Text Link Info

Banning never solved any problem in its entirety. As long as there’s a demand for a particular product, service or good, the industry will exist, albeit underground. The existence of industries relies upon the law of supply and demand. While there are things which should remain banned, text links have only be egregious to the Google algorithm and the algorithm of other search engines, nowhere else. In short, although people are afraid of getting penalized, since there’s technically nothing illegal in buying and selling text links, people have nothing really to be scared of.

What does this mean? Well, the situation suggests that the repercussion of the recent Google crackdown on text links would mean underground trades happen everywhere. No one wants to be caught doing it, but it’s worth taking the risk. Do you remember the time when your parents banned you from taking the car out, but you do it anyways because you know it’s worth it? This is, in essence, the same.

One could only conjecture what would happen to the text link industry as a whole. While some company like Text Link Ads has found a way to curb the Google fury, and others like Scratchback prefer using the nofollow attribute, there are those who still prefer to buy and sell text links for PageRank who’re left out in the open, protected only by their underground dealings. By cracking upon text links like what happened, has Google inadvertently created what could be likened to the mafia or triad in real life? Participating in secret transactions, moving silently, trying not to get caught — these are a few similarities between the current underground text link industry and real life syndicates. How about you — do you think Google’s banning of text links helped or has it only complicated matters more?

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Back in the days when Google hasn’t cracked up on text links yet, text links were the preferred advertisement vehicle. Big and small web sites alike were very active in the text link industry and text link brokers had it made. Although Google has long since announced their displeasure over the widespread buying and selling of text links, they really have taken no steps towards penalizing web sites which participate in the act. It was only recently that Google has finally able to include text links in their algorithm. It was, of course, mayhem. Popular web sites and blogs called Google the Nazi, while others were lauding the company for their efforts. It’s undeniable, however, that once upon a time, text links were a perfect way to promote and advertise blogs and web sites and here’s why:

1. Text Links Used to Boost PageRank

When Googlebot had still no inkling on which links were paid and which are natural, web masters used paid text links as a way to boost their PageRank. This, perhaps, triggered Google’s stand on the subject.

2. Text Links Are More Affordable Than Banner Links

For smaller web professionals who can’t afford bigger banner advertisements, text links were a perfect alternative while gaining PR at the same time. You can STILL use text links as of today and they are still cheaper than banner links. The only difference is that with everyone using “nofollow” on text links, you’re not gaining PR juice. Frankly, I don’t think that that is still a cause for concern. As long as I’m driving traffic to my web site through my no-follow text link, that works for me.

3. It’s Much Easier to Sell Text Links

On the side of the web sites and blogs, it’s much easier to sell text links than it is to sell banner advertisements.

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Text links are a familiar sight on the internet. They are the blue and underlined texts we see on different web pages that will lead us to another page when we click on them. One of the best advantages of text links compared to other links is that they offer the fastest rate of download and the links can also be used as keywords for the webpage.

Aside from these, we all know the other advantages of text links such as improvement of your page rank – until Google cracked down on webmasters who use this method, that is. And web promotion because your site will become part of a network through these links. But you need to ask yourself, is the benefits of text links really worth paying for?

There are actually also many disadvantages of using text links. In the past, some text links are bought for $100 when you want your link to appear in a PR 6 website so a lot of webmasters needed to budget their resources carefully. Then there is the issue of relevancy; most websites have text links that are unrelated to the product or service they are promoting.

Remember that search engines are now very sophisticated so it can determine if the links on your site are complementary or totally unrelated, you can get penalized if they find out you are using text links to get revenue or improve page rank.

When you want your site to be linked to another, it is also essential to look at the length of the link. Because most sites have limited space, your text links would likewise have limited space and you would need to come up with an appropriate three keyword phrase. So knowing all these, is getting text links a wise decision? It actually is when you use text links properly.

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Ever since web masters discovered that they can use text link to gain site popularity and improve traffic on their site, the debate of whether it is ethical or not to use this tactic has been a hot issue. Text links can influence the results of your search engine ranking and your page rant so buying and swapping text links over the internet has been a hot topic for some time.

But when you take a look at the journalism field in general, you will notice that there are various questions about the lawfulness and the ethics of certain publication practices. In the same way, you can look at web publishing in the same light. A lot of webmasters use text links to get more people to their websites. Now, the main purpose of text links is actually to drive people to sites with relevant content but with the practice of buying, selling, and swapping text links, it has become obvious that text links are now becoming a tool that web masters are taking undue advantage of to get more revenues.

