Please Help Me Write My Book for You

Heh heh - dontcha love 'em?

My example I think I may have told you about, Michael. It was the e-book about ferrets entitled "The Ferret Owners Guide to the Internet - Over 3000 links to everything you could possibly want to know about pet ferrets"

Pretty clear - an ebook full of LINKS, right? Well, we got run out of town PDQ. We were accused of stealing content (but we're only linking to YOUR site, bonehead). We got lots of the "how DARE you link" complaints. Even - "you're using up my bandwidth", can you believe!

We were on the wrong end of a carefully orchestrated, nasty little campaign which resulted in our hosting service shutting us down. 12 months and thousands of hours of my wife's labour of love, gone in 48 hours!

So, TLC, you never know where these clowns are hiding - as I said, just be careful!

Cheers

Philip

> A few years back we were going to link to a
> certain site. They asked that all links to
> them be via a small graphic.

> Two graphics to choose from...

> One with the words "Member of..."
> written on it. And another generic graphic
> without membership claims. We chose the
> generic one because we were not members
> (which required payment)

> They emailed us and told us we were
> violating their copyright and we could only
> use the generic graphic if we were paying
> members.

> After informing them that we did not want to
> use the graphic with the word
> "Member" on it because that would
> be lying, they got even more huffy about it.

> Highlight code. Cut. Problem solved.

> I can understand a desire not to be linked
> to if the linking site is totally unrelated.
> Such as a sex site linking to your tea-towel
> embroidery business. But when a themed site
> links to another site with the same theme,
> and the linked to site gets their knickers
> in a knot, then someone is a few milligrams
> short on magnesium me thinks.

> Michael Ross

Hi Michael;

> I can understand a desire not to be linked
> to if the linking site is totally unrelated.
> Such as a sex site linking to your tea-towel
> embroidery business. But when a themed site
> links to another site with the same theme,
> and the linked to site gets their knickers
> in a knot, then someone is a few milligrams
> short on magnesium me thinks.

In the example you mentioned, the site was obviously being anal about the non-payment for a membership.

However, "not" wanting someone to link to my site would not make me (or anyone else) short on magnesium. *g*

Today, many of the search engines look at the QUALITY of the pages that link to you in determining your ranking - not just the quantity.

More is better is an old technique whose day has passed.

So, as I seek "linkback," I'm going to look for sites that have ranking that's close to my own or better to bring my ranking up. If a tons of people with low ranking trade links with me, I stand to lose ranking while they gain it. That forces me to work harder to keep mine high.

I've seen it happen time and time again in my daily work. When I am hired to redesign a site, or do other graphic work, I add a "design (or graphics) by LindaCaroll.com" link at the bottom of their site... and add them to my page. Then, we watch their ranking and listings go up almost immediately. So far, the record response has been a noticable improvement within two weeks. From not listed in Google and Yahoo to page two listings.

When it comes to linking, who is more important than how many.

It isn't magnesium, but the result can be darn close to electric. : )

Linda




More about search engines here..

Linda:

> So, as I seek "linkback," I'm
> going to look for sites that have ranking
> that's close to my own or better to bring my
> ranking up. If a tons of people with low
> ranking trade links with me, I stand to lose
> ranking while they gain it. That forces me
> to work harder to keep mine high.

I'm not talking about trading links. In my example, the link was one way... from me to them. And this was back in '99 I believe... might even have been '98. (Internet time is so hard to keep track of. :o))

Michael Ross

> A vitriolic objection voiced by the owners
> of a number of the sites linked to was
> basically "how DARE you link to me
> without my permission!"

A backlash for increasing their traffic? That's a strange reaction. I suggest you make each link in your ebook go to your site and redirect it (html or cgi) to the target URL. Then if you get flack from anybody, you can instantly shut down the traffic by updating the link on your site.

FYI, I promise not to complain if anyone adds a link to my site in their next ebook. :)

Frank


Learn to make fun balloon animals.