Is link trading only for SERP?

[clickxnet]

I think many people seem to have evolved into the mindset that link trading is ONLY for SERP's and SEO and have completely discounted that link trading also has surfer value or even sometimes, heck, even clicked traffic value. Heaven forbid we should build links between sites so that surfers can follow them! Some seem to think we only build sites for SE bots.

I see so many users on LinkSpun that have installed the twentyten wordpress theme on a niche domain with 5 or 8 "handwritten" 60 to 150 word "posts" as their entire depth of content, desiring to build back links, in an effort to "seed" a blog in the eyes of SE bots (possibly after reading and watching a "how to build auto blogs" type blueprint course)... Where's the value for the surfer in this?

Other people tend to look with disdain on any website that's not of a certain type or structure. Do surfers only come from certain types of sites? Does traffic only exist on specificly structured websites? Now, yes, I know that there are several "best practices" when trying to build good SERP for websites, but is that all link trading is? I think there are other elements that should be considered in addition to the "best practices" that in some cases, might bring other values into play on a trade. For me at least, some mitigation on possibly some weaker points in the trade might make the trade have some surfer value and thus make the trade worthwhile.

I've heard people say they don't accept any inbound links or do trades with anything other than handwritten blogs...which makes me sort of wonder, Google isn't a handwritten blog, yet we all covet that traffic! As a point of fact, it's a site with ONLY outbound links! As a matter of supposition, getting position and ranking to get inbound links from "the google" is one of the reasons that people are saying they won't trade with anything but handwritten blogs. Kind of ironic IMHO.

I think that link trading should be contextually relevant, it should be of value to the surfer, link trading should be done between sites with a purpose other than just to build a back link network, and yes, also, link trading should consider the impact on your strategy for placement in SERP's. I'm not begrudging anyone their link building, link trading strategies, and I'm not suggesting that building a backlink network of sites is a bad thing heck, I've got 2 networks on here and 2 more more mature blog networks I haven't added yet, but I am suggesting that we shouldn't lose focus of the "other" reasons we trade links as well. I think by focusing only on getting SERP and SEO value from trades is leaving a lot of good trades on the table, and possibly a lot of traffic as well.

We can do all the trading we want and get the best SERP for our targeted keywords, but eventually the trade has to make sense to the surfer too, otherwise, there's noone to make the purchases that give us our paychecks.

Disclaimer: This isn't specifically about my sites, or any users that have rejected my trade inquiries. The thoughts came about as a result of them, and our own sometimes head scratching adventures as to why some people suggest the trades that they do. I don't begrudge anyone their reasons or trade decisions. I just noticed this trend in the short time that I've been on here and well... just wanted to rant a bit.

[Relentless]

Excellent post.

There is no substitute for actually looking at the site you are being asked to trade with and deciding if its a site worth visiting. If you are just looking at the PR column and the ext links column you are probably wasting a lot of link juice getting links from garbage sites that do not update (often bought as dropped urls) and you are missing out on sites that rank well and will CONTINUE to rank well in the future based on the fact that they are high quality sites.

[vrocks]

Some of my sites have some very nice referrer tracking. As in, I created scripts to pass that info in a chain so when I get sales I can actually tell that someone came from a link partner into my nubiles blog, from there they went to emily 18 free site and then to her site at 10:43 EST. CCBILL says someone bought Emily 18 at 10:47 EST and walla... I know this sale wasn't from SERPs going to Emily 18 or even to the Nubiles blog. It was from a trading partner who, when I check info on him/her, has incoming traffic for keywords:
barely legal solo models
puffy nipples teens

etc... So his SERPs ended up being my gain because I keep my links niched.

[clickxnet]

His SERP's plus the clicked traffic from the surfer...a well rounded trade. I think keeping this kind of trade is exactly what we should be doing. If you will, a more 3 dimensional look at link trading, as opposed to just looking at it from the SERP value of the trade.

