How often did you hear that a link must have this
or that PageRank (PR) in order to be of value? How often did you read
the advice that you should link only to relevant sites? How many
articles and posts are being published throughout the web by SEO experts
about the value of links and reciprocal links?
Well. Being a webmaster myself I grew more and
more weary of getting told how "important" my links are in the
eyes of the search engines. You may think to say so is either very brave
or very stupid of me, but believe me: it is neither. I do not give a
dime on how important even major search engines like Google, Yahoo or
MSN rate the links on my website, nor do I care about what the SEO
"Gurus" think about them. Yes, I even do not care on what my
PR is.
So, I can here you almost think "this guyīs
completely crazy". But wait, not at all... My sites do have lots of
traffic without me caring too much about search engines. Certainly I
would always appreciate to have even more traffic on my sites, who would
not? But I am making very good profits out of my websites and this
coming right into my pocket without a tremendous advertising budget or
spending hour after hour on Search Engine Optimisation.
But it is not foolishness of mine. In contrary, I
have a very good reason why I do not really care on how important search
engines think my sites are. This is, because after more than six years
as a webmaster with my sites up in the internet, neither Yahoo, Google,
MSN or any other search engine or directory has EVER purchased a
product, signed up for my mailing lists or clicked on an affiliate link
generating commissions for me. They have not spent a single penny on my
sites during all the years gone by and will not do so during all the
years yet to come!
The only opinion and action on my sites that
really matters to me and that I pay lotīs of attention to is the
opinion of my human site visitors. Only real PEOPLE are buying my
products and services, not the search engines. If they like my site,
they may even pass a recommendation to their friends and collegues. This
realy is, what I care about!
And guess what? It is only logic sense that I want
PEOPLE to come to my websites and only for this reason I do need links
to my sites that will come in front of REAL PEOPLE. Even Google
recommends to "Build your site for visitors - not for the search
engines" which appears pretty much valid for all 3 major factors,
which are content, design and - links.
We as webmasters should hold on for a minute and
stop the "stinking linking thinking" that has developed and
spread too much during the past years. We should stop for a moment and
go back to the REAL purpose and value of a link. This is not a
revolution! Links are made for people to navigate within the internet.
Links are the lifeblood of the web, without them it could not exist!
Links - whether coming from a search engine, a web directory or another
website - are meant to bring human visitors to our sites. Period!
Looking at all the SEO hype within the last few
years we have noted that links and link directories have disappeared to
the bottom of pages, often featured with tiny text links only or even
made invisible for human eyes. They even may have been renamed to
"partners" or "resources" or the like, in the hope
nobody will find them interesting enough to visit.
But what is the point in that? Why do we implement
links, and then do almost everything to hide them from site visitors?
Again, is the Google robot going to buy? No. Is the Yahoo spider going
to sign up? Certainly it wonīt. So what is the reason for investing
time and efforts on putting a link to my site onto another site or vice
versa, if only a robot can find it?
Oh yes, I forgot about that! It will imporve
search engine ranking and will bring a flood of visitors to your site.
So thatīs it. But will it? Honestly. Are you on the top of all major
search engines for major popular keywords, or even dedicated popular
keywords to receive thousands of visitors every day from them? Most
probably not. But if you are, congratulations! Letīs hope that you can
still stay on top when the search engines are going to modify their
algorithms again, next month!
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