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anyone interested in exchanging links etc


billybrag

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Posted

i have just installed the links share/exchange contrib and i think its great

 

is anyone interested in doing link swaps?

"because it'll hurt more"- the greatest film of all time?

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Too bad our sites aren't really related. I'm always interested in link exchanges.

 

Cyndi

Is it reality or just a dream, for some there is no difference.

Posted

exhanging links isnt really helpful.

 

unrelated shops - thats self explanatory.

 

related shops - Why would you want to give your customers an option to buy your product somewhere else? you are'nt helping each out. you are putting yourself in a position to enter a price war with the same person you are trying to help. Does'nt make any sense. The only sites that should be linked out or in, should be content sites related to your industry. I would never give my customers an option to buy elsewhere unless I was real confident in my presentation. I think the link sharing contib is better suited for something like post-nuke where they can only benefit from increased traffic via link sharing. We can only gain competion via link sharing to other etailers. If you are concerned about your pr (pagerank) and is why you seek to share links, remember this: links from low pr sites will not help, try to find links from atleast 5 or 6 pr ratings then work your way down from there. Gaining links from pr 1-2 sites is not helpful and as stated above, gives people a reason not to buy from you, after all you provided an option for them to buy elsewhere.

Posted

I am still new to the web, so most of my traffic comes from link exchanges. As a bonus, my site is now a pr 5, so link exchanges have become much easier, and less work on my part. I do exchange some links with people in my industry, but they are mostly in the top 10 on google and I also get traffic from them. I was trying to focus on shopping, but have since noticed a lot of my traffic is coming from a couple of plastic surgery sites. I guess they are some what related,lol.

Is it reality or just a dream, for some there is no difference.

Posted

I made a mistake in the above, I did not mean to say links from low PR are not helpful, I meant not as helpful as higher pr sites where your focus should be.

 

whereditgo, your case is a little different, as you are gaining links from directories not from shops thmeselves. I am speaking directly of links from/to shops selling the same type of products. On a side note, you should get listed with yahoo directories and other major directories, Will help your pr as well. Of course pr is'nt a great measurement of success, but it does give us all a one liner about the traffic we can generate coming in. The higher the pr, the higher the traffic potential you are tapped into.

Posted

I have thought about getting listed in the US yahoo directory, but paying that kind of money just for consideration scares me. I am listed in some of the foreign ones that are free. I am still waiting on DMOZ, could take awhile I know. I don't really understand the theory behind pr, I see a lot of sites with a low pr in the upper pages of google. My main concern right now is traffic from other sites and coming up with good page content to help with serps. Content is difficult when it comes to lingerie, at least for me. I may have to find a writer to do it for me.

Is it reality or just a dream, for some there is no difference.

Posted
exhanging links isnt really helpful.

 

unrelated shops - thats self explanatory.

 

related shops - Why would you want to give your customers an option to buy your product somewhere else? you are'nt helping each out. you are putting yourself in a position to enter a price war with the same person you are trying to help. Does'nt make any sense. The only sites that should be linked out or in, should be content sites related to your industry. I would never give my customers an option to buy elsewhere unless I was real confident in my presentation. I think the link sharing contib is better suited for something like post-nuke where they can only benefit from increased traffic via link sharing. We can only gain competion via link sharing to other etailers. If you are concerned about your pr (pagerank) and is why you seek to share links, remember this: links from low pr sites will not help, try to find links from atleast 5 or 6 pr ratings then work your way down from there. Gaining links from pr 1-2 sites is not helpful and as stated above, gives people a reason not to buy from you, after all you provided an option for them to buy elsewhere.

Exchanging links is very helpful and is recommended by google. And if you are going to exchange links, it helps if they are related to your site. That doesn't mean that if you are selling garden hoses, that you should link to a store selling garden hoses. But you should try linking to stores selling lawn mowers and the like. But even if you did link with a competitor, do you hosnestly think that your visitors don't know how to find them on their own? It is unlikely an established site that sells the same product as you would swap links with you, but if they offerred, you should take it.

 

The way google finds a suitable match when someone types in a search phase is in part, based on the PR of the site and this is based on the number of relevant link-backs. Anyone not getting as many link-backs as possible nowadays is making a mistake as far as SE's are concerned.

 

Also keep in mind that PR's change. So linking with a site that has a PR of 1 today might find you linked to a site that has a PR of 6 a year from now if that site is successful.

 

Jack

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Posted

so, back to the original question,

 

does anyone want to?

"because it'll hurt more"- the greatest film of all time?

Posted

Hi Mike,

 

I have added your link to my site, you can view it here.

 

I submitted my link to your site, I hope you will add it.

 

Thanks

 

Mark

 

P.S Anyone else who like to link to my site then please go here

Lifes a bitch, then you marry one, then you die!

Posted

Adding a link to a "links page" on any site is useless, even if the site is a PR10. Most links pages have tens, if not hundreds of links.

 

Imagine the example of a PR5 page, with one hundred links. The outgoing PR is split between those 100 links, thus your site gets the benefit of 5 / 100 == 0.05 incoming PR. Really useful that is.

 

Now take the example of a PR3 page with 5 links. 3 / 5 = incoming PR of 0.6PR. Which would you rather have?

 

This is rather a simple example, and there is a lot more to it than that, but it'll do in the realms of this thread!

 

So, link farms, link pages on sites are practically useless. If you are going for links, then make sure you specify that you want a useful link from a page (or pages) that you exclusively will be linked from. And offer the same in return.

