Search Engine Marketing Blog: piloSEO

Doing some research for a potential client lead me to a couple of interesting sites that are kicking ass in a very competitive space. These two sites are obviously owned by the same person and they offer almost identical information but they are both dominating for many of the same keywords in this competitive space. They are using an interesting tactic to gain backlinks while avoiding the potential pitfalls of straight up link exchanges. And it appears to be working because they own valuable SERP real estate for some extremely lucrative keywords.

Not really exchanging links

While they do have a link to us page they are not really trading links. Essentially they are offering something of value in exchange for a link to their site. In both cases they are offering SEO advice to anyone willing to link to them. I have included two screenshots, one from each site, that show exactly what they are doing. I do not want to give away the industry because it would be very easy to find out who they are but I can tell you that it is totally unrelated to SEO, SEM, or anything related to online marketing. Check out the screenshots below to see their un-reciprocal link scheme.

Site #1

Site #2

Interesting way around reciprocal linking while still using the same tactics

This is an interesting method to build links using tactics that evolved from the reciprocal linking orgy of the past. Both sites have a link to us page that are in a sense offering non-monetary compensation for a link. I don’t think this violates any guidelines but is really close to the edge. I don’t know that there is something to penalize here but I am sure that there could come a time when those links are no longer passing any value. For now they are working and although I would not attempt using this type of link building method it looks like it is quite lucrative.

Disclaimer: I am not posting this to out anyone (which is why I did not link to the sites or mention the industry) or to give advice for link building. I do not believe this is a viable long term strategy but it appears to be working right now.

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