Warmest Greetings,

:: Monday, October 13, 2003 ::

Another one of those declarations has been made - this time it's about reciprocal linking.

The article is called Reciprocal Linking is Dead!
By Mike Banks Valentine, OCT. 13, ISSUE #395

"The latest scam is cloaked reciprocal links URL's that redirect to affiliate program sales pages."

"Email used to work. FFA pages used to work. Reciprocal links pages used to work. Free classified ads used to work.

What still works? Content works and I am reluctantly going to insist on content from anyone who wants links from my sites or client sites. I've got to like what the contributor has to say and I've got to agree with their article before I'll publish it and link back to them from that article, press release or news."

Personally, I've always found the practice of reciprocal links and sending out emails to get them to be tacky and unprofessional. I wanted my website to rank well because of the work I put into it, not how many people I exchanged links with.

Nevertheless, there are few options available for small and home businesses with limited budgets to compete with corporate company websites. If a small company found success with this practice, I was happy for them.

The abuse of every popularity/rank-puffing scheme to come along robs good people with ecommerce sites of their income.

Do you rely on reciprocal links as a promotion tool? Do you know what works and what doesn't? Do you agree with the article writer that reciprocal linking is dead? Cre8asiteForums asks Is Reciprocal Linking Dead?

SEOs fight back

The popular UK Internet marketer, Ammon Johns, has issues >>> Implied associations. He speaks out and so do others...

"I've seen this situation many times over recent years, where a company implies a level of association with a third party that simply doesn't exist. One such is the well known one where certain SEO firms have implied a direct relationship with the search engines that was not as implied.

Now this site has taken public statements from several well known SEO types and placed them prominently in the left-hand column. That it has taken the quotes without (to my knowledge) any permission is itself of some minor concern, but not a great issue. That it has placed these quotes between images of people that could be misconstrued as being representations of the people themselves is perhaps more serious, but again, isn't my immediate concern."

Chris Ridings jumps on it with his An Open Letter to CPM Links. Subtitle: When an endorsement is not an endorsement. Chris, I'm glad you're feeling better and it's good to see you back in the saddle again.

Google-Watch.org has insight into A good description of PageRank?. The whole Cre8asiteForums thread is an excellent update on the status of Google's PageRank.

"Since February, I've become much more aware of the pervasive presence of blogs in Google, which I believe is a function of link popularity in Google's ranking algorithms.

And as everyone on this forum knows, since about April, Google has stopped the old style of deep-crawling, and calculating PageRank for the entire web, and updating the data centers."

For my usability friends

A book review by Boxes and Arrows. The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness by Steve MacLaughlin.

"Whether you have been paying attention or not we are living in an age of aesthetics. So says Virginia Postrel in her latest book, The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness. Postrel examines how the role of aesthetics and style are transforming our culture and economy in a variety of ways. In the process we get a better understanding of what this new age means for designers, decision makers, and the customers they hope to reach."

Save time by clicking here for further book information:

:: posted by Kim Krause Berg on 10/13/2003 09:29:36 AM

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