect barriers, and concentrate on topical authority, outstanding contents and marketing.
And for the other question please refer to comment #18.
Sebastian
February 17th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Hey Aaron, thanks for the tip about the nofollow. i do *NOT* want nofollow tags on our blog, but since we’re using the Blogger template, I’m not sure how to fix it.
Honestly, clients come before the blog, and since I wasn’t around when the blog started, I’m just now getting things like RSS feeds on there! But I’m thinking maybe I should try and get us switched to a different platform? Especially since we own a domain that I guess is re-directed. I’m *only* a copywriter mind you, but very interested in the SEO blogosphere. Further advice appreciated!
February 17th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Nathania - I am sure that in blogger there is a setting for nofollowing that should be unchecked. I have never used blogger but I always find people making this mistake. What you are telling search engines is “stay away” and if you do not mind that fine but yes, disable that sitewide nofollow. I use an SEO cursor that shows nofollow tags on links in pink, your entire site is pink. :)
Blogger with a real domain it fine, the nofollow tag is not if you want search engine traffic.
Peek around in blogger and fix that right away!
February 17th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Aaron & Nathania,
You’ve stumbled upon a bug on bloggers system that just showed up on 2/14, whereas they automatically insert it for you. I’ve helped a couple people through it already. The first step is to make sure you have the option set to YES to make blog public, if it is and you still have the meta NOFOLLOW, NOINDEX thing in your blog, then you’ll have to do some work on the template. As far as I know they’re not even acknowledging it as a problem yet.
To fix it I’ve taken these steps.
#1) view your blog in a browser and then pick VIEW SOURCE, select and copy the meta tags, they will start after the and end before the first tag towards the top of the source.
#2) In your blogger, go to edit the template, be sure to save a back-up of your template in case something goes crazy!
#3) In your template look for this line, near the top. Erase it.
#4) Paste the META tags you copied before. Be sure to erase the from your original copying.
#5) Save the template, and republish the entire blog.
#6) Wait six to 12 months before blogger figures it out and fixes it!
February 18th, 2007 at 12:49 am
The Blogspot bug was around at least as early as 8th February
February 18th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
I’m just stuck. I’m trying to work on the templates in blogspot, testing things out on a personal blog of mine (martinisandoysters.blogspot.com)
But the “nofollow” stuff seems to be in the widget code (i only know basic html mind you).
So i got the “smart” idea to head over to wordpress only to find out that my newfound love for feedburner was not going to be adaptable to the free services of WP.
BTW - does the “noindex” tag mean the engines won’t index? I’m *just* a copywriter, soo…. :)
February 19th, 2007 at 7:29 am
Nathania - Email me and I will look for someone who had this same issue and fixed it to contact you.
admin [at] seobuzzbox.com
Fixed!
Read Fixing the nofollow bug in blogspot
July 23rd, 2007 at 8:42 am
That is so brave. :) Offering links to SEOs is like offering raw meat to wild dogs. Starving ones at that.
But I may just be prejudiced, having had to sift through comments on our own blog. Really, how many times can someone post, “I am not of fully agree with you, but you make good points!” before they realize that just doesn’t work?