This is the living proof that you really should consider guest posting from time to time. A guest post from Janusz on Blogstorm.co.uk pointed me to his link analysis tool; Link Diagnosis. This is a great FireFox plugin, that analyzes link profiles very thoroughly. Check out the post at Blogstorm for some screen shots or check it out yourself.

Jim Boykin has been digging up some Google and/ or Matt Cutts quotes to outline what Google’s stance is in the paid link discussion. Not only does his post show that Reviewed and Not Guaranteed is the red line here, but he also unleashed a discussion at his own blog and at Sphinn.

Gab Goldenberg wrote a guest post for The Fire Horse, where he discusses 4 linkbait ideas. If there’s anyone planning on helping him with his 2nd idea, or if somebody knows a tool that does that exact thing, please let me know. I’d love to use it

And also:

• Steven Bradley asks if link exchanges fit into your link building campaign
• Same topic, different ball player: Reports of reciprocal linking demise greatly exaggerated
• Justilien did a Link Building Case Study at the SEW blog
• Vanessa Fox also dips her toes in the link building pond
• Buying links? Check out these 30 tips by Brian Chappell
• Loren Baker explains How he would build links if there were no Google

There was a lot of discussion about the good old paid link topic last week. Patrick Altoft opened with some examples showing that paid links still work (which was later backed up by Brian Combs), before unleashing a discussion about whether to report paid links or not. Turned out that 83% (including me) don’t report paid links.

One of the best link building related posts I’ve read in quite some time is Debra Mastaler’s post that explains why There is no such thing as a bad link. Spot on. While I just made a different set of types of authority links, I also like Debra’s approach that counts 3 types of authority links; “those that rank well for a set of keywords, influential high profile industry sites, and your competitors’ web sites”.

And also:

• Lisa Barone explains The importance of linking out for small businesses.
• Why a link from a powerful blog does not have to be a powerful link was submitted to YOUmoz by Duncan Morris
• Eric Enge published part 2 of What’s in you Link Marketing Mix?
• Barry Schwartz asks Is an image link just as valuable as a regular link?
• Sebastian is performing an indexation test, so I just had to throw in a link…

If you read, hear, or talk a lot about links and how to build them on a daily basis (like I do), you’ll get slapped around the ears with the term authority links quite often. The answer to the question how to obtain such authority links depends, because there are different types of authority links; Absolute Authority Links (or general authority links) and Relative Authority Links (or topical authority links). While some strategies may lead to building links from both categories at the same time, you might have to use different approaches if you’re aiming at both kinds.

Absolute Authority Links
Absolute authority links are, like the name implies, links that are coming from a domain that is a general authority. You can even divide all absolute authority links into two different groups; informational authority links and navigational authority links. The difference between these groups is that informational authority domains, such as BoingBoing, CNN News or the Harvard Research Programs, usually are more trusted domains, that -for the most part- provide information. Websites like DMOZ, the Yahoo! Directory, or the California State Agencies Directory would be considered as navigational authority websites. The benefit of an absolute authority link is that it passes trust and visitors (in some cases lots of both). General navigational authority links also can have the ability to pass topical relevance. However, most absolute authority links aren’t able to pass relevance.

Relative Authority Links
In most industries, there are at least a few relative authority websites. Some websites that only have a few hundred incoming links can be authorities in their niche. While these websites aren’t absolute authority sites, the fact that almost every site in your industry links to it, makes it a very interesting target.
Relative authority links can also be divided into two groups, although the difference between both types (the informational ones and the navigational ones) is usually smaller here, because relative authority websites tend to focus at topic in stead of at audience.

       Image by Macwagen

And 11 ways to get them
I’ll start with the easy ones, which all focus on getting navigational authority links. First, try to get a few quick links by submitting your website to a couple of (but only the worthwhile) directories. After this, make sure to get a few navigational relative authority links, by submitting your website to a few directories that focus on your niche. Step three is to search for other relevant navigational pages by searching for something like “keyword + links”, “keyword + related websites” or “keyword + more about this subject”. You’ll probably come up with something even better. Mix in a few local directories, city guides or other topography oriented websites and you’ve laid your link foundation.
-> These tactics will result in navigational authority links from both categories.

5. Trade links.
If you do this on a very limited basis, with highly relevant authority websites in your niche only, this strategy still works like a charm. And will probably never stop doing so.
-> Will result in absolute informational authority links.

6. Offer to write a column/ guest post/ interview.
This not only is a way to build your brand, but also lets you add links to your website in your bio and the article you write.
-> Will result in relative informational authority links or (relevant) absolute informational authority links.

7. Buy links.
What?!? You’ve never heard me say that buying links is bad, and you probably never will. I don’t think in terms of site wide mesothelioma crap in blog footers, but buying proper links in the right section of highly relevant websites still boosts your traffic and rankings.
-> Will result in (if you do it right) absolute informational authority links.

