Who is this LinkMoses?

Link Building Best Practices - Q&A From Eric Ward
Ask me.  Go ahead, ask me.  I'll answer and I wont sugar-coat it.   Read how my new The Link Building Best Practices Q&A works.

Article Archive Below
I'll leave the below links and articles here, and hopefully they will age gracefully. Article titles followed by this (off site) mean that if you click those titles you will leave EricWard.com and be taken to the location of the original article on the site where it currently lives.

When Linking Experts Go Underground-(off site)
by Eric Ward
For years I've seen a free and flowing stream of information and advice about how to build links, and as the engines have improved detection of the junk, the better link builders continued to thrive while those who sold crappy services to crappy content ran for cover. At least three of the most dependable link building tactics started wobbling and in some cases failed completely in 2007: article marketing/syndication, directory submission, and paid links. It's not that these tactics aren't potentially still useful, but rather that the approach you will have to use for each will have to be modified, in some cases even abandoned...more »

No Recession For Link Building-(off site)
by Eric Ward
Those of you familiar with my work may know that one of the techniques I use to keep up with the deluge of news, rumors, and baloney related to link building is to scan a few hundred feeds, discussion lists, forums, newsletters, etc. using Track Engine, Google Alerts, and even the good old fashioned email inbox. I also run three monitors, one of which is a 24 inch beauty where I keep my Google reader quite busy. At this moment it's showing 1,313 new posts across 200+ feeds. Of those posts, 23 have the word "recession" in the title/headline. Much time is being devoted to the discussion of how the recession of 2008 will affect the SEM industry...more »

Don't Blame Google For Your Own Linking Failures-(off site)
by Eric Ward
 Here's a pair of tough questions to kick Link Week for 2008 off with a bang. In 2007, many long-practiced link building tactics stopped being effective. Many link building companies and consultants sold the exact tactics/services that are now useless. Why didn't you see this coming, and if you did, why did you sell those services in the first place and what services will you sell now? First, I'll go ahead and gloat. It's good to be LinkMoses. Why? See for yourself. OK, done gloating...more »

Introduction To Trusted Source Link Streams-(off site)
by Eric Ward
Whenever I begin a link building and content publicity project, I start with research. One of the areas I research is trusted sources. The type of trusted sources I am referring to are those people that have already shown an interest in the topic of the site I'm building links for and have created a link resource list, located on an already trustworthy site. That was a mouthful, so as an example, imagine you operate a web site devoted to blues music, like The Blues Database. I have no affiliation with them and they are not a client—I'm using them as an example only. ...more »

The Worst Way To Ask For A Link-(off site)
by Eric Ward
Let's take a quick trip back to Link Building 101. Have a look at the below email that hit my inbox over the weekend. It may look friendly, unassuming, even polite. I bet you have one just like it. I receive several of these every day, and while they...more »
10/22/2007

Fall Cornucopia of Linking News-(off site)
by Eric Ward
Let's take a quick trip back to Link Building 101. Have a look at the below email that hit my inbox over the weekend. It may look friendly, unassuming, even polite. I bet you have one just like it. I receive several of these every day, and while they...more »

When Link Building Is Pointless-(off site)
by Eric Ward
As a link builder and content publicist, I rarely see a link building challenge that cannot be overcome. Today there are many unique and legitimate ways to attract and generate links that didn't exist ten years ago. There are different styles and approaches to link building, all of which...more »

Attention Shopping Sites! Generic Content Means Generic Links-(off site)
by Eric Ward
I had the pleasure of participating on a Link Building Clinic at the Shop.org conference in Las Vegas last week. This conference attracts a different crowd than the SEO/SEM related shows in that practically every attendee at a Shop.org show is running a web site that sells something. Now...more »

Spotting Unnatural Linking Patterns
by Eric Ward
Last week's column Aggressively Seeking Links - How Much Is Too Much? sparked several comments and questions. In the past, I've hesitated to revisit previous columns, preferring to let them stand on their own, but this time I'd like to make an exception to clarify some of the assertions I made.  In that column, I wrote...more »

