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What are link directories?

Link directories list down all websites - sometime not according to rank or popularity but based on category. For example if you have an online store for plus size clothing for women, your website will be listed under the category of clothing in a link directory. There are two types of link directories – general and human edited.

The general type of link directories based on categories, region, country or language while human edited is the updated link directory. Human edited link directories are updated by editors based on the concept of search engine organization or SEO and through ranking. Most people prefer the human edited type of link directories.

Penalized Link Directories

Of late, issues are roaming around the Internet world regarding penalized link directories by the largest search engine Google. What does it mean of link directories being penalized? Penalized link directories means they have lost or don’t have their usual ranking from search engine results. For example, a link used to monopolize the first page in Google search but after the penalty, they are no longer there.

This is the main concern for most link directories since they have worked hard to improve or maintain their ranking in search engines and waking up one day loosing their ranking that they worked so hard to achieve. Likewise, these people will just get the surprise of their life when they learned that the traffic from their websites lowered to as much as 95%.

In fact, there are many link directories that had been penalized like Alive, Aviva, ewebpages, Big Web Links, Elegant Directory, and Directory Dump among others. Some of these have complained that the search engine Google didn’t give any notice that they will be penalized. In fact, almost sixty link directories were penalized by Google causing people concerned to wonder if Google is using an iron fist on those link directories. However, Google is happy and feels justified that it has taken a decision in the longer interest of webmasters.

Reasons for Penalty

Google penalized the paid link directories; that is why, when you search for link directories those are free directories and human edited. Google penalized many big web directories that even brought uproar in many forums from readers and those directly affected like the owners, but Google defended their stand that buying links is against their company regulations.

Google is also against those who are selling links using with unethical techniques and intentions. Some directories were penalized since they buy high ranking pages to increase their own ranking now that is a very obvious unethical method that Google cannot permit to happen.

Google is against all of those “manipulative” directories with general subjects just to generate large revenues. There are also bad links that cause Google a lot of problems especially those that spread spam in the Internet. One of the sign for this kind of link directories are those that anybody can get in; there are no regulations and guidelines for those links who want to be enlisted.

Google bounced back at those penalized link directories that their tem for anti-spam sent notifications to those link directories about to be penalized. Some link directories cleaned and made necessary actions and escaped the penalty. It is also a lesson learned for everybody to stay away from these links that will just cause trouble.

To end up, the move and decision of Google to penalize some web directories is just a way of cleansing the Internet from unwanted and malicious links. Penalizing some link directories will lessen the problems of spamming and phishing that are one of the problems among Internet users.

With the growing importance of search engine optimization or SEO, link building is very important to increase traffic in your websites thus gaining popularity and elevating the ranking of your site in search engine results. Online Advertising = SEO + SEM + Email Marketing + Affiliate marketing + website advertising.

What is link building?

How can we define link building? And what are the strategies in link building to ensure traffic and ranking to a specific website?

It’s a form of online advertising or website advertising. Link building strategies are methods used to make backlinks from other sites to your own websites. It’s like advertising your website in other sites by including your site’s link in the page. Advertising your site to increase traffic using link-building strategies doesn’t demand banners and icons of your site spread to all the other websites around.

How can you build links from other websites? Here are some easy link building strategies that you can start using right away to increase traffic in your site.

Different Link Building Strategies

Articles

Writing and submitting articles is a subtle way of link building; you write what your website is all about and can even place your link in it. Though some directories prohibit this practice, you can instead discuss your website a little bit in article or relate your topic to your website. Some directories let its contributor place their links at the bottom of each article. This way, the readers already has the interest of your site and clicking on your link means that they want to know more about your website.

You may write many articles in your blog than can direct readers to your website. In your blog you are really very free to include links of your websites that readers can click and visit while in the middle of reading your article.

Participating in Forums

There are many online communities where you can participate to build links to your sites. Posting in forums; while some forums allow posting your website’s address it makes a very effective link building strategy. Participating in forums will give you a wider avenue to link building since you can discuss and include your site forums.

You can start a topic of discussion in forums that is very closely related to your website can produce interests in readers to visit your site. Starting a discussion in forum is a very good link building strategy since you have the advantage of having your website as the main issue discussed. More and more people will be interested to visit your site thus, increasing both traffic and popularity.

Content Management

Your website must not just showcase your products and service instead it should be a good research material. People search in the Internet to find information in a certain product and services, write and include as many useful articles in your websites using keywords. Don’t limit your website’s content to mainly merchandising your business. Search engines can elevate your ranking if it contains contents that are of high quality.

PPC advertising

There are many “paid per click” advertising that have low rates than are very affordable for you and some PPC especially the new ones let its advertisers have a trial period. With a number of people attracted to pay per click sites, they are not just clicking for additional income but can be interested to fully navigate your website. PPC advertising can generate and increase traffic just in a single day. However, it is an expensive way of promoting your site. When you have poor skills of writing articles or blogs, this maybe the one you can be looking up to as a final resort.

