Linking Our Websites

[Bradd Judd]

Hey fellow inspectors.....[:-angel]

I was just replying to an inspector and realized this may be a good idea for all of us! Maybe you have done this in the past and I missed out and we should link-up again.[^]

As most of you know by now, having a website is helpful to our business. It accounts for approximately 25% of my leads. Some of you may or may not know that when we run our submission programs to the top search engines that our HTML is scanned by algorithmic spiders(robots).

As these spiders scan our sites, they have certain parameters that are established by the search engines themselves. What makes google one of the best search engines is the engineers who build these spiders and what they believe are relative and pertinent to the searchers key word or phrase.

Without going into an absurd amount of boring details, could we ask hausdak if he could build us a page or topic that would allow each of us to give the others permission to link together our sites? The google spiders feel that the more relative links to the key phrase or word the better the placement our sites would have on hopefully the first 3 pages.

This will be the coming trend with other search engines including MSN, Yahoo, and AOL.

Tell me if this is do-able! [:-graduatid="size6">

[hausdok]

Hi,

I'll talk to the programmer.

Half of what you said went right over my head - mostly because if they ever write a book called Computers and Internet For Dummies Who Are So Dumb They Can't Understand A Computers and Internet For Dummies Book - they'll need to use me as the model.

Wouldn't it be just as simple to just add a link to your website on TIJ's links page?

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Bradd Judd]

Mike,

No. We have to have others (inspection members/companys) permission to have their links on our link pages. If you want to see what the spiders look for........point your mouse to the top left of this page and click on "view" then (on the drop down menu) click on "source". That is this sites and specific page's HTML. As I look on it, I see this site has been built with tabkes as opposed to Casscading Sheet Style.

This is what can be built with using microsoft frontpage with a few garden variety plug-ins. The Spiders, (when they look for Alt, Meta, and Header Tags) are searching for key words and phrases such as "Home Inspectors, inspections, inspection,etc., etc. or anything relative to the word or phrase.

If we could have 10-100 of our fellow members allow or give permission to copy their websites to our links pages, the spiders will eventually get to our links pages and see how relative our sites actually are.

Did that help at all???

Brad

[Bradd Judd]

Mike,

In otherwords, If I wanted to have the inspectors journal website on my links page I would have to ask the administrator (someone like yourself)to give me permission to copy www.inspectorsjournal.com to my links page. Actually, now that I think about it.....I may have already which is infringing on your copyright, registered, or trademark rights. You have the right to ask me to remove it or you may file complaints with several federal agencies as well as sue me.

What I'm saying is if everyone concurs with this idea, lets all give permission by submitting our websites addresses on a page here at the inspectors journal . com.

Brad

[sepefrio]

Nothing like digging up old posts, but I was just curious if anything ever came of this idea?

[hausdok]

https://www.inspectorsjournal.com/forum/linkto.asp

https://www.inspectorsjournal.com/forum/LinkPolicy.asp

[Michael Brown]

First Brad let me say that your worst enemies will let you link to them.

If anyone asks you to remove the link their site do it... who cares it is their loss not yours. Sued for adding a link and reported to federal authorities I don't think so! Very few companies ask you to get permission before linking to them... I mean very few! I can only think of one off hand. They will ask you to remove it long before they can take any action and for what damages.

Brad said: That is this sites (TIJ) and specific page's HTML. As I look on it, I see this site has been built with tables as opposed to Cascading Sheet Style. This is what can be built with using microsoft frontpage with a few garden variety plug-ins.

Brad this site is built with style sheets and tables just like most sites and the code you see is generated by asp and an sql database and thousands of lines of code on the server and looks nothing like the code that is output on the site you see in its source. If you want to see the "output source" you need to right click the page you are on and select view source otherwise you may get the frame source if the site uses frames like TIJ does.

Anyway that is apples and oranges really because it has nothing at all to do with what you’re talking about. Style sheets have no relevance at all to keywords and the table’s only relevance is how high on the page your keywords are located. Most sites if not all are built with tables and most with style sheets these days.

Links on other sites are like votes to google, the more the better... you cannot be hurt by someone linking to your site... you can be hurt by linking to a bad site. Google has a page rank and it's better to have a link from a PR 4 site than a PR 1 and linking to a PR 0 site is probably not a great idea unless you have a high ranking site already.

Add your links to the links manager and you end up on TIJ's front page for a few days and in our newest links list both of which are spidered by the search engines.

Also make sure you’re on the locator, inspectors are getting work from it! We do see the odd email getting bounced back from it.

We can certainly make up a sticky thread that can be used for link exchange... but you probably will only want to add links from other states or cities.

That’s my 2 cents...

Michael Brown

DevWave Software Inc.

[Michael Brown]

Duh... never noticed this was from way wayyyy back!

[exploreparadise2]

I think what Brad is suggesting is that we use TIJ as a vehicle for home inspectors to build reciprocal links with each other. The idea being that we would include links to websites owned by inspectors outside of our service area and therefore not competitors. Those linked inspectors would in turn link back and we would all have a bunch of links and rank higher with Google.

The programmers at Google are pretty smart and probably thought of this long before home inspectors did. Google probably discounts reciprocal linking through collusion because it doesn't increase the importance of the website in the searcher's mind. The latest opinions from SEO consultants that I've read is that recripocal linking is dead. No one knows for sure though but the Google programmers.

Many SEO advisors also feel that Google's page ranking has become irrelevant. Check the page ranking of the top sites in a search and you'll see they're not consistently good.

[Michael Brown]

Originally posted by exploreparadise2

The latest opinions from SEO consultants that I've read is that recripocal linking is dead. No one knows for sure though but the Google programmers.

Many SEO advisors also feel that Google's page ranking has become irrelevant. Check the page ranking of the top sites in a search and you'll see they're not consistently good.

There is some truth in that, although linking is still important for many reasons. I think this could be done, but maybe better planned. The one thing I have noticed is the anchor of the text is very important also... for instance a link that reads Seattle Home Inspection is probably much better than a link that reads Joe's Inspection Company. The search engines are using the anchors to direct traffic from the keywords. I have stumbled across this problem already.

One of the other things that seems to have changed from it not being used to being used is the keywords in the URL itself.

I'm only talking about a client searching for: Seattle Home Inspection or Seattle Home Inspector nothing else really matters except maybe the state.

Michael Brown

DevWave Software Inc.