Aggressively Seeking Links: How Much Is Too Much?
by Eric Ward
When it comes to link building, how much is too much? How fast is too fast? Neither of these questions would have been asked in 1997, because their was no such thing as too fast or too much. But it isn't 1997 anymore is it? And since link development now plays a prominent role in web success and failure, these questions deserve answers...more »

Link Building's Cult Of Reciprocity
by Eric Ward
A big part of my professional life is spent teaching and training corporate clients how to become self sufficient at in-house link building and content publicity. Those readers here who have heard me speak at conferences may remember how strongly I have stated my position that to be effective over the long term, you must take as much control as possible over your link building activities, because outsourcing...more »

5 Deadly Sins Guaranteed To Kill Your Link Requests
by Eric Ward
Here in the Link Week column, we mostly discuss intermediate to advanced linking related subjects, but I'm compelled to cover a very basic topic this week. Link requests. The link builders are out in force this summer. The proof is in my inbox. Over the two weeks since my last LinkWeek column, I've counted the number of link requests I've received. The total? Forty-two...more »

Link Analysis Beyond Search Rank
by Eric Ward
Some of the most fascinating and useful information can be found if you remove search engines from your link analysis objectives. The challenge is knowing what to look for...more »

Five Things I Hate About Linking
by Eric Ward
It's summer. Hot, humid, sticky and itchy. The perfect time to rant. Especially if you are a link seeking content publicist glued to a monitor while all your clients have gone on vacation. So here are five things I hate about linking, and I have more if you want them ...more »

Portrait Of The Perfect Link Builder
by Eric Ward
If you had the chance to hire a full-time employee to engage in content publicity and link building, what type of person would you look for? What sorts of skills would you want? What personal traits would you value? As companies realize that content publicity and link building must be a core part of online marketing, rather than just the latest SEO fad, those same companies are faced with the challenge that there's no consensus or body of research to help them pinpoint the person with the perfect skill set to do that job. By sheer accident I can shed some light on this challenge. What is it about my particular background and experience that might help you find the perfect link builder?..more »

Social Link Manipulation
by Eric Ward
The term "Social Media" is used ad nauseum to describe an ever growing collection of tools and services by which people share content, links, opinions, experience and perspectives with each other. Keeping up with the latest Social Media services and sites can make you dizzy. Wikipedia now lists 21 different types of social media related platforms, and there are over 25 different social bookmarking services alone. There are even services to help satiate your multiple bookmark needs, and here's a "Who's Who in Social Search" outlining some of the various forms of social media and tools. Hat-tip to Chris Sherman for it...more »

Linking Mistakes To Avoid - Link Optimization and Short URLs
Updated by Eric Ward
Link optimization is the process of making your existing great content linkable at the URL level...more »

LinkMoses Link Building Tip of the Week - Links by Association
by Eric Ward
If you are a dues paying member of a niche professional association (local or national), have you checked to see if that association has a web site with members names or resources (and web sites) listed and linked?  Example: You run a fly fishing shop in Chattanooga, and you have a modest web site (call it link bait. Couldn't resist).  See The Middle Tennessee Fly Fishers organization resources page at http://www.mtff.org/resources.asp. How about the Southeastern Council Federation of Fly Fishers at http://www.fffsec.org. Not a member of either?  Why not? No links for you!...more »

Link Experts Tell All
by Eric Ward
Rae Hoffman, aka Sugarrae asked several well known link builders to do a group interview on link development.  See Five Link Development Experts: A Group Interview. The results are surprisingly candid and varied, yet share a common thread...more »

Getting Link Love From Google Custom Search Engines-(off site)
by Eric Ward, for SearchEngineLand
I've written previously about Google Custom Search Engines.  These vertical Googlettes let anyone create a search engine with results based on Google's index, with an added layer of human editorial selection. Put more simply, you create a Google CSE; you select the sites you want in it, and then you let anyone search your CSE from your site. New Google CSEs appear almost daily. You can see examples at Google here, and there's even a directory of them being maintained here. Google CSEs offer a couple link building opportunities, one of which might be described as affinity linking...read complete column at SearchEngineLand.com

