LinksManager.com Blog

Just two sentences, a mere 57 words.  But more than enough to destroy someone’s business.  Except for one small detail, the words are coming from Microsoft Live Search, perhaps the least relevant (to make a wee joke based on the subject matter) of all major search engines.

Now being received by an unknown number of webmasters, the message from Live Search is this:

“Your site is acquiring links through posting to or exchanging links with sites unrelated to your site content. Techniques which attempt to acquire unrelated spam links in order to increase ranking are considered spam and your site has been excluded from our index as results. Please contact us once you’ve removed these links and we will reevaluate.”

If you got a message like that from Google, you’d have cause for panic and a similar message from Yahoo might occasion some alarm, but coming from Microsoft, it’s just another of those “What is the Redmond Starbuck’s putting in the coffee now?” riddles.

Why should having a courtesy link to your dentist or brother-in-law get you blacklisted from a search-engine?  How is it that Google can tell the difference between high-quality relevant links, legitimate irrelevant links and link farm or other spammy link schemes, but Microsoft can’t?

You might as well ask why Vista is running farther behind schedule than an Amtrak transcon?  Why folks visiting the Microsoft Download Center while running Windows XP 64 and 64-bit Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 would, until recently, get an alert telling them they could browse the site with the 64-bit version of IE, but would have to use the 32-bit version to download files?

The answer to all these questions is corporate menopause.  Microsoft, once a fast-moving innovator geared to plowing the likes of CP/M, Netscape, OS/2 Warp and Word Perfect into sewage-filled ditches, has become mired in its faded glory, a victim of its success … a company once run by eccentric-but-brilliant engineering giants, now directed by bureaucratic pygmies.

Think Eisner’s Disney as opposed to Walt’s.  Disney makes more money these days, but it hasn’t produced a “Snow White,” “Fantasia” or “Mary Poppins” in a long time and the few good movies that bear its name – like “Pirates of the Caribbean” – are the work of outside producers, not the Disney studio.  Come to think of it, speaking of Pirates, the Eisner era hasn’t produced any truly creative, imaginative theme-park rides either.

Google, on the other hand, is everything that an entrepreneurial internet company should be.  Technologically brilliant, responsive to the market, open to new ideas, willing to question everything related to search-engine functioning and quick to respond to the answers when necessary.  Google doesn’t always get it right – nobody does – but they try to get it right harder than any of their competitors and that’s what’s made them the number one search engine in the world and the one which all of us who operate websites must be most conscious of.

There is some irony in all of this.  Here at LinksManager and LinkPartners, we have been preaching the gospel of relevant linking since 1999.  If you use LinksManager and carefully follow all the guidelines and suggestions contained in the LinksManager documentation and the LinkPartners Linking School, it is virtually impossible to run a link campaign that will get you downgraded – let alone completely blacklisted – by any search engine, even Microsoft Live.

So we should probably be rejoicing that Microsoft is taking a position that could potentially drive thousands of frightened webmasters into the LinksManager family.  But we aren’t celebrating.  Far from it.  This issue is one of right and wrong, exclusion and inclusion, boycotting and blacklisting – and those kinds of things, as we see it, outweigh our own self-interest.

When Microsoft says that legal, legitimate websites which don’t precisely meet their arbitrary standards will be banished from their index, they are preaching exclusion and blacklisting. Google’s approach, on the other hand, is inclusive.  Google appears to have always awarded extra “ranking points” for good, relevant links, ignore honest-but-irrelevant links, subtract points for unethical spammy links and only axe sites completely in cases of very extreme abuse.

We agree with Google.  We believe the web – and the search engines which are so crucial in helping us navigate it, should be open to virtually everyone.  To start exiling large numbers of sites to the gulag is to start imposing a form of censorship on the freest, most accessible source of information the world has ever known.  And that cannot and should not be tolerated.

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Though the name “WebmasterWorld” may imply a congregation of pale techno-geeks all kibitzing over what programming language will ultimately dominate the web, the 2006 WebmasterWorld.com Pubcon held in Las Vegas last week was anything but.   If you are doing ANY kind of business or providing any type of service on the web, there is a seat at this conference for you. 

This was the second Pubcon that LinksManager staff attended this year and we were quite surprised at the increased number of attendees and the diversity of representatives from all walks of life on the web.  A veritable “alphabet soup” of characters swapping ideas and information.  Webmasters mingling with real estate agents.  Representatives from large corporations sharing information with the smallest of the small mom and pop eShops.  Search engine optimization gurus enjoying a drink while discussing the latest search trends with online retailers looking to increase their online exposure and sales.

The business and personal contacts as well as the knowledge gained from attending this conference is an excellent investment of time and $$ for virtually anyone wanting to be “In the know” when it comes to the web.  And that’s BEFORE you attend one of many learning sessions.

Search engine strategy, web marketing, linking strategy, content production, and site optimization seem to be the topics on everyone’s mind.  That was evident by the crowds that attended sessions dealing with these subjects. 

