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Ethical Link Exchange, You be the judge....
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By Lew Newlin
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Webmasters understand that quality and relevant inbound linkscan increase site visibility; your search engine rating; andwith any luck increase your traffic and revenue.
While working to locate relevant links for our site, wediscovered a disturbing practice apparently being used toincrease link popularity and search engine ranking. Thefollowing are the sorted details of our journey and discovery.
1) Most webmasters understand the hunt for quality relevantsites is, like most things of value in life, a time consumingand difficult task. Being limited on time, we first tried tohire a leading SEO expert to locate relevant links. When the SEOexpert did not return emails, we tried a few link exchangesites. While a few good quality links were unearthed, the linkexchange sites simply did not offer a large quantity of goodrelevant sites. After all, our competitors had hundreds ofthousands of inbound links and we had less than 900. Whiletempting, we skipped over the advertisements for traffic as ourdesire was for prospective customers not traffic.
2) We finally decided on the DIY approach. First step, checkcurrent reciprocal links page to insure all was well. A fewsites no longer linked to us, so our webmaster links pagerequired a few updates.
3) Next we chose to use Link Popularity Check to locate linksthat our competitors have, that we perhaps missed. The firstthing we noticed was hundreds of inbound links a competitor had,all coming from a few specific sites. Upon visiting the sites,we noticed that one was a "directory" and several others werenormal sites that contained very little content. In short, thedirectory and other sites were nothing a competent webmastercould not create in a day or two.
4) We found it odd the inbound sites all have the same visuallook, color scheme, and navigation. Our competitor's site wasalso listed in the "Related Resources" area on each and everypage. The light bulb suddenly switched on! The inbound sitesappeared to have been created for the sole purpose of increasinglink popularity and therefore the competitor's search engineranking!
5) Ping the four sites to locate the IP addresses. Fourdifferent addresses, not in consecutive order. Perhaps we weremistaken.
6) A few mouse clicks to see who owned the domain names of thefour sites. All the sites are owned by the same company, arehoused at the same ISP, and have the same email address listedfor the administrative and technical contact names.
7) A few mouse clicks at Alexa.com to review traffic patternsshow the sites have very little traffic, yet all have a PageRankscore of 6 or higher. Site traffic is increasing for each.
Nope, it does not appear we were mistaken. It appears acompetitor actually created web sites for the sole purchase ofincreasing his/her link popularity and search engine ranking fortheir primary business site. To recreate such a process:
* Register a domain name that is tied to your primary siteskeyword list. For example, if your primary site sells widgetsand has a domain name of Widgets.com, something like "Widget-Directory.com" would be ideal;
* Setup a new hosting account with your ISP, using a differentIP address, for Widget-Directory.com;
* Create a few pages that use the keyword list from Widgets.com,then setup a link system that invites webmasters to exchangelinks. Remember, no need to get carried away with content as thepurpose of Widget-Directory is really keyword tie-in and linkexchanges;
* Now, code every page of Widget-Directory with a link back toWidget.com;
* Sit back and watch. As webmasters enter their sites andsubcategories into Widget-Directory, the results will increasethe link quantity and apparently your search engine ranking ofWidget-Directory AND Widgets.com.
We were curious to see if this was an isolated incident or arampant practice. While not rampant, it did not take us long tofind others companies utilizing this technique. Is this ethical?I am sure some would argue this is a savvy internet marketingpractice, while others will view the practice as repulsive.Ethical or not, this technique is simple, cost effective, andapparently will increase your search engine ranking. One thingis clear, I will never look at directory sites or link exchangepages the same.
Hopefully, the search engine will adjust their algorithms andnullify this practice. In the interim, for those that take anegative PR and/or link exchange hit, remember that honestybuilds longevity and lasting relationships. Remember the SEOexpert we previously tried to hire? We went back and checked hissite, and yes he utilizes the same technique. Odd thing however,his sites no longer enjoys top ratings on the major searchengines. Perhaps, the search engines are starting to figure thisone out.
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