| LED Digest 1781: The Linking Debate |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ................................................ April 13, 2004 Issue #1781 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Reciprocal Linking: Dead or Alive? ==-- ~ Jill Whalen "...you might even want to rethink calling your method reciprocal linking at all..." ~ Rick Gortatowsky "...reciprocal linkage is the most logical way for any site to obtain qualified traffic." ~ Michael Martinez "I still refuse to exchange links with people who request them." --== Cookies and Shopping Carts ==-- ~ Richard Dudley "The furor over cookies has somewhat died down in the general public..." ~ Michael Linehan "...the vast majority of shoppers have no idea what cookies are..." --== HTML Editors? ==-- ~ Martha Retallick "[HoTMetaL] offers something that FrontPage and Dreamweaver, don't offer..." ~ Beth Durkee "The best product out there, by far, is Dreamweaver." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== AdWord Analyzer? ==-- ~ Jeff Alderson --== OpenSRS Spam Filtering Service ==-- ~ John Smart ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Jill Whalen Subject: Reciprocal linking > Another way to find out if directory-to-directory > reciprocal linking works is talk to someone who > does it diligently for their site... - Dirk Johnson, LED 1780 Dirk, I think when people talk about reciprocal linking as being a poor investment of their time, they're not talking about the very specific kind of linking you do. I've never heard anyone say that "directory-to-directory reciprocal linking" is dead or a bad idea. What people are talking about is the lazy type of linking many people attempt where they get some automated software to troll the Web looking for any site that might use their particular keyword phrase somewhere on it, and then send them a canned email asking to trade links. They may end up with a few links this way, but most reputable site owners trash those emails as spam. I doubt that strategy has anything to do with your specific brand of "directory-to-directory" reciprocal links, and in fact, you might even want to rethink calling your method reciprocal linking at all, as that's how you end up getting lumped in with the lazy linkers! Regardless of whether a link is reciprocated or one-way, it's a whole lot easier to get them if you have a great site. Unfortunately, that part takes lots of time and/or money and too many people are just out for a quick fix. Jill Whalen Helping Sites to Be the Best They Can Be! http://www.highrankings.com ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Rick Gortatowsky Subject: Reciprocal linking > Reciprocal linking is not dead. Anyone who thinks it is, > based upon these "experts", and then acts upon it for > their own site, stands to make a serious error. - Dirk Johnson, LED 1780 Reciprocal "logical" linking is the best way to obtain interested traffic. The problem with reciprocal linking is no mechanism I am aware of anyway checks continual linkage. In other words some mechanism by which say once a week a site can have a service or cgi-spider even, perhaps a Windows App that will go out and check that reciprocal links are there and active. At the same time reciprocal links suffer from bad webmasters. That is to say they wish get reciprocal linkage at a decent trafficked site and then stick the reciprocal link in some closet page with 5 views a month. What needs to occur is an external service that controls linkage. That is to say if our site links with Joe/sephine Y's site that both sides can measure click through at a service and break linkage if desired. If Site Y solicits us and we go, "OK" and site Y delivers us 1 click through a month its hardly worth keeping aboard. All said, reciprocal linkage is the most logical way for any site to obtain qualified traffic. The problem with it is it need be managed in a logical method. Something like AdWords if you will but a tad more control enabled. Folks don't want have to edit this and edit that every week. At the same time it need be free. Such a service need derive its revenue from other venues such as qualified advertising opt-in. The pay per click models and such are just not appealing when one cannot realize conversion rates no matter the goal be money or some other goals. Reciprocal linkage at least best I am aware of is a "trust me - trust you" mechanism and the problem with that is its simply unrealistic. It needs to be a truly closed loop via automation so both parties / all parities are assured everyones acting properly and again be easy, like Adwords thus people need not edit a lot. Rick Gortatowsky The Software Society www.rochnet.net ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: Reciprocal linking > The SEO pundits seem to be releasing a new wave of "Reciprocal > Linking is Dead" articles. A recent one in particular will likely > get passed around on the "SEO article re-publication circuit"... - Dirk Johnson, LED 1780 Well, I don't operate any SEO forums. Nor do I offer link reciprocation services or tools. I came out against reciprocal linking long before anyone else did. And I came out against it right here on the LED list. I still refuse to exchange links with people who request them. Why? Because the only people making such requests any more are people who naively believe that links from my domain will help them get good rankings in search results. And it's not like they are going to help ME get better rankings either (I'm curious about what sort of improvement I would see anyway -- we get top ten rankings across the board). What happened to all the people with real content that I would enjoy linking to? Oh. Like me, they get good search result rankings WITHOUT playing the reciprocal link game. I link to whomever I please. I don't ask for links back. And I ALWAYS refuse to reciprocate with anyone who ignores my posted warnings NOT to ask me for reciprocal links. It's not necessary. Good page content combined with good page design will achieve the desired goal for most people. And everyone has the option of utilizing advertising (which works, when done right). Michael Martinez, Author Understanding Middle-earth, Parma Endorion, and Visualizing Middle-earth http://www.xenite.org/ ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Richard Dudley Subject: Cookies > What percentage of users have cookies disabled? > If disabled, do they turn them on when shopping, > and off when they have finished...? - Chuck Donner, LED 1780 I can't recall who said this first, but "anyone who's paranoid enough to turn off cookies is probably not going to give their credit card over the Internet either". In 5 years, I can recall so very few people who have reported problems that turned out to be their cookies turned off. Even if this small number represents only a small percentage of the actual number of problems, it's still not a lot. The furor over cookies has somewhat died down in the general public (most customers have no idea what they are anyway), and are accepted as necessary by those who use the Internet often. I do know that a greater number of people appreciate the convenience cookies provide, such as storing usernames. If you're going to fret about something that affects a small percentage of the Internet population, accessibility for vision impared people is probably a better way to spend your energies. Rich Dudley www.bloomeryweddings.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Michael Linehan Subject: Cookies > What percentage of users have cookies disabled? - Chuck Donner, LED 1780 I'll look forward to any actual research figures. If my own clients are indication, I would suggest that the vast majority of shoppers have no idea what cookies are, never mind how to disable them. PS. > My 'mantra', if you will is: "If it doesn't > add VALUE, don't use it!" - Marty Millette, LED 1780 Nicely said. Good reminder. Michael Linehan http://www.marketing-alchemy.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Martha Retallick Subject: HTML editors I have been a happy user of HoTMetaL PRO version 6.0 for years. Why? Because it offers something that its two leading competitors, Front Page and Dreamweaver, don't offer: Tag View This view of your Web page shows the HTML tags as gray icons. I find this view quite helpful, since it is all too easy to over-edit something when you're using a WISYWIG-based editor like Front Page or Dreamweaver. HoTMetaL does offer a WISYWIG view -- and a raw code view -- just like Front Page and Dreamweaver do. On the downside, I'm finding that HoTMetaL PRO 6.0 doesn't provide the support for all of the CSS tags, most notably the <.SPAN> tag. If there are any Metalheads on this list who could tell me if newer versions of HoTMetaL correct this problem, I'd be very grateful. Martha Retallick "The Passionate Postcarder" http://www.postcardmarketingsecrets.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Beth Durkee Subject: HTML editors I've worked with FrontPage, GoLive, and even done some hand coding, too. The best product out there, by far, is Dreamweaver. I've worked with Dreamweaver since its initial release and it just keeps getting better and better. If you want to do advanced editing, or hand coding, you can seamlessly combine it with HomeSite, BBEdit, or the editor of your choice. Good luck, Beth Durkee, Senior Technical Support Engineer Brainshark, Inc. http://www.brainshark.com ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Jeff Alderson Subject: Adword Analyzer > It's been several weeks now and I have heard others > have received updates, but I have not. My emails have > gone unanswered. Does anyone know whats going > on with [Adword Analyzer]? - Richard Lindner, LED 1780 Hi Richard, Don't you just love all the new email filters? It seems that my update emails aren't getting through to many users and your email never made it to my inbox. I'm sending another email with download instructions to the email address you used to purchase Ad Word Analyzer. All the best! Jeff Alderson ------- new post - new topic -------- From: John Smart Subject: Anti spam Hi all, I am sure that I am not the only member of this list who gets too much junk e-Mail. Okay, so one spam would be too much, but 1,000 per day? I could cry! I tried Spam Assassin for a while, and it did okay, but it required a lot of supervision, and a lot of time. Plus the front end of it was intimidating to my clients (admittedly, some of these people are intimidated by elevator control panels!).which meant I had to manage the black and white lists. Where am I going with this? Well, I tried something new the other day, and I am exceptionally impressed (and that doesn't happen very often). We use OpenSRS (brought to us by those nice people at Tucows) for our domain name registration and Secure Certs. Well, they just launched their spam service, and it is very cool. Here is what happens: You change your MX record to point to them. Incoming mail goes through their servers. If it is an account you have spam protection activated on, the mail is checked, and the clean mail passes on to your mail servers. If it is a mailbox that you haven't signed up for spam protect, it just passes through and goes to your mail server. You can check the spam at any time by logging in to their servers -- or through your server! You can set a sub-domain to point to their site, and even add your image to this. Not the best rebranding tool I have seen, but better than nothing. If you don't want to keep logging in to check spam, you can get it e-Mailed to you -- once a day, once a week, or somewhere in between, depending on your preference, you get sent an e-Mail that lists all the spams that were blocked during this time-frame. From links in the e-Mail you can delete them, or have them allowed through to your inbox. Very clean, very simple, very nice. So how well does it work? Well, I am still getting spam -- about 40 a day now. I was getting 100-200 a day with Spam Assassin. That seems like good value to me. Good value? How much would you pay for this service? For the bandwidth it saves my server, it is probably going to pay for itself! The fee is 30 cents per mailbox per month. No set up fee for them, and no minimum amounts. Given how attentive the staff are, and how much human contact I have experienced with the OpenSRS team, I am not sure how they make any money. But the service is excellent, and I am not complaining at all! I don't think they have a referral system -- and I can provide you no links beyond www.opensrs.org , but if you have your own e-Mail servers, I would strongly recommend that you visit with these guys. John Smart, Technical Director InternetDesign.com - A Human Touch in a Digital World" ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself." - Robert Burton |
