Link Theory

The theory of link design, link implementation, and link management discussed in detail.

Link building versus search engine optimization

Posted by Michael Martinez on May 7, 2008 in Link Theory

In case you missed the online reputation management asssociation post, there’s a link for you.
Debra Mastaler wrote about the May 2008 Virginia SEO meetup yesterday and I read with interest the couple of paragraphs beginning with “It was really surprising to hear the diversity in the answers to ‘what’s working in link building’”.
I was not […]

The mechanics of linking

Posted by Michael Martinez on April 25, 2008 in Link Theory

There are still people today who insist that search engine optimization is all about links and IP addresses. Although they are full of crap they can usually sway a few gullible people, which is a shame because that means the endless debates about links-versus-content will continue ad nauseum.
Despite what some people would have us […]

When link faking fails, there is always search engine optimization

Posted by Michael Martinez on April 17, 2008 in Link Theory

Greed, laziness, and ignorance are an SEO’s worst enemies. Sometimes I throw “panic” into the list as well. In this business, there are a lot of people who think they have the ideal trick for topping out the search results. How do I know that? I read their claims every day […]

Large Web site design theory and crawl management

Posted by Michael Martinez on April 10, 2008 in Content Theory, Link Theory

Crawl refers to all aspects of search engine crawling. It includes:

Crawl rate (how many pages are fetched in a given timeframe)
Crawl frequency (how often a search engine initiates a new crawl)
Crawl depth (how many clicks deep a search engine goes from a crawl initiation point)
Crawl saturation (how many unique pages are fetched)
Crawl priority […]

Large website design and optimization theory

Posted by Michael Martinez on April 9, 2008 in Content Theory, Link Theory

We have an in-house working group that focuses on Large Web Site Design Theory. Although I cannot share many details about what the group does I want to discuss Large Website Design Theory (did you notice I spelled “website” as “web site” and vice versa?). Every growing blog has the potential to become […]

200 emailed link requests and counting…

Posted by Michael Martinez on March 28, 2008 in Link Theory

One of the most stupid ideas ever embraced by the SEO community was the suggestion that you should send unsolicited emails to Webmasters asking for links (either by exchange or simply one-way). Of course, as the practice of managed reciprocation fell into disrepute people began offering “three-way” links (where your site, A, links to […]

Showcasing links through link warehouses

Posted by Michael Martinez on March 10, 2008 in Link Theory

A couple of years ago I coined the expression ‘link warehouse’ in a blog comment. I had been using link warehouses for a long time but had not really shared the idea before. A few days later I wrote a post on SEOmoz that explained the link warehouse idea in greater depth.
A link […]

Yes, Virginia, your contact page DOES need 500 links

Posted by Michael Martinez on March 5, 2008 in Link Theory

Yet another Sphinn-winning blog has posted a ridiculous attempt to justify the use of rel=nofollow on internal links. The “buckets with holes” metaphor has become popular among Nofollowers trying to explain why you should shoot yourself in the foot with rel=nofollow.
Put simply, nofollow tells Google not to crawl a link. Telling Google not […]

Almost nearly all about link incongruity

Posted by Michael Martinez on February 12, 2008 in Link Theory

In The Relevant Link Myth I wrote that “it is virtually impossible to acquire an irrelevant link.” Yesterday I wrote in Link Analysis Done Right:
Relevance is not very important if you’re just looking for crawling, PageRank, or anchor text but it sure helps if you want to maximize the value of your link building […]

Link analysis done right

Posted by Michael Martinez on February 11, 2008 in Link Theory

SEO bloggers like to talk about links and promote their friends’ link tools. They also like to provide you with long check lists of things to examine for your link analysis.
Most of what you’ll read on the Web — particularly from SEO bloggers — concerning link analysis is time-wasting nonsense.
Every search engine treats links […]

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