This is something which I stumbled upon when surfing some SEO blogs. It started with a lot of easy backlinks overnight kinda stuff and then, it came !! " We all know what link baiting is ...."

*crickets*

Anyway, I think I've read about it sometime from Yellowhousehosting Blog. But actually didnt get it !! Can anybody give me simple description about the stuff ?

Sreejith, here's the original post I wrote about what link bait is. I think it explans it pretty well.

The basic idea though is to create some content that is useful or interesting that people would generally want to link to. If you've ever wondered why you see a lot of free SEO tools in part because it's link bait. I'm sure many who released the tools did so to help others, but those tools generate a lot od links back to the site.

Free tools aren't the only forms of link bait. I described the various categories in the link above.

While just having some really good content is link bait there's another component with it to help you get links quicker. Generally someone will create something they think link baitable and then they ask all their friends to link to it in an effort to get some quick links and traffic to it. They might also add things to make it easy to bookmark the page at del.icio.us or to digg it or any other social meadia outlet.

When it works link bait can get a lot of links to the page it's on and in a short amount of time. Some SEOs are really good at creating something they know people will link to. SEO (or any industry) tools are almost a sure way. An attack post on someone who'd very popular will probably make for an easy link bait post. If tomorrow I released the exact formula for the Google algorithm it would certainly be link bait.

It will depend though on how large your current network or audience is as to how quickly you can get links. Me releasing the formula for the algorithm might still take time to generate a lot of links since there are only so many people visiting my site. Something like that formula would probably spread pretty fast.

If Rand Fishkin or Aaron Wall released that same formula it would probably be on most every SEO and webmaster blog within a few hours since they have a much larger readership and more connections to seed the bait with links.

Cool !! Now I get the idea. That was a really descriptive reply. I actually didnt pay that much concentration while reading your post. And, till yesterday, I thought it was some kinda black hat SEO technique. So, providing link worthy quality content is the stuff ? Well, I see you sell hosting. Can it be considered as a kinda link bait. