Jon's In Waikiki (AKA The Waikiki Marketer)

People are understandably upset when they check Google and they have the same amount of links that they had the week before. And the week before that.

You know you’ve added plenty of them recently and the googlebot must have found them by now.

If you’ve found yourself dealing with this same frustration, keep in mind 2 things –

1. You’re not alone. It happens to everybody, and I mean Everybody.

2. It’s not as bad as it looks.

Here’s the deal.

First, Google collects new links constantly. The Google bots are on the job 24/7 running around the Net. No breaks, no overtime. I hear rumblings that they may go Union soon.

Second, despite the perpetual cataloging of links, Google only publishes them about once every quarter. So, even though they are in the search engine database, they’re not going to show until that publish date arrives.

A bit like waiting for the new issue of FHM to hit the newsstands. If you like that sort of thing.

Lastly, Google has delayed giving a site ‘credit’ for a link until it’s been up for some time. It isn’t clear for how long they hold back or if they hold for different amounts of time according to different factors, etc.

However, while scoring that link from a PR 9 page is great, you’re probably not going to see the lift for a while. Then again, maybe you will. This is the search engines we’re talking about. Consistency is not their strong point.

The next trick up the link cheat’s sleeve is his – or her – use of javascript. As many of you know, javascript menus are usually a negative in your on-site SEO efforts.

While Google might have made inroads in following/using these menus, the others usually cannot. And even Google is not 100% yet.

Your friendly link partner takes this knowledge and uses it to his advantage.

Here’s an example of what javascript links look like:
javascript:void window.open(‘http://www.example.com’, ‘Win1’, ‘toolbar=yes, directories=yes, location=yes, status=yes, menubar=yes, resizable=yes, scrollbars=yes, width=600, height=400’)

Yes, it’s a link. No, the search engines won’t catalog it. Again, Google might, since there is an URL there. But that is no guarantee.

If someone gives you a link like this, chances are they did it on purpose. Now, if you find that they’ve given you an External javascript link, you’ve definitely been taken.

The external javascript link will look similar to the above, but without all the designations of width, height, toolbars, etc. An external javascript link won’t be cataloged even by Google on their best days.

Don’t bother contacting your partner, just yank their link from your site. You might get an email full of mock surprise and indignation from them, but that’s all. Don’t waste your time.

We’re now finished with Part 4 – a sad statement on how many ways people have come up with to cheat others. Part 5 is coming up as we try to help you in your search engine ranking quest.

I’m finally back on track with the Link Exchange thread. Im now going to start discussing how your link partner can cheat you, fixing the exchange so that the link on their site to you is worthless. Here’s one way they do it.

If you work with websites, you’re probably familiar with “robots.txt” files. What these files do is tell search engine robots what, if any, pages or areas of the site should not be cataloged. In other words, they’re off limits.

This is done for a variety of reasons. For example, in cases where parts of a site that are still being built. They’re not ready, lacking any content, or with content copied from other pages. Why would these pages be up then? So the site owner or webmaster can see how things look online before going live.

But back to link exchanging. What your shady link partner will do is this – they’ll declare the page(s) that your link is on to be off limits. This is a particularly sneaky trick as you won’t be able to detect it by doing a ‘View Source’ of the web page.

Keep in mind, that a page with a Page Rank of 0 does not necessarily mean that you’re being taken. It’s not a good sign. But, it may just be that your link is on a weak page. So how do you find out if someone is doing this to you?

Here’s what you do – in your browser address bar, put the site’s URL along with’robots.txt’ like this: www.example.com/robots.txt and/or example.com/robots.txt. That should bring up exactly what’s in that file. You’ll need to learn how to read a robots file, but that’s not very difficult. Searching in Google or Yahoo using something like How To Robots.txt and you should get a number of sources of good information.

You also should use this same trick using the subdirectory the links page is in, if there is one. For example, if your link is on a page with an URL like this: www.example.com/links/link.html
you should try this: www.example.com/links/robots.txt

I’ll talk about more of the ways you can be duped in a link exchange in the next chapter.

Before I get into my next point on the dangers of link exchanges, please don’t take this as a complete dismissal of its use. The better lesson to come away with is that you have to stay very vigilant if you do use this tool.

I’ll jump in by citing the most common trick in link exchanging. At some point, you’ll decide to check on your links around the Net. As you go from site to site, you find that some of your links are gone. They were there before, but now they can’t be found anywhere on your link partner’s site. What happened?
Welcome to the oldest trick in the book – you hold up your end of the bargain, your partner doesn’t. Why? Because his end of the deal suddenly multiplies. He gets full credit for a one-way, inbound link to his site. What do you get? Nothing. You just don’t know it.

Some will wait a week, maybe a little longer before removing your link from their site. They bank on the fact that you’ll check on your link for a while at first, but as time goes by you’ll get caught up in other, newer link exchanges. Or you’ll just get tired of keeping track. It’s human nature to do this. And we’re all human. That’s what the other guy is banking on.

Another technique dishonest partners use is to gradually move your link deeper and deeper into their site as they put their latest link exchanges at the front of the line, so to speak. The page you are moved to may be have a lower PR, making your side of the deal less and less valuable. Plus, as you move further and further away from the homepage, that distance means a decline in the value of your link.

There is software that will keep track of link exchanges for you, notifying you if your link is deleted or moved. That’s the good news. The bad news is that your link can stay in place, on your partner’s site, and yet be absolutely worthless. And you won’t even know it’s happened. We’ll look at some of the ways this is done in the next post.

In my SEO work I early on decided to do Link Exchanges only VERY rarely. Like hardly ever. Yet, long after the flurry of requests for these hit its peak, now years later as I revise this article, there are still emails arriving in my inbox proposing we exchange links with the sender’s website.

I have a variety of reason for deciding not to take them up on the offer, which I’ll cover later, but this blog entry will deal with first thing first – the inherent weakness, and even negative effect on your SEO, of exchanging links.

As everyone knows by now, one-way, inbound links to your site are the most valuable.

Those are the links from other sites, directories, etc. to you that you do not link to from your site. In other words, they point to you, but you don’t point back.

One-Way Links – The Established Bedrock of Solid SEO

What does that tell you? It tells you that you need to focus on those inbound links first and foremost. No one knows exactly how Google, or the other search engines, weigh a link.

For example, is a link from a Page 1 ranking site worth twice as much as a link from a website that ranks on Page 2 of Google results? More than twice? Less? You don’t know. And Google isn’t talking.

Even if you could figure that out, there are variables that we are aware of that affect things.

One of them is the number of links on the page where your link is – a link from a Page 1 ranking page with 10 outgoing links is not worth as much as a link from a Page 1 ranking page with 15 outgoing links.

How much difference is there? Again, we don’t know. What you can count on, though, is that the one is definitely worth more than the other.

Getting back to exchanging, though, the value of those top ranking page links to you drops if and when you link back to them. How much do they lose in value?

You probably know the answer already. What we do know for certain is that the one way link is always worth more than the exchanged link.

How You Can End Up the Big Loser In Link Exchanges

In the next post, or posts, I’ll point out some of the ways you can be burned through link exchanges.

The dishonest webmaster has more than one way to cheat you out of your benefits from an exchange – basically you can end up giving them a one way link without knowing it. But that’s coming up next time.

Read Part 2 of What’s So Bad About Exchanging Links?

The answer to the question is that you never truly know. Of course, you can count all the directories/search engines you’ve submitted to; you can even count up all the places that have a link to you – if you have the time to check them all.

But there’s a difference between the links you have around the Internet to your site and what links the search engines give you credit for.

Here’s what I mean: Go to Google. In the search box, type “link:www.YourDomainName.com”, using your site’s domain name instead and without the quotes.

What will come back is some of the links that Google is giving you credit for in their formula for ranking. If this is the first time you do it, you may be shocked at how few links you see there.

You’re thinking, “I KNOW I have a lot more links than this”. And you’re right. But this is the search engine world where things aren’t so simple.

