Karen, I am going to have to disagree with your statement, "If you implement more links in your site, I guarantee you will move up in the search engine rankings." On the contrary, one-way, outbound links from a web site will do little for that site's rankings. It is inbound links (also called back links) to Suzy Miller's site that impresses the major search engines. 

The founders of Google have worked off a premise that has been active in academic papers for years: citation authority. They found that the more academic papers cited another's work, the more likely that cited work was to be an authority on the subject.  Similarly, when a lot of sites link to one site, it's likely that site is an authority for the topic.  The "topic" is whatever those links say it is. If 25 sites link to another site with the term "oak shelving," it's likely that page is an important page for oak shelving.

If this is true, you showed in the body text up above a link to Arizona State University. That link may help ASU's over-all rankings (because it is a new back link now for ASU, just adding to the number of other sites linking to them throughout the Web), but it going to do little for Suzy Miller's rankings.

So for now, to achieve rankings in Google as well as in Yahoo, a site is going to have to create some kind of Link Directory where the owner offers reciprocity to other site owners in return for getting back links to their web site. In fact, in a real estate related search, you will find that most of the agent/broker sites that rank well for their search terms in the most competitvie markets have acheived that primarily via reciprocation. All you have to do is look at the search results, especially in Google. Then look at those well ranking agent/broker sites to see that they have link directories. It's pervasive. Especially in real estate, reciprocating sites are beating the pulp out of sites that refuse to do it and are only displaying out-bound links. 

I guess there is no exact science but I do like to try to make a content rich site.  Thanks for your post.

Featured by Laurie, because it is a good representation of a differing opinions on SEO tactics.  There are many new readers and they should know that many people have different opinions on what good SEO is.  

Having Good outbound links to relevant information without losing the viewer can be a positive thing. I often get traffic to my site by providing relevant information. The viewers tend to refer their friends to my site. Having a ton of viewers is good. Having a few active buyers and sellers is better.

I think you understand very well what a successful real estate website is Herb.

For me it's one that lets me generate commission checks that I can deposit in my bank account and use to pay my bills.

"Having a few active buyers and sellers is better." Indeed!

"I get lots of hits." That's nice, show me the money.

"My site has won lots of awards." That's nice, show me the money.

"All the Realtors in my office say my website is wonderful." That's nice, show me the money.

I liked your examples of outbound links, even if Google isn't impressed.  I too think that the links are good for people who are interested in your site and what you can do for them will be impressed if they can find out a little about where you are from and what you have done, along with local interests.  To me, it makes the site more personal and friendly.  As a consumer, I liked it.

I have also been told it is the links in not the links out that count on search engines like Google.  However, the other important pieces seem to be content -- and especially new content added to the site.  Once you get all this down -- then the search engines change everything again.  It is a moving target!  However, fresh content seems to be something which remains important.

hahaha Lynx... you just dated yourself!  Did you love GOPHER or what??

Good points... I think sometimes we get so into writing that we forget to make our sites more interactive...

and then I'm sure some people don't want to link to a page that might have the competition's name on it in an adbanner or linkexchange!

I wish we could get a definitive on this.

I just read the other day where google will punish you for too many backlinks.

So much to learn, so little time!

Ginger

You not only want backlinks, but good anchor text (the text your actual urs is embedded in).  For example, I want lots of Austin Real Estate or Austin Homes or Austin TX real estate or other variations links pointing to me.  If you want to check out how well you are doing comparet to others who have lots of inbound links with the anchor text you want to rank for, enter into Google allinanchor:austin real estate.  Obviously you'll use your own keywords you want to rank for.  What you will see returned is pretty close to the sites that rank on page 1.

Thanks Karen, are you finally able to breath after a crazy week?  We need to chat soon regarding my website. Shoot me an email to george@tallabas.com when you get a chance and have a great weekend.

Karen,

I appreciate the article you have written about links on a website. I have a links page and I have requests frequently to share links; however, you make an intersting point to incorporate links into the body text of  webpages.  

I will be taking your advice and doing what you said.  Thank you for sharing your secret and not keeping it to yourself...

George Jordan, Owner/Broker

Red Soil Real Estate

Prince Edward Island, Canada

www.buysellpei.com

Karen - Interesting post. I have found blogging more effective for creating opportunities than my website. My website is a great tool for resources and as a tool for borrowers to complete the loan application, download discloures, etc. I most ofen use it when I direct somethere myself. I do not know that I have allot of capture from Google searches, etc.

Take a look and let me know what you think: www.PrivateMortgageBanking.net

Great comments!