With the evolution of Google algorithms though, the quality of text links is being scrutinized, using text links are no longer as beneficial as it was before although you can still derive several advantages from it. The efforts of Google should actually be seen in a positive light because they are not only diverting the use of text links to its original purpose, it also makes relevant searches easier for a visitor.

The question of whether using text links to improve the page rank of your site is not really for anyone to decide. Only you can answer whether you believe that you are doing the right thing in using text link transactions as a business tool because in the end, it is only you who can provide answer to yourself.

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Several years ago, using text links to improve your site’s PageRank became popular. But since then, there has been a lot of concerns about the legitimacy of this practice especially since Google started cracking down on sites that used this method. This was further aggravated when it was discovered that several technical sites are actually selling text links to generate revenue. As you can probably predict, a lot of sites decided to stop using text links to increase PageRank but there are still some who continue to do this method. But more than PageRank, you should remember the main purpose of text links in the first place which is getting quality traffic and building a great network of related sites.

However, building a network to get quality page rank can sound quite difficult to some but there are several strategies you can use to get a few quality links anyway. These include joining several groups and networking sites to meet people who can give you quality text links. You can hang around these groups to barter within your network. Take note though that it is possible for trouble to occur when there is automatic link spamming in your network.

Did you ever consider not getting text links from some sites at all though? Well, if this is the case for you, then you should. This is because you can pass the PageRank to your own sites and get a better reputation. In addition, you don’t want to mess with sites that don’t have page rank at all because your site would be compromised as well. When you are building a network of quality sites, the last thing you want is getting low quality links that will decrease quality traffic and get you penalized by Google as well.

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From specialized text link networks, let’s go back to the basics to be reminded of what link exchange is really all about. It is a fact that the best text links over the internet are usually given for free. These text links are not exchanged over out-of-the-blue inquiries or paid for because it is simply given by different webmasters by choice to deserving individuals. You might be wondering though, ‘why the sudden interest in free links?’ Well, with Google and other major search engines cracking down on webmasters who use text links to increase page rank, there is certainly a cause for concern, as I’ve said over and over again.

Webmasters all over the world are affected since they are saw that their page rank went down drastically. But nobody says that you cannot use text links to drive or increase traffic to your web site — this is still legal. Just be sure to remove any tags which indicate that your links came from links exchanges or if it was otherwise bought for a price. Google has algorithms and uses hyperlinks to know the reputation of your site. So note that when your front page is muddled up with links to casinos and online gambling, it decreases the relevancy to link-based reputation.

Aside from this fact though, you should also be aware that it would be difficult for you to get quality text links which are really given voluntarily if your site looks like a mish-mash of keywords, gambling, and porn. If you’re the webmaster of a reputable website, you would not want to be associated with these kinds of sites, would you? So consider where the other webmaster is coming from to get the best possible page rank for your site without shouldering any additional costs. The other person would simply be glad to give a link to your site. So your site will get the kind of quality traffic it needs. At the same time, it is highly likely that this will lead to a dramatically improved page rank in the future.

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Let’s go back to the basis of the text link business. We’ve discussed some ways to get text links and negotiate on a face-to-face basis. However, we’ve also discussed text link networks such as TNX.net and Scratchback. This time, let’s have a bit of an atavism and pretend we don’t know anything about text links yet — this post is for the newly-inducted text link buyer/seller. What is a text link broker? Simply said, a text link broker is a company like TNX.net and Scratchback and yes, Text Link Ads. While dealing with other web masters face to face has its novelty and advantages such as being able to negotiate rates or build a long-term relationship with others while networking at the same time, the use of text link brokers has its own advantages too.

First of all, text link brokers have access to a gamut of web sites. This will save you a lot of time. What hours you would have spent to seek out web sites to do link exchange with, you would already use to look through the broker’s collection of web sites and choose the right ones to target. Text link brokers also have fixed prices depending upon the specs of the web sites in their collection which means you can also allot a fixed budget per period of time for text links. No more guessing games as to how much you’ll spend next month. You can also save more time because there’s no need to get into negotiations with various web masters.

