Other than that I use Bookmarking Demon and some of Incansofts solutions but I find the captchas a pain! Looking forward to their launch of Project Enigma or whatever its called that sounds interesting….

It actually really pains me that I have to build links at all…. I like to believe that if you build the quality they will come… Sadly it just doesnt seem to be true….

Great article and very useful information. I wondered if you could answer one or two questions regarding 301 redirect.

A year ago, I set up an online store through Cafepress and I was provided a domain: http://www.cafepress.com/mysite. Since the domain was long and hard to remember, I purchased a domain (ex. http://www.mysite.com) for marketing reasons. The site I purchased I made one page with an enter button that took my customers to my Cafepress store when it was clicked. I submitted both domains to major search engines and they were indexed in about a month.

Recently, I transfered my domain for http://www.mysite.com to Godaddy and set up a forwarding service they have. It forwards my site to my Cafepress store using a 301 redirect code. I like this better because it takes my customer straight to my store. However, I noticed a few weeks ago that my site is no longer indexed with google as it was before. Yet, it has a Pagerank of 3. I have read various articles stating that a forwarding URL hurts SEO and indexing, and I have read others who say it does not.

Is the set-up I am using hurtful for the SEO of my site? Further, when I build backlinks, which should domain should I use? The actualy URL of the store, or domain that is Pageranked 3?

Then I watch and keep adding links over time until I win or give up.

For a new site, how many backlinks do you do before moving on to the next site or project?

Thanks for your informative post.

I have been trying to get as much information as possible about back linking as it seems to have become the ‘holy grail’ of website performance. There are so many methods out there and so many opinions on what to do that, it’s good to get a balanced view on it.

I will be very interested in your testing results

I am waiting for your review. Anything that makes backlinking easier and faster is welcomed.

I agree with both the deep linking and the use of linking with anchor text. I believe even Google published that this is preferred in their SEO guide.

- Rupps

Christine Tabor

Thanks for the nice comment…I still talk to Aaron from time to time.

Redirects — many ways to do them. I prefer php http://php.about.com/od/learnphp/ht/phpredirection.htm
Split testing — I recommend Google Website Optimizer http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer
See DO/NOFOLLOW — I recommend SEO For FireFox plugin
My comment policy is here http://www.masonworld.com/comment-policy/ but the DO/NOFOLLOW stuff is missing

Now, most schemes create things that must be indexed. For example, if you submit your site to 100 website directories, it will be days (or weeks or months in some cases) before G gets around to indexing all of that. So, my rule of thumb is to stay between 10 and 100 links per day, since I know there will be a random indexing delay.

I’ve built a lot of sites. Only once, I had one deindexed. It was a cheap site built for a test. http://www.teethwhiteningprofessor.com. It never returned. I never figured out exactly why, but on that site I was testing a new social bookmarking automation. The site was deindexed the next day.

That site is for sale, by the way — $1 obo. LOL

Ouch.

Thanks for the informative post. I heard that adding too many links too fast can cause Google to penalize or sandbox your site. Can you speak a little about this issue?

He promises it will be a one off fee (No monthly membership) with early bird discount and free upgrades for life, this is the one we should be waiting for and hopefully Mark you will be throwing in a bonus or two to come on board …. ps how did you set the DoFollow backlinks after 3 approved comments ?

One thing I’ve wondered about recently is if it cool to use your keyword instead of your name when leaving a relevant comment on a blog like I’m doing now. I believe it helps because of the relevant anchor text.

Another really interesting thing I’ve come across is seeing sites that rank well with very few links and sites with loads of links not ranking that well. I guess all links aren’t created equal! Cheers, Charl