James

When you're linking out, it's important to know the links on your link - linking to the government site and the school site may be great, but if you link to the Chamber of Commerce site and they see links to other agents who are paying for that positioning and the Chamber sells the names and e-mail addresses of those visiting its site to its members - that's not good for you.

Win--

You are right about inbound links.  You are wrong about outbound links.  I think you've missed the point.  Comment here again if you would like me to explain further.

It takes a lot of time to get legitimate inbound links and, in the meanwhile, one way to get the Goooglebot to notice your site is to provide outbound links- to show that you are a sourch of information.

~Karen

Karen - One of the main points you seemed to be making in your post up above, unless I missed something, was, "...and link to important sites to show Google just how important your site is." From years of web design, studying and implementing SEO techniques in the sites I build to get my clients "found", the only way Google is going to show how important someone's site is to their searchers is by having well-optimized page content and a large number of quality back links.

The web sites I build for agents and brokers usually feature an "Area Living" page - a complete Relocation Guide Online for the newcomer relocating to that area. That page is being used over and over by current and past clients of the agent too. To see a couple of examples go to - www.jillmcgovern.com/california_living.html that has over 144 outbound links on her page or to www.highlandagents.com/dc_area_living.html that has over 127 outbound links on that real estate brokerage page. So I am very familiar with making sites very "link rich". Certainly these outbound links make the site "sticky" and provides a page of great content for the visitor. Yet, The Kennedy Center site or the Fairfax County Public Schools site (both important sites) have never linked back to any one of my Washington area web sites. Does having those outbound links make any of my clients' sites important to Google? Not really! Certainly Google knows about each site I design. But those links on that type of page and on the site's other pages do little to help them get ranked in the Top 30 in Google for the keyword search phrases each site is trying to target.

To get Jill McGovern ranked in Google for her main targeted keyword search phrase - "Dana Point Real Estate" in Orange County, CA - has taken several months and also incorporating a reciprocal Link Directory, built by www.domaindrivers.com, that now has achieved many hundreds of back links from other sites pointing to hers. As of a couple of weeks ago, Jill is now in the Top 5 for that search phrase in Google. Furthermore, when I looked 2 days ago, she was #1 in Yahoo and #1 in MSN as well. So optimized page content and reciprocal linking are the key elements to being found in the searches... not just being known and indexed by Google.

Karen,

You are such a wealth of information. I am going to try some of your suggestions and see what they do for my website. Thanks for such a valuable post : )

Karen,

Just implemented your idea about the links...anxiously waiting to see what happens next. Again, thanks for the tips.

Win!

You are absolutely correct!  I am not arguing the well-established fact that inbound links are most important.  In fact, as the "Google Bomb" shows us, inbound links are probably the most important thing to a site.  I, too, build websites however.  I have a ton of websites of my own (some mortgage related, most of them about different topics.)  I personally own 203 websites.  Most of them have pretty good SERP.

With all of these websites, I have tweaked and messed around with titles, h1 tags, the whole deal...wait a couple of weeks...see what happens...try it again with ten more sites just to make sure it works...  Then, when I am confident, I publish an article.  I'm not just talking out of my bum here.  Do you think I am making this up as I go along?

So, I have to disagree with you.  Your realtor sites only do so well with reciprocal linking because they don't have any real competition that has one-way linking.  I have several methods of gaining one-way links from high ranking sites, but that is for my clients. 

So, I would partially agree with you and than reword the last sentence you wrote as such:  "So optimized page content and one way linking are the key elements to being found in the searches... not just being known and indexed by Google."

Now that we've established the importance of links:  Let's say we have two sites that have an equal amount of reciprocal links and the same keyword density for two sites.  They both have great titles and URL's.  In other words, let's say they are mostly equal in their abilty to be ranked.  (I know this is impossible, but let's just pretend for example's sake.)

Wrap your brain around this:  Google finds the link on my page to Realtor.com.  You seem to think that it simply chalks one up for Realtor.com and that's it.  The Google algorithm is far more sophisticated.  It sees who you are linking to and, when you link to important sources of information, it will improve your search engine position, period.  It actually looks at the page rank of the "sources" that you "cite" on your main index page.  It doesn't just stop with reading the link and giving credit to Realtor.com

To me, this is total common sense; I can't even imagine that you are arguing this.  Also, it certainly couldn't hurt to implement these common sense ideas, based on the theories in my article.  However, if you don't want to try it- don't.

But, I have watched a page move from page 4 of Google to Number 5 in Google, because I added a directory of Arizona resources to the bottom of this particular Realtor's index page.  Don't you see the common sense aspect of this?  She went from a keyword rich site talking all about herself to: A keyword rich site, talking all about herself, and proving that she is a source of good Arizona information.