Of course, with the recent Google penalizations, everybody knows the downside of using text link brokers. Still, if you plan on continuing in the text link business, or if you’re new in the area, text link brokers are highly useful and could be very profitable if you’re on the other side of the fence.

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Because of our inherent want to rank high in the search engine ranking pages, we tend to jump in every opportunity we get to exchange links. After all, any link contributes to PageRank juice, right? While that’s true, not all links look good in Google’s eyes (figuratively speaking, of course). Links in blogrolls or links which are site wide are always good, of course. But if, for example, links to your blogs pop up to various web sites’ links list or blog rolls overnight, it would seem obvious to Google and other search engines that someone’s trying to game the system (sounded like Matrix, didn’t it?).

While link exchanges are always great, getting one-way inbound links is always better. When talking about one-way link exchange, it might not be a link back which you have to offer. Here are a few suggestions:

1. If you have other relevant blogs, link to the other party there instead.

If you want to promote a certain blog and ask for link exchange, you could reciprocate by linking to the other party in another relevant blog.

2. Offer unique content in exchange of links.

One method I learned from a colleague is to contact the web masters in your niche to offer unique well-written content with a couple of links to your site. The web site in question gets content and you get your backlinks. It’s a win-win situation (most of the time).

3. Offer a service in turn.

If you have something which you can offer other web masters, then do so. Exchanges like this could be found in forums and other web master hubs.

4. Create linkable content and bring it to attention of other web masters.

If you create content worth linking to, you could call the attention of other web masters and wait for them to link to you.

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Scratchback takes a whole new approach to link selling. If you take a look at their web site, there is no serious marketing pitch to be found. Instead, Scratchback tout themselves as a fancy and fun tip jar alternative. In fact, their FAQ page is riddled with the smiley face. I think that, in itself, is a perfect sales pitch. There are already loads of network selling text links. Marketing themselves as a tip jar with pizzazz, sure works for me. Scratchback launched AFTER the Google de-rankings. Hence, the creator, Jim Kukral, decided to make Scratchback a service which would remain in Google’s good graces — they use the nofollow attribute. This was written in their web site:

Google has made it perfectly clear that “selling page rank” is not something they believe in. We don’t believe in it either. This system is built for fun. There are plenty of other solutions out there you can use if you want to “pass Google juice”, just not this one. Did you hear that Google?

Scratchback uses a widget pretty much like BlogRush. When you register for their service, you can create your own widget using a scheme you choose. If none pass your fine taste, you can download an application which would allow you to create your personalized widget. You can then send it to Scratchback and if they approve of your design, they’ll activate your widget for your sole use. Otherwise, you can ask them to create a specialized widget for you. As of now, this service costs nothing but would cost $50 in the future.

Scratchback allows you to control how much you want to charge per link, how many days you’d allow the link to stay up on your web site (1 day, 7 days, or 30 days) and even lets you delete which links you don’t want to appear. In short, you’re in control and you don’t get de-ranked. Even if Scratchback links are not Google juice, if you buy links in the right web sites, you could see an a decent-sized traffic coming your way.

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Despite Google’s recent penalization of text link publishers, the market for text link advertisements, thrive. One sample of that is the recently launched text link ads network, TNX.net. Pronounced as tnx as in “thanks” in text lingo, the network has created quite the buzz for itself since its inception. Not everything on the bright side, however. There are also some bad reports about their service. When choosing which text link ad network to use, it’s important to see both sides of the coin, is it not?

When you go the TNX web site, you’ll see an income calculator at the left side of the screen. Using this tool, you’ll be able to get an estimate of you web site’s potential earnings. When you sign up for TNX.net, you automatically get 2,000 TNX points. These points could be used for various ends. One would be to use these points to buy text links in other web sites. Another would be to sell your TNX points back to TNX. I believe the going rate is $1.20 for 1,000 points. Or, you can leave your TNX points as they are and wait until the going rate increases. They have also opened a special offer in Digital Point. Sign up and post your ID in the forum and they’ll give you a free additional 5,000 points.

TNX charges a commission rate of 12.5% monthly, which I believe isn’t too bad. They also have a dashboard where you can control your operations — choose sites to advertise on or control the web sites advertising on your site. You’ll then be given a code to be pasted in every page you wanted the ads to appear and wait for your web site to get approved. All in all, I do think TNX is a great avenue to sell text links and is definitely worth the shot.

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