[elegantmedia]

This is a good discussion. I'd really like to hear more about it as I'm still trying to learn all I possibly can and link trading is certainly one of my 'least knowledgeable' topics now.

clickxnet, I wonder if you are 'pointing the finger' at me (we have some trades) - as I'm guilty of some of those wp "twentyten" niche blogs, that I use as bbw solo model sites and only update them when new content comes out on a model. I can't find my fault in that strategy. I'm making constant paychecks from them, getting bookmarks and return visits.

While I have those sites, I'm also developing much better quality sites to go along with them.

When I look back at the sites I built a year ago, I'm almost ashamed for ppl to see them. Oddly enough, as bad as they are - they get traffic and they make sales so I'm a bit concerned about going in and 'changing' anything

I try to learn something new every single day.

[vrocks]

When I look back at the sites I built a year ago, I'm almost ashamed for ppl to see them. Oddly enough, as bad as they are - they get traffic and they make sales so I'm a bit concerned about going in and 'changing' anything

I try to learn something new every single day.

Haha... I have some shit I did back in 2005... God it looks like TRASH! But I make gang-busters sales on them still... I switched up one of them. I figured to Google it'd still look the same since google doesn't read layouts... just content. So I changed up the graphics and how shit laid out and guess what? I lost my google spots! I switched it back and it came back to say page 2... but no longer page 1 on anything... Learned my lesson (every single day ) to just leave money making shit alone.

[clickxnet]

This is a good discussion. I'd really like to hear more about it as I'm still trying to learn all I possibly can and link trading is certainly one of my 'least knowledgeable' topics now.

clickxnet, I wonder if you are 'pointing the finger' at me (we have some trades) - as I'm guilty of some of those wp "twentyten" niche blogs, that I use as bbw solo model sites and only update them when new content comes out on a model. I can't find my fault in that strategy. I'm making constant paychecks from them, getting bookmarks and return visits.

While I have those sites, I'm also developing much better quality sites to go along with them.

When I look back at the sites I built a year ago, I'm almost ashamed for ppl to see them. Oddly enough, as bad as they are - they get traffic and they make sales so I'm a bit concerned about going in and 'changing' anything

I try to learn something new every single day.

No, definately not pointing the finger specifically at anyone. It was just thoughts I wanted to voice that were rattling around in my head. I think the twentyten theme also comes packed with the newer versions of wordpress now so that's also a lot of the reason we're seeing many of them... but what I do notice is that people aren't even changing out the default header graphic, some have their about page linked yet still blank, some have not even put in the effort to delete the hello world post in their 4 or 5 "seeding" posts, and a few I've seen recently have only setup the blog with the theme shell and NO CONTENT at all, yet all of these have either requested trades with these blogs, or requested these blogs as recips in response to our trade inquiries.

All of us have sites, make sites, in the past, now, and yes, even in the future that are not, will not be, shining examples of design or function. That doesn't stop these sites from making money. So I don't apologize for mine, and you shouldn't for yours, if they work, they work and that's the bottom line.

[redwhiteandblue]

I highly suspect that the quality of the sites you link to is an important part of SEO. I always check the sites I'm being asked to link to and if they don't look like something I feel my surfers would like to visit, I don't trade links.

[clickxnet]

I highly suspect that the quality of the sites you link to is an important part of SEO. I always check the sites I'm being asked to link to and if they don't look like something I feel my surfers would like to visit, I don't trade links.

Agree, there must be surfer value to the trade as well, not just SEO value.

[venril]

Do you mean a good blog must compete with Picasso paintings or what? Also, what is a surfer value? Updates posted often? Showing them some content? If so, you'd better be off cranking out tubes with 20+ minute vids. Let's see how many will convert.

A blog should just have nice chunks of text and be listed in google, graphics and designs are all secondary. They don't increase conversions much if at all (unless site layout is a total garbage).

