Help :)

[Mike]

Ok, so I'll go on about my msn emotions site again (msn-emotions.net) :)

I have a small problem with it -- competing with other sites. It seems noone has got one of these sites just because they like msn emotions, they're all quite knowledgable on seo etc and know that the market is a goldmine if you get top.

So this means it's hard to get free links. In fact, it's not hard, it's impossible. The only way to get links to your site is to exchange, which is what I've been doing.

However, it doesn't seem to be working. Exchanging links just seems to build a large link section at the bottom of your page, and not affect your ranking.

So what could I do to improve this sites ranking?

Any help would be appreciated :)

Thanks,
Mike

[incka]

I'm having problems too... The reason I'm not as low down as you is because I've got all of my other sites linking to it... The goldmine of being on top with these smiley central ads... Mmm... $$$$$... Mmm... For now adwords have to do...

[Chris]

Drop the free site links.

[Mike]

You mean "thefreesite" button on the left?

[cameron]

Being linked with the free site probably brings in a lot of traffic. I'm not sure how long they would keep your link around if you took down their link.

[incka]

2 months.

I know free site is blocked but the traffic it brings...

[AndyH]

Drop the free site links.

If not remove it, get rid of the border made by the image being a link and also move it into the table row with the copyright. Where it is now is to noticeable for something that isn't required to be. :)

[intelliot]

What are the smiley central ads?

[Mike]

The freesite link gets me around 500 uniques extra a month, so I'm not sure if I should take that down.

I've done what you said Andy, thanks for the idea :)

[michael_gersitz]

just block it from google....

[michael_gersitz]

use out.php?id=1 then put out.php in your robots.txt

[Mike]

They gave me code to link with though, so I'm not sure if they'd like it.

[intelliot]

actually, i'm sure they wouldn't "like" it :) ... personally i do not think it is a problem.

[incka]

They don't pass on PR anyway and as they are PR9 I don't think any freebie site is going to beat them in the search. Use a redirect thing.

[Jaffro]

Yea TheFreeSite gives a fair load of traffic so dont worry about it, just make sure it doesn't impact too much on the design on your site. I dont know if they'd even notice if you took the link down or moved it to another page on your site.

Its all about links, hard to find but if you do then you score. Its almost impossible to find new links but you just have to keep looking, I'm sure there's some sites out there still, i remember finding loads of 'msn' based sites to link with before i started but I simply cant find them anymore!

[incka]

Me and Jaffro both have site-wide links from EmotionsDir.com who never emailed us asking for links back which is nice...

[Jaffro]

Yea its always nice to have the random sites that just want a good links section and dont care about exchanges and stuff :)

[Kyle]

EmotionsDir must be optimizing for that mysterious hub/authority status ;)

[incka]

We have just about as many links though, with all the link exchanges we have done...

Hub status hey... Is that how college humor got so popular?

[Kyle]

No, collegehumor is based on mass link exchanges and repeat traffic. Sites like CollegeHumor aren't all about search engine traffic.

Hub/authority sites are a fairly new theory.
The SEOChat people are always good at publishing everything, from theories to facts. I hate the forum though.

http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Google/Building-a-Hub-Site-Thinking-About-Linking/

[incka]

At last someone else who hates SEO chat... The people there think they know everything...

I might make some hub sites, I notice a hub site was at the top for ancient china last time I looked...

[intelliot]

aren't they rather high maintenance to keep updated?

[incka]

What isn't (apart from AWS)?

[cameron]

I read the hub site article and didn't think much of it. It tells you to make a site with great content. I think any site with GREAT content is going to at least to good. That's barely even advice.

[Kyle]

cameron - In particular it's the mass external links that is associated with this hub site theory. Very weird stuff, a website on green widgets for example linking to many many top ranking green widget sites and then ranking high itself.

[intelliot]

It's a good idea, more positive with the sharing aspect than a site trying to be selfish.