Reciprical Links!

I have recently started a website for my wife(www.langstoneteam.com), a realtor in SC, using Point2 Agent. I am very happy with what the site can do so far. Using Point2 you can create a hidden page, not sure if you can do this with all web sites, but presumably you can.

Now here's the question?

If you set some guide lines, because nobody wants to promote direct competition, for arguements sake, say 4 websites per state, that gives you 200 websites. If you created a hidden website page containing reciprical links that you give you 199 links pointing at your websiteand vice versa. Because you would need to check that each link worked, that would create 199 unique visits to each website.

Is this illegal, I don't see why it would be? Is it a good idea, might be?

I wait a response as to why this can't or should not be done?

Alan

What you are suggesting is known as a "link farm" and participation will result in being penalized 100% of the time once discovered or reported.

In the past many template site providers used the strategy in an attempt to make their sites rank in search engines and this would result is banishment of all of their sites.

I found that even once an agent would discontinue using the penalized template provider and set up a custom site in their domain - the penalty would follow them- i.e the new custom site would not be able to rank well in search engines even years after.

Not worth it.

Thanks Doug,

For a minute I thought I had re-discovered the wheel. Or the internet version of it.

I'll go back to being stupid now. It's safer!

Alan

Yeah, search engines are aware of all of the tricks - nothing is new anymore. Except for highly competitive large market areas, in most cases you do not actually need as many links as most people think you do in order to compete for your keywords. You just need a handful of good indexable links from older sites that are primarily real estate or that are about your geographic area - and then you need to be patient because the age of a site means a lot nowadays.

Of course you also have to optimize your site for your target keywords as well

Again, Thanks Doug,

So far as far as my knowledge goes, I have done as much with the meta discription and metatags as i can. It took as few days before I could find the site searching on google. It becomes easier to find each day, I think the blog might be helping this?

Alan

Alan,

Yeah, stay away from the link farm. You can build quality links by submitting articles, using social bookmarking, submitting to relevant directories and getting quality link partners. Have you done any of these things? They all take time but are definitely worth it. Doug is right .... patience and domain age (unfortunately).

Adding a signature to your forum posts will get the search engines crawling your site more often.

let me "second that" Bigtoe - we get 25-30 hits from our various boards sig links and the crawlers do follow ultimately

Thanks Guys, Umm signiture what! to where?

Is this a simple as adding website address at bottom of blogs?

Alan
http://www.langstoneteam.com

good morning LPI -

go to "my stuff" and select "my profile" from the dropdown, then find the area of your profile to add "signature" and it will attach to all of your postings just like the 3 links below my post above or this one

And use keywords. Every little bit helps.

Writing unique articles about Real Estate and related topics also helps a ton. Just be sure not to duplicate content (ie. plagiarize) or Google won't give you as good a ranking as if it was written 100% by you.

http://www.copyscape.com is a good resource to check if things you've written have already been written by someone.

Right, I don't fully understand what you are trying to say but this might help.

Forget the links pages and 200 websites (200 websites - that's a hell of a lot of work to solely promote one website, don't you think?), build links on forums, articles, directories, blogs, etc, etc.

But why not create instead of 200 websites 200 pages of quality content? I see on your site you have a homepage link on every page on the side nav and at the bottom of every page? So every week create another couple of pages of new content and the links will build themselves that way.

How many links have you found in google, yahoo and msn that are actually links found on your own website?

E.G - In yahoo you have 17 links, 11 of them are coming from your own site!

Don't exchange links, it is a waste of time and cutting corners will only cause more problems than it's worth.

Thanks, Richie,

Hows the weather over there?

I did the same link search on Google (link: www."your domainname".com)for those who do not know about it, and got 38 links, again mainly from my website.

Is it good or bad that the links are from my own site?

How many does a long running, successful and search engine "found" website get?

In reply or Question,

From Doug's answer about Link Farms, how do they differ from Real Estate Directories, which free reciprical links are advertised/requested under the Reciprical Link Forum on this site.

Regards
Alan

And is a easy way for a prospective client to find out more about you then you would like, lets say they do some research on google / y / msn for your companies website, they find the forum sig's, they then read all the post's take any emails or usernames that you use there and do a google search with those, and then they find joe's fishing forum (or a personal myspace account for the younger realtors) where you do non-work related postings, where in the off-topic forum you talk about personal views ect, which makes you not only lose the client, but passes the word of mouth around badly.

This could happen, and all for some small link juice?

I am not afraid to let anyone find anything I have posted anywhere on the internet. If they go looking for my name and/or username they better have some time on their hands because I am all over the internet.

My outlook is exactly the opposite. I want them to find me. I want them to do the research. I have gotten referrals from posting on forums. Do I appeal to everyone? No way. Do I appeal to some? Apparently.

Link juice is just the icing on the cake. Social interacting is the big plus here and personally I do not like to interact with people who are hiding.

Isn't this the point? Dont you want your client to find out about you on the internet? I would want all my clients to search my name on the Internet so they see all the marketing I do!!!

Well according to my local paper this week, it reported that, a report just in from Pew Internet & American Life Project showed that 47% of adult Americans have goolged themselves. This is more than twice the 22% that googled themselves in 2002.

It also stated that 60% of Internet users said they weren't worried about the extent of the information available online. Also that the younger generation were more careful about the information that they put out on the internet than their parents.

More interesting was the fact, (sorry no percentages available because I throw that bit of the paper away, whoops)was the fact that although men and women were both prone to googling a love interest, it was the information that they were researching, like wealth, court records, bankruptcy, etc.that made me wonder.

Whatever happened to going out for a beer?

Regards
Alan

Hey LPI even I have googled my name but sad couldn't find myself. Well, I don't know about others but as far I am concerned I have only tried to find people just for some kick, nothing else. However, it is really sad to see the intention with which people are looking up for things on google. What a bad bad, sad world? Hmmm..

We google all of our clients and potential clients and I google people I meet on these forums. Watch out.

I googled Landwatch.com, 12 posts in 4 days, that makes it an addiction already.

If you google Bigtoe, you just get Soccer, Music or Monsterbikes!!

This would require babysitting, possibly a designated driver (two beers would make me buzzed). Costs money to go out.

Staying home with the laptop and surfing with a bottle of wine: costs vary/depends on the wine. Internet service for the month costs less than one evening of babysitting for three kids.
Staying home....no babysitter needed, no designated driver, and I don't have to wear makeup or get out of my pajamas.

I agree. Just have to make sure the kids don't hit the "History" button; they might find REODayton's favorite link!