To end up, you can ask for the service of link building experts but it doesn’t mean that you cant so it. If you really want massive traffic to your site, there is no harm in hiring the services of these experts. However, following the tips discussed above is already a big leap in link building.

What’s SEO anyway?

SEO stands for “search engine optimization” and when we speak of “search engine optimization”, it is the process of attracting more traffic to your site by being the first in the so-called “ranking” in search results. Sounds so complicated? Well, let me explain it in simpler terms.

When you perform a search in any search engines like Google and Yahoo, you type certain words referred as “keywords”. And after you click the “Search” button or press Enter in your keyboard, search engines in return will give you all the results it was able to find based on the “keywords” that you type earlier. Now let me ask you a question. Which site or link are you going to click? Obviously, the first one listed right? Or at least those on the first page. Human psychology dictates us to choose the first choice presented to us, and when you do a search, you will always click the first link or at least those links in the first page

SEO’s Goals:

This is the main goal of “search engine optimization” or SEO, to make a link or a site be ranked first so users will visit the site often. SEO is another marketing strategy to make their sites more important, thus more popular and gaining more customers or audience to whatever services it provides. In other words, it makes a page friendlier to users; easier for them to read based on their preference on what they want to. This is what they call as “traffic”, in which more people click and visit a page; hence SEO uses keywords to appeal to users and make them interested in visiting the page.

Likewise, search engine optimization also seeks to appeal to the machine, rather to the search engines itself. There is what they call algorithmic SEO in which pages and links are optimized to find relevance in search engines. SEO with keywords and “metatags” will make a web page ranking up in search engines, thus being listed first than other pages.

SEO Services:

As mentioned above, SEO is a marketer tools in the Internet to boost popularity for a certain website; and for those businesses, it would be helpful to gain a lager group of customers through their web pages. Likewise, anyone can benefit from SEO via advertisements attached to someone’s blog for instance.

Hence, comes a new set of business endeavor, SEO services. They are the ones responsible for making your website to be listed on the first page of search engines result. SEO experts as they are termed are not just any Webmaster; it takes lot of training on their part to accomplish remarkable SEO for your site. They use certain techniques using definite formulae to program your site to have a high ranking in search engines. Webmaster can also try link building where a website is affiliated and listed in other web pages thus, drawing people to click on your website.

Next, SEO services deals with providing relevant content in the site by using keyword-enriched articles. This is the easiest of methods used to increase the popularity and ranking of a certain site. For example, an article will have a keyword “organic make-up” and it is sprinkled all over the articles; mentioning and using the keywords for at least three times in the article. As much as possible, writers include the keywords in the title and in the first paragraph.

To end up, the Internet keeps in evolving in a very fast pace and with millions of people using the Internet everyday, it is the best marketing tool man has known.

The Internet has changed the way people make business –faster and more and larger market of customers. In fact, there is a new marketing tool that is commonly used in e-commerce- the affiliate programs or affiliate marketing. Affiliate programs are one of the fast growing home-based and online businesses for stay at home mom and dads or for anyone who wants to make extra money online. Some Affiliate programs require a little sign up fee before joining but there are many affiliate programs that are absolutely free to participate.

How does it work?

It is the method and practice of promoting a certain service or product through your own site or blog and in return, gets a small percentage for every sale that you were able to close. Some affiliate programs gives percentage for every referral that you were able to provide for a site. There are some affiliate programs that have specific requirements before they will sign you up like the current traffic you website makes and many others.

Affiliate programs cover a very wide array of products and services like books, cosmetics, travel, shopping, telecommunication, automotive and many more. These wide choices of affiliate products will definitely offer the products and services that you are interested in promoting. Here is the list of some of the different affiliate programs from different industries that you can try.

Affiliate Programs In Brief

MarketHealth is an affiliate program that allows its affiliates to promote and eventually market leading health and beauty products online and their product line also includes weight loss, skincare and supplements. Affiliates who can close and make more than 20 sales in a single day have higher commissions; commissions are paid every 1^st and 16^th day of the month after accumulating $20 of commissions. Payments are delivered via Paypal, Payoneer, bank transfers or checks through mail.

ReferBack is an example of an affiliate program based on the referrals that you can provide for the site. This site is a casino affiliate network and you can earn commission from your referrals that will visit and play in the sites casino and poker rooms. You can get referrals through links and banners that the site provides.

ForexAffiliate is one program that enables you to earn money from forex trading and by referring traders to the programs. Aside from upfront commissions, you can also earn commissions from all the revenues you were able to accumulate. You can claim your commissions through wire transfer and Paypal.

Catch A Cheat from its name itself is an affiliate program that lets you uncover those who are unfaithful; you can get commission not by catching a cheating spouse on a spot but rather through every sale of manuals with information on how to catch a cheating spouse. You can earn commissions as high as 50% though it is still deductible from banking fees.

Hotel Club is a traveling affiliate program that lets you earn commissions from every booking from 45,000 hotels covering more than 120 countries all over the world. This is a very big affiliate program, available in 14 languages and you can have your commissions in 14 currencies. This affiliate program also has a very responsive support for all of its affiliate.

