Help your neighbor - Why promoting other people's websites makes sense.

[NickM]

One of my common practices is building links for other websites. Beyond the general karma angle, by link building for sites that link to you, you help yourself out indirectly. At the very least, every time a site links to me, I bookmark that page at 10+ social bookmarking sites and promote it on stumble upon. You help a site that was nice enough to link to yours, and if you can build more link juice to pages that link to you, you create more link juice to your site as well. You make a better friend of that website owner, help their site to rank better and help your site rank better as well. It's a no-brainer. I will also link to these pages if they deserve it and fit well into one of my site's themes. Everyone wins when you are free with linking.

If we all linked to each other more freely, less link buying would be needed. Of course, this will never work for sites whose strategy is to throw up lots of thin content and buy lots of links, but that is the point isn't it? The more we link to each other's quality content, the less effective these sites' strategy will be.

Discuss the best ways to promote other people's content and general link-hippieness in this thread.

[Matt Geer]

Discuss the best ways to promote other people's content and general link-hippieness in this thread.

First thing I thought of when reading the second paragraph of this is, "is this guy a hippie or what." LOL

But great post and I definitely agree with what you said about freely linking to other people. It's something that more of us should practice for sure.

[MJ]

I've spoken about this at length with you and I agree completely.

Problem is, I've linked to at least 20 other affiliate sites in the last year unsolicited and the favor has only been returned once or twice. I would and will link to any page that would be helpful to my visitors but most people are too stingy or self centered to return the favor.

[CK]

I've spoken about this at length with you and I agree completely.

Problem is, I've linked to at least 20 other affiliate sites in the last year unsolicited and the favor has only been returned once or twice. I would and will link to any page that would be helpful to my visitors but most people are too stingy or self centered to return the favor.

Or quite possibly they dont notice or realize you've done this. They may not even have anything they feel is relative to what your doing.

I think the point of what Nick is saying is to do so without expecting one in return,,,, or thats my take on it. I link out to quite a few people and I've never mentioned it to them or contacted them to let them know. I dont expect a link and I dont remove it if I see they havent linked back. If one is returned then yeah thats awesome but it's not neccessary.

[jdwanchalk]

The thing is, this is how it SHOULD be. Google's algorithm thinks that links denote worthiness when in reality links can often mean the site simply has money to spend. This is one reason why I feel links should be greatly downgraded in the algorithm that Google uses. Another idea might be to vary the weight that is given to a website's backlinks depending upon its subject matter. It really is unfortunate that so much money often needs to be spent for high quality links.

[MJ]

Wasn't tallking about you or anything kaus, or anyone in specific. Just saying it is a revolving wheel, I link to sites without letting them know all the time I think That part of karma is rather irrelevant. Any of us that will try to claim to writing a good page should do that naturally whether it's a friend, or some random.

Bottom line and I mean this is that any affiliate here reading this thread, if you are creating unique pages that catch my interest while I'm searching something I'm going to give you a link.

Speaking of that guys:

I put up www.onlinegamblingaffiliates.org for all pal members wanting a link. Pm me to be made a contributing member and I'll set you up as a user so you can post blogs anytime for a link. My way of both making use of a domain and spreading the love for anyone who needs it, like a lot of the new guys who need a few links to get going. Let me know if I can help anyone here.

I hope we all can do more of this, I think it's important for some affiliates to grasp the part Nick was saying in that it helps you to link to good sites, it really NEVER hurts.

And, I really think that people who give tend to get.

If you are a take take person, you might find your connections less willing to give, but if you are a give give person like Kaus and others you will probably see the deed returned. Three great examples of people who I see giving a LOT around here:

Matt Greer

Unknown Webmaster

Randy Ray

Michael Martinez

If you look at these guys websites, they link freely to people all the time, I am going to make a point to try and do more of that myself. MikeW is another dude who is always putting up threads saying "hey, I want my directory to be good - let me know if you have a good site and I'll link to you". I'm going to try and make a serious effort to do more of this myself.

There is a lot of other people but these guys

[Unknown Webmaster]

I think that a lot of people simply forget to link back, since there are no immediate benefits connected with it. Don't get me wrong, I agree that you should be linking to good sites, but when you are only doing it to "be nice", it is just sooo easy to postpone it until you forget.

While on the subject of forgetting to link, does anybody remember who wrote the article with a list of the funniest 2+2 posts 1-2 months ago?

[MJ]

That is a good point, and sometimes I'll link to someone to be nice but the real "natural" links I'm giving on occasion are purely because someone deserves it.

I remember when I got my first natural link on a players forum for a rakeback calculating method term I was on cloud nine because it just felt so different than any other link I had gotten before, and it was like a reward for putting the time into making it worth reading, which unfortunately not all of my pages can lay claim too.

[MJ]

At the very least, every time a site links to me, I bookmark that page at 10+ social bookmarking sites and promote it on stumble upon. You help a site that was nice enough to link to yours, and if you can build more link juice to pages that link to you, you create more link juice to your site as well. You make a better friend of that website owner, help their site to rank better and help your site rank better as well. It's a no-brainer.

I missed this on my first post since I was on my phone, this is absolutely great advice and although it now seems like a no brainer (duh) I had never even considered it. What a great idea, thanks Nick.

LadyH randomly stumbles people all the time too btw, whether she knows you or not - I'll have to make a point to start doing more bookmarking in general. Does anyone have a dummies guide to social bookmarking link?

[Randy Ray]

Great thread.