Teeny Weenie Bikini Linkbait 
by Eric Ward
I always get bummed when I don't clearly state my position on a link building topic and it gets blown out of proportion.  I had the pleasure of being a guest on the SEO Rockstars podcast last Friday, where among the topics discussed was linkbait as a link building tactic.  To be funny, I mentioned industrial ball bearings. A listener (a well known SEO pro whom I respect ) thought I implied linkbait was not possible for certain sites about certain topics...more »

Yahoo Daily Wire Says Goodbye
by Eric Ward
The Yahoo! Daily Wire, the email newsletter that includes Yahoo Picks, New & Notable Sites, Full Coverage and Daily Entertainment news has announced it will stop being delivered via email sometime this month. Bummer. All is not lost, though. Here's a workaround method you use to continue receiving them via email...more »

Google Personalized Search, Google Bookmarks & Link Building-(off site)
by Eric Ward, for SearchEngineLand
There's been a bit of a panic among some SEOs that the ramp up of Google Personalized Search Results last month will mean the end of SEO. But aside from the impact personalized search will have on SEO, personalized search also impacts link building related activities. Some of that impact is major. Link spam will take a huge hit, becoming (hopefully) even less effective than it is now. Topical link building will become even more important, especially getting your links onto pages where they have significant relevance. These types of links also have a better chance of being seen by humans that care about that content, and by extension, more likely to be bookmarked or shared...read complete column at SearchEngineLand.com

LinkMoses On The New Google Link Analysis Tools
by Eric Ward
One word:  Finally.  Three more words: Why'd you stop? Many of you have heard me say at conference that Google could easily create a new business just by providing more backlink analysis tools.  This week's announcement was a nice step in the right direction...more »
permalink comments: off (why?)

Are You Linkbaiting The Right Audience-(off site)
by Eric Ward, for SearchEngineLand
There are several rarely discussed fundamental flaws to practice of linkbaiting. The most obvious flaw is that the most valuable IBLs (inbound links) for any given piece of content are completely different. Most linkbait strategies I see ignore this fundamental concept...read column at SearchEngineLand.com

Are You In The Circle Of Link Trust?--(off site)
by Eric Ward, for SearchEngineLand
How do you define "link popularity?" I talk daily with SEO/SEM firms, content creators, interactive agencies, marketing firms, ad agencies, PR firms, and with other consultants. It's amazing how varied people's beliefs are with regards to link popularity, but as different as they are, all share a common purpose. Search ranking. I rarely have a conversation related to link building or online publicity where the topic of search rank does not come up...read column at SearchEngineLand.com

Know Your Inbound Link Potential--(off site)
by Eric Ward, for SearchEngineLand
So what's your linking strategy for 2007? I mean besides get as many as possible? Maybe you're adding link bait? Or buying links? Or ramping up your link-loaded "press releases" to six per month?  Buying old sites and 301'ing them? Or maybe you want to get to the Digg homepage? Reciprocals? Three ways? Ask your college kid for a link from his .edu page? Outsource it all? Whatever your linking strategy -- and there are many -- one thing has not changed a bit in the 14 years I've been in the link building and content publicity game. Every web site has logical, natural and unique inbound link potential...read column at SearchEngineLand.com

What My Four-Year-Old And a Bicycle Has to do With Link Building 
My son Noah decided out of the blue one day that he no longer wanted training wheels.  So what does this have to do with link building?...more » permalink comments: off (why?)

LinkMoses Linking Commandments - part one
As thee provideth content in the name of usefulness, it will be linked.

Blog Tag and Five Things You Don’t Know About Me
Curses!  I got tagged and now I have to share five things that nobody in our industry knows about me. I'll get you for this Lee Odden...OK, where to start...1). When I was in 4th grade I unscrewed the Christmas light bulbs off every house in our neigborhood and hid them in my basement. My Dad found them and made me go to each house and personally apologize...more »

Social Media Optimization Nots - 3 Rules
Lots of people have created sets of rules for how best to use Social Media for marketing, branding, and buzz building. But in reading over the many good natured attempts to offer a set of voluntarily accepted SMO practices, I see very few that get to the very heart of the social media issues public relations professionals face...more »

Artificial Linking and Search Rankings
By now just about everyone who depends on the Web for a livelihood is aware that links are a key part of how all major search engines rank their results. Stated simply...more »

Social Link Spam and Cigarette Butts
Where one man’s spam is another man’s headline news...