So yes, one-way links (number one), good URL, good title, outbound links to other important related sources and finally, reciprocal links.

Your Realtor clients, who get on top with reciprocal links, will have their butts kicked by those with one-way inbound links.  That, I guarantee.  For your client's benefit, I suggest you read The Best Way To "Exchange" Links - before the competition does.

Karen - Nice to see the addition about the importance of inbound links in your comments, because I couldn't find it in the original post. I know that you too have a lot of knowledge in this area and chances are, this debate about outbound vs. inbound is happening elsewhere on the Internet too. 

But no, as of right now and the current state of search engine indexing, I'll stand by my statement above, "So optimized page content and reciprocal linking are the key elements to being found in the searches.", which means getting quality inbound links. Look at what is said by some of the top SEO advisors.

From Jill Whalen - www.highrankings.com - in her 12/13/06 email newsletter -

It's inbound links TO your site that help you with the search engines, not outbound links. Outbound links are often helpful to your users, however, if you have some great resources that you would like to recommend to them. Outbound links also show good faith to the search engines, to prove you're not what my friend Scottie likes to call a "dead-end site."

It's really all just common sense. Create your pages in such a way that makes the most sense for your particular business, your brand, and the people who will be visiting your site. That's what the search engines want as well.

From Jim Hedger - www.stepforth.com - in their 6/07/06 email newsletter -

One of the ways Google tries to judge the intent of webmasters is by mapping the network of incoming and outgoing links associated with a domain. Links, according to the gospel of Google, should exist only as navigation or information references that benefit the site visitor. Google examines the outbound links from a page or document and compares them against its list of inbound links, checking to see how many match up and how many are directed towards, and/or coming from pages featuring unrelated or irrelevant content. Links pointing to or from irrelevant content or reciprocal links between topically unrelated sites are easily spotted and their value to the overall site ranking downgraded or even eliminated.

The subject of links brings up an uncomfortable flaw in Google’s inbound link analysis that is being referred to as Google Bowling. As part of its scan of the network of links associated with a document or URL, Google keeps a detailed record of who links to who, how long the link has been established, if there is a recip link back, along with several other items.

So I guess, Google is like Santa, "He knows if you've been sleeping, he knows if you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!" ;-)

There are three main tasks that must be adequately addressed for good rankings: 1) Content (that’s your site and the work you put into adding content to make it very attractive to visitors searching the internet); 2) Content Optimization (that’s the site owner, a hired Virtual Assistant or a webmaster working to make the code behind your site easy for the search engines to navigate; and 3) Link Popularity. These three main tasks are all necessary for good search engine rankings; a three-legged stool, if you like.

Hi All,

My first post to ActiveRain. Glad to be here.

I am the operations manager for DomainDrivers, mentioned above, by Win Singleton.

I have participated in these "one-way vs reciprocated" link discussions on many forums over several years. I also have the advantage of having worked on hundreds of reciprocal link campaigns, for all kinds of sites, in all kinds of industries (except adult).

I also have observed how this plays out with the many sites that we link with, as well. By and large, the sites that reciprocate responsibly in their realm of interest have withstood the Google updates with remarkable stability. As opposed to the ones that have chased various SEO linking theories.

Gracious reciprocation is a web-marketing concept that pre-dates every search engine, and is an original web marketing method. It is a method of establishing brand. It is still valid.

I do have a couple of questions for Karen:

1) What proof do you have that one way links have any more value than reciprocated links in Google? I am not talking about opinion or "common wisdom". I find the "common wisdom" in the SEO world to be very flawed. I am asking for some form of documented proof that others can look to as verifiable. I ask this question everywhere, and I have yet to have a single person in the SEO world provide any proof whatsoever.

2) For a typical real estate agent in a very competitive market (competitive in SEO terms, not metro size), the top ranking sites are, by and large, reciprocating actively within the real estate and home realm. All one has to do to prove this to themselves is to have a look at the sites, and their link profiles. It is pervasive. Many of them have 500 or more reciprocated links. Please explain to us where a typical realtor will get that kind of link popularity from one-way links?

3) From my experience, a site that have been reciprocating actively and begins ranking also begins to earn one-way links, gratuitously, from a lot of other places. However, it was reciprocation that was the catalyst for those other links. People who do not manage reciprocation campaigns are not aware of this "link expansion" phenomenon, and thus, they erroneously imagine that reciprocating sites only have reciprocated links. It's not that way at all. A site with a broad base of reciprocated links usually gets a lot of one-way links, by virtue of ranking well in the first place.

Just some observations.