Now if there's a linkfarm with either default theme or shitty layout and almost no text, then I understand you. But some of you are tweaking your blogs too much. You can't compete with Picasso anyway, and there's no blog police out there to arrest you for not placing some pretty looking header graphics.

[Arnoxxx]

I don't build my site to get a solid user base. If I want to convert, I'll provide maybe 15-20 blog posts that are neatly laid out and easy to access. I know that a guy is going to come to my site, jerk off to the pictures and maybe - just maybe - before he gives it that final push, he'll convince himself that joining up to a paysite with more of this shit is worth doing.

Providing too much content and too little adverts isn't the best way to optimize your site. You end up wasting 90% of your time because you're building blogs and on the flip side of that, you're wasting a lot of bandwidth (if your site has some decent rankings).

Building adult websites is all about profit - there are very few sites that actually keep a user's attention so they go back for more. It usually follows the route of:

1. Seeing something that arouses you,
2. Going to Google and searching for more,
3. Middle click the first 10 links and find what you want,
4. Jack off and get back to what you were doing before you became aroused.



This is the first blog I ever created about a year ago, and as you can see, I was very set on it being clean, attractive and not overly complicated to browse:

http://www.cuteasianlovers.com/

When you compare it to say, a top 10 page for "Asian pics"

http://asiancutegirl.com/

I don't know, I think mine is so much more appealing to a surfer because they're not bombarded with a billion different things to look at.

[clickxnet]

Nobody says anyone has to build picasso's here.

What is being said is that we are not here to only trade links just to get links spread around.

I'm talking mainly about some that launch new blogs, leave default theme elements, sometimes even the "hello world" post, maybe a few posts from either that very day, or from 6 months ago with no further updates, and no effort into the site at all. Or some that provide a landing page, with a title, a couple of big text links leading to an affiliate upsell and nothing further on the page. These kinds of trades have no value to the surfer and I venture, not much value to those who hastily threw these things together.

We are not here only for obtaining traffic by SEO means, but also traffic from bookmarks, traffic from referrals, traffic from shared links as well. They are all forms of traffic and they are all forms of traffic that building backlinks helps us to acquire in addition to the influence the link trading has on the SE bots. A site with a lot of content and a lot of things to check out (note: a lot of perceived value or perhaps a resource he/she wants to remember to come back to) is likely to get bookmarked, or sent to a friend, or shared on a social network somewhere, and that too, is traffic. A site with content and depth also naturally acrues backlinks from people who find the resource useful and blog about it, or link to it. We are not ONLY in this for the google search result traffic but the other forms of traffic that a site with surfer value tends to collect. And to get those other kinds of traffic, sites need to be bookmarkable, shareable, notable in some respects, appeal to surfer curiosity, or convince them they've found a resource in the niche they were seeking...IOW, have surfer value.

It dooesn't have to be a masterpiece, but I bet the asiancutegirl.com site is going to get a lot of these "other" types of traffic in addition to it's serp traffic as well.

[venril]

Then make a tube with really long videos. This would the epitome in surfer value. See how many will convert.

You've blocked me because my blogs don't update (funnily enough that particular blog still has some 10 more posts to go, once a week). However, most of your sites have just as much if not less value. They are basically a same design template stuffed with banners and links to FHG's and tours with a bit of text here and there. Which is all repeated across several domains, only links and texts are different by niche.

I fully understand these are your sites and you can trade with whoever you want and do as you wish. No questions here. It's just a bit ironic that you come here and speak of some mythical "surfer value".

Please define what you understand under this term you use so much (the value)?

[LingerieLover]

so people can see when they have been blocked by someone?

I thought my sites just went invisible to that person, once I block them.

[Hincapie]

so people can see when they have been blocked by someone?

I thought my sites just went invisible to that person, once I block them.

Yes, but it hasnt happened to you from someone you wanna trade with ... as a little red box comes up saying "sorry..." if you click a user that has blocked you or his sites.