Google's New Custom Search Engine Service and Links
As I read about it, my link building antenna started chirping...

Has the DMOZ Ship Sailed?
Curses upon their "become an editor" gauntlet...

.edu Link Fallacies Explained
One of the bigger link building hot topics is the impact that IBL (inbound links) originating from .edu locations can have on your link popularity and search rankings. What most people don't fully grasp is that the quality of IBL's from within the .edu domain varies significantly. Read it all

Link Penalty Anxiety?
Some of you live in a state of constant fear that your site is just moments away from being banned or penalized by Google for some linking tactic you have done. Read it all

Where Is The Mother of All Links?
A librarian at a school in the middle of South Dakota might just hold the key to your Web site's success. Read more

Link Bait Kool-Aid?
People are getting so caught up in their quest for viral, user-generated links that they will do anything. Who cares if it has nothing to do with your long-term business success, your site was on the Digg homepage yesterday! Read more

Is White Hat Linking a Myth?
At what point does a link-building tactic make the leap from acceptable to not? When does white hat become black hat? Or gray hat? Or pink? And who is to say what is acceptable and what isn't? What works is what's acceptable, and vice-versa, right? Read more

Are You a Link Whore?
I received an RFP from a company that ought to know better that wanted to know how much I'd charge to get their site 500 one-way Pagerank 2 or better links.  Another company wanted to know how long it would take me to seed 1,000 blogs with a link to their site in the blog comment field. And another wanted to know how many links I could buy for their site for $25,000. Read more

Power to the People: Social Linking (at MarketingProfs.com)
Individual and group sharing of bookmarks or cool sites is not a new thing, and has been around as long as the Web has. Back then, I remember my excitement when more than a couple new Web sites launched. Ahhh, back in the day...

For the love of God please stop sending me link request emails
One would think that since my web site has been around forever, and since I'm a one-person shop and my name is front and center on my homepage, and since I specialize in link building, I shouldn't receive link request spam. One would think.

How does Google collect and rank results?
Above is a quick primer on how Google crawls and indexes the web, and then ranks search results, from quality engineer Matt Cutts. Although designed for librarians, it's worth a read by anyone who wants a good general overview.

The Case for Topically Irrelevant High Pagerank Links
Sometime during the course of building links to your site, you'll come across a site with a really high Pagerank but which has absolutely nothing at all to do with your site.  No point in pursuing a link then, right?  Yes, no, and maybe.

Linking's Holy Grail: The Passively-Obtained Backlink 
A passively-obtained backlink is nothing more than a link to your site that you had nothing to do with obtaining.  You didn't know a thing about it.  Didn't ask for it, didn't pay for it, didn't swap for it.  It just happened. The search engines love passive links like this.  Why? Because they can trust them.

Looking for Links In All The Wrong Places? 
In their frenzy to build links to curry favor with the engines, web site owners miss a far more important audience using topical tools. 

The Yahoo Link That Can Make You A Star
Did you know there is another link that Yahoo gives certain sites, at no cost, and sites that receive this link receive tens of thousands of site visits. 

Link Popularity and Guestbook Links: Useful or Not?
The real question here is do search engines know about this scam yet, or do they count guestbook links as additional links for poplarity rankings?

What Makes A Site Linkworthy?
What is the motivation for one site owner to link to another site?

Build A Free Link Clipping Alert Service (Parts I & 2)
you can build your own free web link clipping service, which you can use to track anything from mentions of your site in print, to spotting new links to your site. 

Linking Legalities...What You Need to Know

A Technique For Selecting Sites For Link Requests

Potpourri of Linking Facts and Fiction

Linkability - Why Do Some Sites Have It While Others Don't?

