Just Ask Matt - Answers

Do Link Exchanges Still Work?

QUESTION: (Gerald) I have a number of people asking me to exchange links. I have read that this is good, but can’t find anywhere how to do it. Any suggestions, or is there an article you have that would help me. Appreciate it.

Good question, Gerald, because we really don’t hear as much about link exchanges as we did in the past.  I think the big reason for it is it’s effectiveness (or lack thereof).  Search engine spiders are much smarter than they were 2 or 3 years agos.  And most will recognize a “link exchange” rather easily.

For those who don’t know what a link exchange is, it is when you approach another website (usually with similar content to yours) and ask them to place a nice, keyword-rich anchor text link back to your website.  In exchange, you will do the same for them.  Remember that an important part of SEO is backlinks (i.e., receiving links from other websites pointing back to you).  A few years ago, a lot of this “linking power” was represented by a Page Rank.  Getting high Page Rank websites to point back to you effectively will increase your own page rank.

Personally, I think Page Rank is a bit of a farce these days (at least the public one).  I do think the major search engines (like Google) have there own ranking system based on popularity, but it would not be public.  Still, getting links from “authority sites” with relevance (to your niche) is always key. 

Now getting back to the question…I think link exchanges (or “reciprocal linking”) is really not going to help or hurt you.  Any backlink (in most cases) usually will help you.  But if there is a reciprocal link, the spiders will usually recognize this and probably not give you proper popularity for it. 

Again, like everything SEO, this is speculation, but I know there has been a lot of abuse of link exchanges over the years (like link farms, paid text links, etc.) to draw a lot of attention to it.  I used to do it quite a bit.  I don’t really do it any more (unless I am quite friendly with the website and we exchange primarily for the traffic, not the SEO).  I think your efforts would be better suited to article writing/submission, press releases, even directory submissions. 

You can also consider n-way link exchanges.  For a 3-way link exchange example: Site A links to Site B, Site B links to Site C, and Site C links to Site A.  You can do this rather deeply, too.  But still, the search engine spiders are smart and may start recognizing the linking footprints.  The larger the “n”, the better off you are…but of course, this is a hell of a lot more work and requires some skillful coordination.

Personally, I have become somewhat of an a-hole about link exchange requests.  I don’t get as many as I used to, but when I do I usually ignore them. 

cheers…matt

P.S. If you want to know more about Getting Backlinks, check out SEOExciter.com.  (There are 10 free videos over there that shows you how!)

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Matthew BredelMy name is Matthew Bredel and as of March, 2007, I am a full-time, work-at-home internet marketer. For close to 10 years, I worked for a defense company which was an OK job, but I was so uninspired in life and frankly, I needed some more money. That is when I first discovered internet marketing! Now I admit that I didn't start making thousands in my first couple of months (in fact, I lost my shirt!), but I finally saw the "internet light"...

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Htaccess & Other URL Redirect Methods

(Sonya) I came to this site by clicking on a “learn more” link that redirects to this page - what I want to know, although be it very basic, is how do I get a link to look like that? For example this web page url is http://www.matthewbredel.com/just-ask-matt, however I just clicked on something that said “learn more”. I want to know how I can title my links whatever I want with hidden url links in the exact same way you have!

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One of the most powerful, yet simple manipulations that can be done with your htaccess file is a basic redirect function.

One of the most powerful, yet simple manipulations that can be done with your htaccess file is a basic redirect function. A .htaccess file resides in the web-root directory of most Linux servers that have Apache installed (which is a majority of the servers online). This .htaccess file is a text file which contains user-defined server configuration settings, which include URL manipulations.

The simplest and most common configuration setting is the redirect. Using this function, you can create pseudo directories and files on your local host that will redirect to other URLs. This can be used to hide (or cloak) affiliate links and manage the file linking structure of your website more efficiently. The syntax is simple:

redirect {local/pseudo location} {destination URL}

Example:

redirect    /facebook     http://www.facebook.com/pa…

If this htaccess file resides on my blog at http://www.matthewbredel.com and I typed in:

http://www.matthewbredel.com/facebook

My host will redirect the user to:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ryan-Moran-and-Matthew-Bredel/…

Try it!

Go to: http://www.matthewbredel.com/facebook

I think you would agree that the local URL is much cleaner and easier to remember than the destination URL.

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11 Responses to “Htaccess and Redirects for Dummies”

  1. I just had a “duh!” moment. Been trying to figure out a way to do some redirecting, and I hadn’t even though to do an .htcaccess file. Duh… I suppose that’s why you’re the mastermind.

  2. I spent awhile trying to find a solution to this problem (including cheesy cloaking programs, etc.), but they did not work well and these redirects are SO easy. It was a true lightbulb moment when I stumbled about these htaccess files.

  3. nice little intro to .htaccess files

  4. [...] Htaccess and Redirects for Dummies - A good intro… [...]

  5. Matt,
    Oh my gosh this looks very easy.I wish I’d seen this post last year when you wrote it!

    I say ‘oh my gosh’ because I broke 12 of my websites when I tried to do something like this a few months ago. The nice people at hostgator fixed it for me which was nice of them but didn’t teach me what I did wrong.

    So…next week I’m going to see if I can do another one myself. Let’s hope I don’t break anything. LOL.

  6. Hey Dana,

    You know you’ll always have me as tech support! But remember that fiddling around with htaccess files can be scary, as you have learned.

    Still, it is perhaps one of the most overlooked, under-used, super powerful (and most cryptic!) components of managing a website’s linking structure!

    cheers…matt

  7. [...] most of my redirects, I edit my htaccess file: Using Your HTAccess File to Redirect Users.  I actually wrote a post on this and did a video, too (see previous link).  This may be a little [...]

  8. I have been trying to Gain access to this site for a while. I was using IE7 then when I tried Firefox, it worked just great? Just wanted to bring this to your attention. London,UK

  9. Thanks, thats some great information there. Let me know when you update the blog as I would love to keep up to date with your articles.

  10. I use Netobjects fusion to create and update my site. I can not figure out a way to use this .htaccess redirect in it. If it can’t be done, how do I get around it?


  11. Almost everyone that earnsan income on the internet (even the millionaires) do so through affiliate marketing. Being successful in affiliate marketing involves applying the formula that makes other affiliate marketers successful. For example, autoblogging. Autoblogging is one of the least well-known forms of making money for quite some time… basically because it’s quite difficult to make a good auto-blog. Yet, when done right, it can provide you with a lifetime of passive income with the only real work required being the setting up process. Video Marketing, and several other marketing strategies are all designed to drive traffic to your site, can be incorporated gradually in order to raise the position your site appears in the search engine results page when any one searches for a term related to your site. And yet, even this can be totally automated.

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