The list would go on and on since there are several affiliate programs available for you to choose from. You can check affiliate program directories to have a full list of affiliate programs that you want to join. Before joining any affiliate program, study the site and its program if it is very beneficial on your part. Read the terms and conditions before joining especially if the program requires a monthly or annual membership fee.

MyGreatWorld.com is a newly launched web service for photo-enthusiasts around the world and those interested in the constant changes through architecture, town-planning or tourism.

If you hate your ciy or if you dearly love it: This is the place to share your impressions.

Photos are often the reminder of happy moments and beautiful locations — or they might be the visual proof of unexpected or lamentable conditions. They can be masterpieces of perspective and composition and carrier of strong emotions. This way or the other they are in good hands at the MyGreat-Project.

By means of an advanced database-technology, photos can also become an archive of time and place and a witness of change and development.

Ten years ago Moscow was a different place than today. So was New York or even Stonehenge.
The change of a place and its surrounding area, as it appears today, is sometimes subtle (and sometimes not). It becomes obvious by comparing the chronological advancement in housing and construction and the varying styles in design and architecture. The further an observer is travelling back in time the more evident growth and progress become. This might be fortunate — but it is not by default.

Combining these different approaches (to a vast mass of digital photography laying dormant on harddrives around the globe), MyGreatWorld.com opens up its services to the community these days to build a worldwide online-database of literally any spot on earth. Even the very streets users are living in are subject to continuous changes - and to make these trends visible is one of the goals.

Also, photos & information from residents and those who know a certain spot are always welcome, both, to make the best out of a trip and not to miss the secret beauty every location holds.

Uploading photos to MyGreatWorld is map-based, fast and easy allowing the user to add new spots to the database (cities, points of interest, landscapes) on the fly. To make the database work, users are asked for the time (year or even better: year & month) and a category their picture fits in best. Any further description a user enters will be additionally indexed for key-words. The same goes for the photo’s title. Structures and designs are straightforward and comprehensible without popup-windows or superfluous gadgets.

Retrieving information from the database demonstrates that MyGreatWorld.com offers more than a mere pool of pretty pictures: The Advanced Search allows for combinations of various search-parameters including the time of the capture, the motive, the spot, key-words in title or description and even the filtering for a certain photographer.

Users find at MyGreatWorld.com a solid framework to enrich with their photos, recommendations and opinions. The site is a young project and there is a lot of space yet to be filled. This also means users can still be the first to add a new spot and to present the flair of a place to the world, the ambassador for a town, landscape or favorite point of interest.

“The site lives from the users’ engagement and from the belief that on an international level there are no ‘boring’ or unspectacular photos: The world in all its facets is very well worth seeing and what’s ‘interesting’ is in the eye of the beholder…”

Descriptions are fine. But hand in hand with pictures, they are better. And at MyGreatWorld.com users might use the combination of both.

For people who are running a website or a collection of websites, mastering link building is very important. You have to be an expert in link building techniques to be made sure that various quality links will direct visitors and users to your website. Link building technique is not just including links to your websites in forums or writing articles; it takes more than that though it can be a great help to.

Why link building

Link building should be done consistently every day to ensure the ranking of your site. And with millions of sites available, you can choose to build up with them with some of the link building techniques. Here are the top link building techniques widely used to generate and increase traffic to your website or blogs.

Reciprocal Linking

This is most common and widely used link building techniques in which you will just find the best website that is related or connected to your own website. After finding the website that interests you, you can start requesting for an exchange of links. Like you, these webmasters are also looking for links exchange that they think will boost the ranking and popularity of their sites.

How can you request for such link exchange? You start by searching certain keywords that best describes and suits your website in search engines like Google. Once you find the website, navigate in the page and look for indication that they want to build links with you like “link to us” and “add url” but if you cannot find those words you can contact the webmaster to ask if they allow link exchange. Also, you should check if they have already some links attached in their page to give you an idea if they allow link exchange or not.

Sending an email requesting for link exchange is also very important, you have to be precise and you have to sound trustworthy. With all those scams flying around, you have to assure that you will not use unethical techniques in link building and will do the task properly. The things that you have to include in your request are the details of your website or website like title, description and the URL.

One-way Linking

One-way linking is placing your link in a website but that website’s link is not attached in any page of your own site. Therefore, there is no exchange of links between sites like reciprocal linking. However, this should be done to mislead other sites promising of a link exchange but rather, you do this through articles that you submit in directories, and posted in forums. You may also execute one-way linking by registering your website in Web directories.

Triangular Linking

From the name itself it is a technique that places links between three sites. Imagine that this is a combination of a reciprocal and one-way linking. Triangular linking is preferred by those who prefer to have a one-way linking.

This is how a triangular linking done: There are three sites involved namely A, B and C. site A will place its link to site B, and in return site B will place a link to C and lastly C will place a link to site A. hence, all three have placed a link to another site but not to the site that placed a link to them. So, a site, receives and gives a link to another site but there is no exchange between two sites.

To end up, it takes a lot of time to master the link building techniques above but starting today would make a difference.