Under the Radar: Tracking Online Coverage of Your Site is Hit or Miss,  But Mostly Miss

Using Google to Identify High Quality Link Targets

Automated Link Generators - Not Worth The Trouble

Linking Mistakes To Avoid (Part 2): Removing Orphaned URLs

Linking Mistakes To Avoid (Part 1): Link Optimization and Short URLs

How to Make The Most Out Of Emailed Press Releases (update)

Taking The Plunge in the Pay-Per-Click Link Pool

Now Is The Time For A Portal Link Audit

Make Friends With Competing Search Engine Links-(off site)

Easy Linkin'-(off site)

Holistic Link Potential: Beyond the Home Page-(off site)

Linking Stew-(off site)

How to Build a Free and Fast Link-Alert Service-(off site)

A Linking-Campaign Primer

Email Links: The Good, the Bad, and the Gibberish-(off site)

Linking 101: Back to Basics-(off site)

The Five Major Flaws of Link Popularity-(off site)

Portal Links: Where They Are and How to Get Them-(off site)

Resuscitating Dead Links-(off site)

What Makes A Site LinkWorthy?-(off site)

Links links links.  And it's more than links.  It's the collision of online publicity and public relations and link building.  It's blogs. It's social bookmarking.  Viral linking. Link baiting. Widgets, digging and tagging. And more, all congealing into a set of skills and tactics that can bring links and publicity to your web content if you do it well and do it right. 

This is a niche I know, because many say I helped create it back before the search engines even paid attention to links. I still build links and publicity for selected clients, and also train and consult with SEO firms, ad agencies, PR firms, site developers and individuals in the art and nuances of link building, link development, and site publicity. 

I also run URLwire, speak about linking at conferences, and my articles about linking and publicity appear all over the web. My Private Linking Strategy Sessions and In-Depth Link Audits have helped hundreds of sites. 

Linking questions you need to ask...
With so many newly minted "linking experts" out there providing truly horrible advice and services, you need to ask yourself some questions first. And if you can't be 100% confident of your answers, don't be afraid to ask for help.

Questions:
Is your site ready to attract the right links?  Why?  Why not?  What are realistic linking and publicity expectations for your site and why?  Which links matter most for search engines, and which links matter most for click traffic?  Do it yourself or outsource?  How can you evaluate (and trust) 3rd party link building services?  If you do it in-house, what's the best and most cost-effective approach? What are your competitors doing that's so different from what you're doing? Which links to your site will get it banned from the search engines? Which links to your site will help you the most over the long haul?  How do you get those links?

The reality is not every site needs links, while some have to have them or they wont succeed. The key is understanding where your site's content fits into the web's trust flow, and entering that flow the right way.

BlogScroll and linkworthy...
SearchEngineLand - LinkWeek
Daggle - Danny Sullivan's personal blog - At his feet did LinkMoses study
Matt Cutts blog - LinkMoses is no idiot...
Link Spiel.com - Debra Mastaler
SearchEngineJournal - Loren Baker
toprankblog - Lee Odden
Sugarrae - A Rae of light
Ask Kalena - Asketh and she answereth
seomoz - link building- Rand Fishkin
MarketingPilgrim - Andy Beal
Wilsonweb.com - Dr. Ralph Wilson
Stephan Spencer's Scatterings
Mike Grehan says
Andy Hagans
Internet News by Gwen Harris
Webguerrilla - Greg Boser. His might is great, his tactics bold
SEO Theory - Michael Martinez says what he thinks, like it or not. And I Like it.
Pandia Search Engine Detective
The Linking Matters Report - Ken McGaffin
Linking101.com - Larry Sullivan
Link Hounds

Read it...
Should Affiliate Links Point to the Merchant's Domain?
Extremely helpful article by  Dr. Ralph F. Wilson. Technical, but vitally important for merchants using affiliate programs to understand. 

Deep Linking Controversy and Legal Issues
Links and Law
Details on nearly every linking related legal case over the past six years.  Maintained by Stephan Ott
Deep Linking
Links to articles and commentary about deep linking, selected by the American Library Association.
Links and Law
Commentary on Web Architecture and links by the man who invented the web, Tim Berners-Lee.
Myths about Links
More from Tim Berners-Lee
The Link Controversy Page
Though dated, this page offers a set of links to the legal issues, precedent and problems of using hyperlinks on the web.
Deep linking faces clampdown
from 2002 By Lisa M. Bowman