8. Contact websites and ask what they’re looking for.
While this sounds like an awfully simple tactic to get targeted links, there are only a few companies that build links this way. But think of it this way: Don’t you think a website will link to you if you create a tool/ article/ whatever that they’ve been looking for?
-> Will result in absolute informational authority links.

9. Get an intern.
Students usually have access to at least a few pages on the .edu domain of their school. While not everybody agrees on the fact that .edu’s are able to pass extra value because of the tld alone, a link from an educational domain may hold some extra value because of the amount and quality of the incoming links of this domain. But remember not to over exaggerate.
-> Will result in relative informational authority links.

10. Outsource your research.
In some occasions, a high school or university will be more than happy to perform a research on your behalf. In exchange for some student guidance, the educational institute will recruit a few students to help you with the research. And publish the results on the university website. The benefit of this strategy over the previous one, is that you might get a link from the “official” part of the .edu website, in stead of from a ~student page. The same thing here: don’t over exaggerate.
-> Will result in (relevant) relative informational authority links.

11. The Chamber of Commerce.
Most Chamber of Commerce websites are authority websites that provide a link to every registered company. In some cases, it’s even possible to style the link of your company’s registration page; don’t forget to use this option.
-> Will result in (relevant) relative informational authority links.

In stead of listing 11 ways to get authority links, I could have listed 31 or even 54 techniques to get these type of links. However, while obtaining a few authority links sure will improve your rankings, you shouldn’t focus on getting these alone. Mixing up different strategies, approaches and different types of links always works best. And remember that there is no such thing as a worthless link…

Warning notice: while this post is easy to digest, it also contains a lot of crap.

I’m sure almost every search marketer has been in the situation of thinking “so how am I going to tell this friend/ prospect/ client that his website is crap in a polite way?” in at least more than one occasion. Some people are in the situation of being able to decline such opportunities while others even publicly talk about the fact that they won’t do work for certain websites. However, numerous companies will happily accept to build links for a crappy website, because they only see the big bag of money that this new client will be bringing in. For this last group, I’ll be diving into the art of getting links for crappy websites today.

          Image: Ashahi Beer’s Golden Crap, by chrissam42

This starts with analyzing the link profiles of the competitors of the crappy website. Neglect the good links from high authority domains. Let’s face it: these sites probably won’t be linking to your client, so you’ll just have to focus on websites that look like or are just plain crap and settle with links on resources page #4. Together with 99 more crappy links.

- After this, you can submit your crap to dozens of SEO friendly directories that all look the same and almost instantly accept all kinds of crap. You’ll end up with a few links from AdSense overloaded pages that get crawled even less than a suncream salesman visits Norilsk, Siberia. But the website you’re promoting is still crap.

- You can try to create bait by painting your crap gold. You’ll be getting some attention and might even attract a few links from people saying “Hey, look over here, I’ve found golden crap!”. But it’s still crap.

- You can try to get people to write about or review your crap. The quality of the links you’ll gather usually correlates with the amount of money you’re able to pay, but it’ll only get you links of a certain quality level. These links will be from posts or pages stating “this company sells great crap, so check out their crap website!”. But it’s still crap.

Ok, I guess you get the point by now. My point is that you may have to think twice, if you’re planning on earning a quick buck by accepting nearly everything. You might fool search engines for a short while, but eventually, search engines will come to the same conclusion that the visitors of your client’s website have already came to: the website is crap and shouldn’t be ranking where it does.

In stead of promoting crap, make sure to start with improving the website, for example by changing the website structure, its layout or by adding quality articles. And I don’t mean adding 297 crappy turnkey articles, but quality stuff that people might actually enjoy reading and may be willing to link to.

During the past week, I came across two outstanding posts. The first one is XMCP’s Guide to effective link building, which contains a lot of useful tips to consider while working on your link marketing strategy.
Another great post was Justilien’s column at SearchEngineWatch, named The top 5 SEO and Link Building Challenges for 2008. Just like Justilien, I am also a bit concerned about the fact that webmasters are getting more and more afraid of linking out. Google’s anti paid link campaign has already resulted in the fact that some journalists of newspaper websites that got hit during this crusade will think twice before linking out to an other website.

Patrick of 10e20 gave his linkbait graphics post of last week a great follow up by showing how he would approach a specific case. Rand also wrote another post about the same subject, he provides some great tips on how to let your linkbait stand out from the crowd.

And also:

• I love guerilla marketing, so I really liked these 5 off line promotion techniques
• Joost de Valk made a great plugin that turns scrapers into link building machines
• Buying links? Make sure not to trigger one of these 9 signs of a paid link
• Wayne Liew provides 10 Ways to get constant post level links