Dirk--

First of all, since the Google algorithm is unknown to us, everything is speculation.  All I know, I've learned from "trail and error".  In my masters thesis, which centered around the "reverse engineering of the Google algorithm", the only way to figure these things out is to have many, many sites on many different topics and continuously tweak them as I do.  As mentioned, I currently have 203 operating websites and about 700 domains...yes, I squat.

Okay, here goes:

1.) I have no proof.  Just like you have no proof.  I, like you, only have theory.  My theory is backed by my extensive experience and education in this very field.  If you read my posts, you read that I try something on a few sites first, then I implement it on all of my sites (if it works).  I use WebCEO to keep track of my positions and watch my positions change with every change I make.  So, I have as much proof as you do.  With a whole lot of experience and education to back me up.  You can't find any documented proof?  Well, I can't find any documented proof that God exists, yet 86% of Americans believe in God.  All I have is what I have seen with my own eyes.  Can you provide me documented proof (from Google) that Google likes reciprocated links better than one-way links?  Again, this is astounding to me that somebody would argue this fact.  Are you telling me that you would build a search engine that would consider a "trade" as important as someone linking to you, just because your site is filled with brilliant content?

Also, why do so many sites use the nofollow tag on their "link exchanges"?  Thousands of intelligent (and slimy) webmasters take the inbound, but don't want to give the outbound.  That's because they know what I know.

2.)  I'll answer that simply in two words:  Press Releases.  About 6 a year should do it.  One of the most valuable tools in any true SEO's bag of tricks.  Provides thousands of inbound links without having any outbound.

3.) Right.  And by the same token, many people do not realize that reciprocal linking can be an evil game.  I can mention five ways to trick someone into thinking you are linking to them when you really are not.  There is the "no follow" tag I mentioned, plus CSS, and a few more...

I suggest you Google "reciprocal linking is dead."

I find it odd that this is such a topic of debate!  If you don't like my techniques, don't use them.  But as I mentioned, SEVERAL TIMES, these are all methods that I've been working on since 1996.  Oh dear Lord.  I suddenly feel old...  But yes, I've been doing this for 11 years.  I don't just talk out of my butt.

Well, if you edit out my posts, then we don't have a discussion, do we?

Dirk-- Here's the thing.  I think you're wrong.  You think I'm wrong.  I'm not going to let you have the last word on SEO on my SEO post and I don't have the energy to keep going back and forth with you.  I know that you are mistaken and I don't want any of my readers to be misled by your opinions.

So yes, in the interest of moving on with my life, I am not going to continue this debate with you.  It's just too time consuming and time is money.

Karen,

I don't want the last word. You attributed a lot of statements to me in your last post that are competely incorrect and very misleading. I rebutted them. I just want to set the record straight.  

Second, maybe nobody has ever challeged you on your position about this. I have been in several of these exchanges over the years. I do know from experience that readers WANT to see both sides of this. Then THEY choose for themselves, based on what was presented.

If you don't want this to be an open forum, then by all means, assume control and edit out everything that you disagree with. But I thought this was a discussion forum.

I just want to be very clear to all that you have completely removed my rebuttal post.  

Well, nobody says this has to be a discussion forum.  I've posted plenty of comments in the blogs of some idiot, Bush-loving conservatives, and they never "approve" my comments.  It is my blog, so I do have editing rights.

The thing about your rebuttal post is that...well, you just keep going back and forth with me.  You don't make any new points.

I mean, is this, or is this not the bottom line?: 

You think, without having any proof except your own experience, that reciprocal links are as valuable as one-way links.

I think, without having any proof except my own experience, that one-way links are far more valuable than reciprocal.

That's it, right?  Your last post was just too enormous for me to address on a point-by-point basis.  If you want to keep it simple, post your rebuttal.  If you are going to say the same things though, I don't think there's a point. 

I am editing for the sake of keeping this readable, not because you aren't allowed to give your opinion.  I left your original post, didn't I?

I answered your 3-part question there and then...bam, more tedious arguments.  I'm just not into that.  I have a million hours of experience with this and I know what I'm talking about.  I don't need to argue with, yet, another opinionated SEO when my sites are all on page one of Google.  (Including my ActiveRain profile.)

Oh well. 

Karen, you have completely mis-characterized me again. I do not agree with your own conclusion about your position vs. my p osition. There si a lot more to it than that, as I descirbed in my deleted post. Please, let me speak for me. Your own conclusions about what I have said are not what I have said.  

So, I will just bail out of here, for good. I agree, it's a waste of our time, if you refuse to allow open dialogue.

All I have to say to your readers who are real estate agents...go look at a lot of real search results.

And with that, I am done here.