Posted

The formula isn't that clear cut. See Googles Formula If it were, you could conceivably be the only link on a site with a PR of 10 and have a PR of 9 (they drop down one from the linking page's PR). Google states that link farms are not a good idea and that it could even hurt you. So you do not want a page of nothing but links. But when a description is added to the link and the links per page are kept low (under a 100), then google sees it differently.

 

It may be true that you would be better off being linked to from a page in which you are being refernced as an additonal source, but these are very hard to get. They would probably only happen if you have an established, popular site that others use as a reference in their site. For the average startup site, there is really no other choice to increase PR than to have a lot of link backs. The more relevant to your site the better, of course. Swapping links is the accepted method of increasing PR, and thus indexing to a degree.

 

Jack

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Posted

I generally look for sites that have 50 or less links per page. I learned that is the best at one of the seo boards. It also seems to make getting traffic from the site easier. I don't want to be a needle in a haystack, so 50 or less seems to work in my area of business.

Is it reality or just a dream, for some there is no difference.

Posted

still though, when all is said and done, its better than doing nothing at all

:)

"because it'll hurt more"- the greatest film of all time?

Posted
Too bad our sites aren't really related. I'm always interested in link exchanges.

I think this does not really matter. :blink:

 

I would like to change links! :P

 

Greetings Jaxx

Posted

well just go to the links page on my site

;)

"because it'll hurt more"- the greatest film of all time?

Posted

We believe that any link to your own website is a good thing.

Each link to your website may bring you another sale or enquiry regardless of page rank.

http://www.ukforbusiness.co.uk

Never miss the chance of posting a link to our new directory either... B)

Posted

Everyone has there own opinions on this matter which i'm glad to see. I take the stance that I want to give as much reason for my prospective clients to buy from my shops. Not give them a reason to look elsewhere. The best thing I ever did for myself and my employees was make the decision to focus more agressively offline. Its hard to build a brand online, in the wake of the big names like Amazon, Ebay, Yahoo etc. You need to increase your ideas more then whats suit Google. Some of my favourite models are those of Staples, Futureshop and especially Crutchfield. Offline presence gives you credability. Exchanging links, in my opinion adversely effects how a shop will convert, keep, and refer sales. Those of you that firmly believe that trading links is beneficiary.... well lets just that the only thing in this game that matters is conversion rates. By the way, every product I have ever sold has had 3 links to outside sources. One to the manufacturer, one to a review of the product and one to a usenet group/forum related. You tell me whats more effective.... a page full of links where others can buy the same items (possibly cheaper), or perhaps a couple links on every page providing information on the use, need/want, and manufacturer? Seems pretty simple to me. This is not a rant but it does annoy me when the Google-ites come out to play and pass on advice that just simply is'nt that sound.

 

In fact... anyone following this thread I invite to pm me and I'll see if I can set you up with a company I deal with... you won't be pitched, if theres a cost I'll pay and make it a case study with your acceptance on a new site.

Posted

I aggree that everyone has their own opinions on the subject, and I do not claim to be an expert by any means. However, like it or not, the main way for an online store to increase traffic is through the use of the SE's. If you want to buy a ranking or pay for some other form of advertisement, that is a different story and does not apply to this thread. But if you are talking about being highly indexed in the SERP's, then you have to pay attention to the rules laid down by the SE's. This especially applies to google. Ignoring these rules will only hurt you. Following them will place you near the top of the search results and drive traffic to your site. Now, once that traffic is at your site, you have to have something the visitor wants to buy. If you cannot keep them, then you need to revamp your site. Anyone hiding their head in the sand and saying google doesn't matter just plainly doesn't understand how the whole structure works. If a site is doing well (lots of traffic), then they are either ranked high in the SE's or are paying for rankings and/or advertising. Anyone claiming differently should post a link to their web site to prove otherwise.

 

Jack

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Posted

Jack_mcs,

 

I wasnt responding directly to you, I am not sure if yours is directed at me. You and me are talking apples to oranges... maybe Im being to broad on the subject. I'll simplify it:

 

you need links out, simply put. Just better ways to get them then linking to other carts.

 

you need links in, a must. Get them anyway you can, my personal preference is affiliates, commission is a great way to "buy" you advertising as they work harder for the reward. If you can snag a couple super affiliates your golden, watch out for cookie loading.

 

Sadly we do need Google... no question about it. Just got to be smart in how we all handle our marketing.

 

I would never post a site on any forum for the purposes of viewing, I live and die by conversion rates mostly and posting a site on a forum for all to peak at means that I have x number of people dropping that rate. I could post statistics but I don't think that is conclusive enough. Example yesterday for one of my electronics sites 2 days ago logged:

 

1849 uniques

53 sales

6 pagerank

295 links in

597 links out

147.93 average Sale (USD)

 

conversion rate of 2.86 %, keeping in mind the average electronics site conversion rate is 1.1% as of March, 2004.

 

Now that my first priority, conversion rates is at a level I'm happy with, I can work on lead generation. This site has been pluggin along for 11 months now.

Posted

I know and I took no offense and certainly meant none. I meant it as a reply to the thread in general although upon re-reading it, I can see it may not have come across that way. When I started with OSC I was totally lost on many of the finer points of running a successful shop and have put a lot of time into studying this one in particular. If someone would have pointed out to me the correct way to do it six months ago, I would be much better off than I am now with regards to ranking. As a result, I try to pass this information along FWIW.

 

As for showing a link, I completely agree. I posted my web address in a few threads and then started getting people signing in and placing fake orders. I forget sometimes that there are a lot of "kids" on these forums. I'll not make that mistake again.

 

Jack

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