One of those I’ve seen getting used more and more is to put a set of links in a div attach a JavaScript link onto the whole div so that if the user clicks you get taken to page a. Under this you place a set of links – all to the same domain with some nice anchor texts and link these back to the specific pages – so that the search engine can read and index all of the links.

UX is completely different from what SX (I just made that up but by SX I mean Search eXperience I was going to use the acronym for Search Engine eXperience but I didn’t fancy getting adult filtered). there is no way that a user can click the link – unless they have JavaScript turned off of course.

What was more kinda surprising that I’ve came across a big brand doing this – not a small company. I guess they know if Google catch ‘em nothing will happen. Too big to be banned I guess.

TBH I’m kinda impressed at this but also dissapointed if the search engines can’t algorithmically see it. Oh well. Let me know if you find any pages hosting this kinda stuff. Interested to see how widespread it is.

During these discussions the subject of paid links came up – they have a budget for them. I’ve probably knocked myself out of the process by saying that I’d find it difficult to use this budget for this purpose – with Google being so anti-paid links. I explained that the links I’d build would exist permanently and would not be rented, there would be no threat of links going up in price etc. Or that when we’d finished the work that any further payment would be needed to maintain the links.

When I said this I got the response that ‘other companies‘ had mentioned it was ‘not approved‘ by Google but that it should be something they should use. At this I pressed the issue, being a nosey little so and so, to see if they’d tell me who these ‘other companies‘ were.

They did even better than that – they sent me the proposal. Which indeed lists paid links as a way of forming links that were acceptable and should be used to improve positions. I was slightly surprised by the company in question – as they’re a well known brand in SEO. A company who I know bits about and have generally seen in publications etc.

My interest in this is that this company could be putting their clients search engine positions in jeopardy. I’m what I consider to be an ‘ethical SEO’. Part of this, I feel, is not to endanger the long term stability of any clients online business. Paid links may not always give you problems – i.e. they may not get you removed from Google for using them, but they could. The risk is there and by using paid links I would be endangering the long term prospects for a client.

Anyway – let me know what you think.

I’ve always used link directories. They’re quick and cheap ways to get links. But that’s the problem – if they’re cheap, easy and quick that means the links they deliver are usually of really low quality. Unless you’ve got a reasonably old website with a bit of good history, some decent back links and a reasonable chunk of PageRank they do very little. All they do is add to the keywords that are pointing to the domain – which helps with search engine positions but not a great deal unless you already have some PageRank etc.

You can use a company like Directory Maximizer to do the submissions for you – but you’ll limit the number of keyword rich anchor texts to about 5. Which runs the risk of overloading your website with keywords which could trip a filter over @ Google. Also your links are only going to go to your homepage – which is a bit useless as your homepage can only do so much to help.

To test out how many people are actually using link directories as a core link development tactic and how they operate, from a management perspective, I’ve stuck one up @ http://www.solis3.com. Andy’s stuck one up at Our Cool Stuff too so we can have a comparator. Neither have PageRank yet, They have very few links in them and they’ve not been spidered yet. Solis 3 was spidered in a previous incarnation but I got bored of it when the server crashed and couldn’t find enough time until recently to get it up and running. If you fancy some free links get submitting (there’ll be more categories added in coming weeks so if you want a category that’s not listed just let me know).

I’ve also just stuck a brand new website with 6 pages into Directory Maximizer and going to do nothing else with it for 6 months to see if it brings any benefit what so ever to the domain.