What you’re seeing is only some of the links you’re credited for by Google. Why don’t they show you all your links? It’s all part of their secret formula for how they rank websites.

They consider information such as the exact number of links they count for you, how much credit you get for each individual link and why to be proprietary information.

It makes sense because that ranking formula basically is Google. It’s that formula that has given them the reputation as the best search engine, which in turn brings the people, and the eyeballs, that make their ad program so lucrative.

That formula is altered from time to time, so when you check your links, you might see more, or less, links to your site than you did before. Are you confused yet?

None of the search engines will show you all the links to you that they count toward your ranking. Without fail, though, Google always shows the least amount of links out of all of them.

Is it because they have a tougher standard? Or do they just hide more of the links they have for you? That’s not entirely clear. Again, this is the world of search engines and why SEO is not a simple task.

So what can you do? Keep moving forward with your link campaign(s). Your attitude toward Google should be like the well known Serenity Prayer, which says:

Speaking from experience, trying react and overcome every change in Googles’ formula is a losing battle. Trust me. You must press on, adding good content to your site, working on links and doing other things that will bring you back up in the rankings.

Expect to see your site drop due to ranking formula changes – it is just a fact of online life. It’s okay to be frustrated, just don’t let it get completely under your skin. Everybody goes through it. That’s life in the search engines.

Like everywhere else, Hawaii slows down for the month of August. Families here are enjoying the last chance to visit the other Islands or get up to Las Vegas before school begins. One of my mainland friends once asked me, “Where do people from Hawaii go for vacation?”.

The answer is Vegas, hands down. I’m probably one of the very, very few people who live here that has not been. It’s almost become a requirement in order to declare yourself ‘local’.

The Waikiki Trump building is selling its future homes for a fat profit, bringing this resort area one step closer to resembling that already noted Nevada city.

With the ‘Inked’ tattoo parlor looking to open a franchise just down the street and a Hard Rock Hotel in the works, it looks like the transition will move even further.

This is going to have an impact on our tourism industry, and thus the entire state, that no one seems to be addressing. But that’s usually the way – the money’s coming in, so let’s worry about it later.

If you’re advertising on Google AdWords, you should take a look at your landing pages. Google’s new focus on landing pages in their bid pricing formula has caught a lot of people by surprise.

Make sure that your landing pages have real content that fits both your AdWords ad text and the keywords you’re targetting. There’ve been more than a few posts in Search Engine forums by people who’ve been hit by ‘sticker-shock’. The bid prices they’re now required to pay have gone up as much as 10 times.

Hopefully you were already lining up your landing pages with the rest of your campaigns. If not, do it now. So far neither I nor any of my clients have been hit. I don’t know if that means we’re safe or that the new formula hasn’t been rolled out everywhere.

Lastly, even if you have done all the right things, there is the chance that you could be hit. Since we’re dealing with search engines and a computer-run/automated formula, it’s not a 100% guarantee that doing what’s right will protect you. That’s just how it is in the world of search engines.

If you’ve read my About page, you’ll already know everything essential. So I won’t write it again here. I’m just a haole (white person, for you mainlanders) trying to make an honest buck, though 2 bucks would be nice. Business is done a little differently here in Hawaii. How? That’s what I’ll be writing about, at least partly. Plus a little about life here in the Islands and what brought me back.

The Big Google AdWords Shake-Up

I’ll also post tips, news, happenings in the area(s) I work in: SEO, PPC, Copywriting, Web Analytics. There’s always a lot going on. For instance – Google AdWords instituted a new Formula for how much to charge in bids. The idea is that they now figure out how much relevant content your site has and then price accordingly.

I’ve gotten first hand reports about bid prices that literally went from .05 to $5. That’s not an exagerration, it really happened. So far there doesn’t seem to be any hard, fast rules for how they decide relevancy. Some sites with pages and pages of content have been hit while some one page sites have not. But you should be used to that when it comes to dealing with search engines. I’ll post more as things develop. Keep a sharp eye on your AdWords keywords because they may be shut off.