Of particular note in the link building session, LinksManager.com founder, President and CEO, Joel Lesser provided conference goers with an in-depth look at why relevant link exchange on the web is and will always be a thriving practice for promoting your online properties.

Those attending this session were able to take a glimpse at the linking world through the eyes of a person who has been leveraging the power of relevant link exchange since 1997.  Ultimately, the moral of this link building story was and will always be – engage in thoughtful, relevant link exchange keeping the end-user (visitors to your website) in mind and always ask yourself this question before linking to a site. “Does the site in question benefit my site visitors by further extending the information and knowledge found on my website?” If the answer is “Yes”, you have probably identified a great site to exchange links with.

WebmasterWorld Pubcon staff has already noted that 2007′s conference will be in Las Vegas the second week of November so mark your calendars now – we hope to see you at the next conference.

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With all due respect for turkeys, cranberries and pumpkin pies, we would submit that the most important November “holiday” on this year’s Internet calendar is the WebmasterWorld Conference and Publishers Conference, being held in Las Vegas this week.

Very much a working “vacation,” these Conferences (this will be the 13th) are sponsored, as you might guess from the name, by the WebmasterWorld Forum and bring together many of the world’s best and brightest web thinkers and doers to teach, share and learn the latest best-practices techniques for website design, development, promotion and marketing , with a special emphasis on Search Engine Marketing.

Here at LinksManager, this year’s conference has a special meaning for us because it marks the first time we have ever been invited to make a presentation at one of the sessions.  Whether the invitation was based upon the increasing importance of ethical, relevant, reciprocal linking in web-based marketing, the U.S. Patent Office’s recognition of LinksManager as a unique invention for empowering a linking program, or for some altogether different reason we don’t know, we are flattered and honored to be selected to take the podium and deliver the case for reciprocal linking to such a distinguished audience of our peers.

In addition to being flattered, honored, etc., etc., we couldn’t be more delighted with the session topic Pubcon’s organizers assigned to us.  As part of a panel with three other industry veterans, we are charged with answering this question:

Which of the following statements is true:
(a) You are who your links say you are
(b) You are who you link to
(c) Other
(d) All of the above

The reason we’re so happy to make a presentation on this particular subject is because the answer is so obviously “D.” Think about it for a moment, what is the Web except a collection of links?  Without links, the Web is nothing – a bunch of hermit sites living in splendid isolation, unconnected to and unreachable from each other.

Consider first “A” and “B.”  “You are who your links say you are” and “You are who you link to.”  Almost everyone has heard the expression “the best way to judge people’s character is by their friends.”  The theory, and it’s almost always true, is that people who hang out with good citizens are almost always good citizens themselves and people who run with crooks are usually dishonest themselves.

In this case, as is so frequently the case, “virtual” life mirrors “real” life.  Your links and who you link to – like your friends – say a lot about you and your site.  A site that offers high-quality relevant links is generally a top-quality site whose content, like its links, is up-to-date and pertinent to its end users.

Sites with links to bad neighborhoods, search-engine scammers, and questionable marketing programs tend to be equally careless with their contents and, frequently, their product quality.

Good links=good sites and bad links=bad sites are almost mathematically predictable equations.  Webmasters of quality sites invest time and effort to find suitable prospective link partners and send them personalized link requests. At the other end of the equation, they visit and evaluate sites requesting link exchanges before adding or rejecting them.

Webmasters of quick-and-dirty sites use just the opposite approach.  In linking, as in most other ways, they lust for shortcuts.  They buy wholesale links from link farmers, they hook up with malware “toolbar” merchants or home-page hijackers, they try to spam the search engines.

It could be argued that one of the reasons search-engine ranking algorithms place so much emphasis on links – upgrading pages with good links, down-rating those with bad ones – is precisely because they believe websites are, qualitatively, what their links are.  It could also be argued, correctly, that end users – in other words, potential customers – judge websites on pretty much the same basis as search engine spiders.  If the site’s links are relevant and useful, the site will gain credibility and increased sales.  If the site’s links are bogus, it will lose credibility and sales.

Moving on to statement “C,”  let’s look at the “Other” most important reason for a quality linking  program – traffic building.  That quality links build traffic is one point that is absolutely not arguable.  Whether they build as much traffic as search engine returns depends on whether the site appears on page one of a return or page 20.  The question is irrelevant anyway.  Quality links attract good hits – good hits being defined as those likely to result in a sale.  And all of us in e-commerce need every good hit we can get. 

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LinksManager’s President/CEO Joel Lesser and LinksManager developer Doug McGaughey will be at WebmasterWorld’s Public Conference in Las Vegas next week November 14-17. 

Joel has been asked to speak on a Link Development and Optimization panel.  If you have never been to Vegas, this is a great opportunity to learn more about website development, mingle with engineers from the search engines, and other industry developers, and have a great time in Las Vegas. 

LinksManager will host an informal gathering in Vegas for LinksManager users next week.  If you plan to be at Pubcon, contact us and let us know.  We will add your name to our invite list.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone in Vegas!

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