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NancyAndFriends Nov 24, 2005

Girls, would you be so kind as to give me your opinion on LINKS.  My web page is almost done and I have read so many varying comments about links. 
i.e. 

1.  Link to someone who has a lot of hits themselves.

2.  Link to big groups.

3.   Don't put links in your site.

I am getting a little confused!  :doh:

I have heard that your links will affect your rating by the search engines and I don't want to do something wrong.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated....as always! :hug:

nanc.........

plushkinbear Nov 24, 2005

Nancy, HI :hug:

I don't know anything about websites just stopped to say HELLO!!! :rose:
How are you doing?  :hug:

HUGGS, Julia

DebbieD Nov 24, 2005

I'm afraid I'm not much help either, as I'm new to this website business myself.  But, I'm VERY curious what the others will have to say.   

Sandi.S. Nov 24, 2005

Sorry I can't help you either, but I'm very interested to hear what everyone else has to say. I'm just getting started on my own as well.

patsylakebears Nov 24, 2005

I will be intrestred to see what others think as I am doing my web page up as well good question nanc

bearlyart Nov 24, 2005

Interestingly enough, your rank in search engine results isn't really affected by who YOU link to.  It is the reverse.  Your goal should be to increase the number of OTHER sites that link back to yours.  The more sites that link to you, the higher you will appear in search engine results.  That is why it is important to not just link to people on your site, but to EXCHANGE links with those people, so they list you on their site as well!  I was also just reading something interesting that search engines like plain text links instead of banner graphic links.  Search engines always prefer text to images.

Which reminds me, I have a bear site update to do and some new links to add.  A couple of people responded when I asked last week about exchanging links, I will add them in and anyone else who wants to swap links.

Hope this helps!
Kelly

melissa Nov 25, 2005

Hi Nancy

I can tell you that having others link to you does work!!  I started my website in September and it is a funny wee do it yourself type thing.  I submitted it to google but it never appeared if I did a search for honeythorpe bears - only all those ebay listing places appeared.

Paula put my link on her page and because her website is well established and the bot searcher thingies (can't remember their names) visit there, my website appeared on google but about number 8 in the search spot.  however, there were no keywords about my site (the little description bit appearing under the address in google) - just the URL

I then decided I needed as much publicity as poss and linked to a couple of teddy bear search engines and bear pile etc.  One of the bear search engines, can't remember which one, promised that linking to them would improve  your google ranking and it is true!  My site is now the number one hit on both google and yahoo for the word honeythorpe or honeythorpe bears (helps that I have a made up word for my name!  ).

The way I see it is, I am relatively unknown, the little buttons on my page were easy to add and not obtrusive on my site at all - three are at the bottom of my front page (required by one person) and the rest are on my links page...and I am now pulling in a couple more people to my site eacg day who maybe wouldn't otherwise have found me.  I've had people sign up to my mailing list so I'm finding no problems.

As for linking to artists - I don't think of it as adding competitors to my site.  As a bear buyer I have discovered so many great bears through some of my favourite artist's links pages.  I think most of us are working in a cottage type industry fashion and anything we can do to help each other out has to be a positive thing.  I did lose my links page a while ago and must go through and add everyone here on TT back on. 

Anyway that's my 2 cents worth - hope it helps!

rufnut Nov 26, 2005

Ditto I agree with Melissa, linking to others is worthwhile especially when you have a new site, I had no links on my site  for about two months, with no hits to it.

Once I linked with others, and other search engines, and auction sites, I have hits all the time.

So linking is very worthwhile.

NancyAndFriends Nov 27, 2005

Thank you all for responding!  I have found each one very interesting.
I definitely need to work on this link thing.

I am going to paste below, a link to a page where I read some link information, that got me thinking.
I don't want to copy/paste anything from the page, for I know very little about copyright laws.  The part that really started this whole thing, is near the bottom of the page where it says ...'affiliates'

That is where I came up with the part about, linking to people or organizations that receive a lot of hits.  There is also  link on this page, that you can use to find out where your site stands, with regards to the major search engines.

I found it very intesting that you all received many more hits, after linking to others.  I guess I need to find some 'linkers'!! :angel:

http://www.lissaexplains.com/basics3.shtml

Thanks again and any more info will be greatly appreciated.

Nancy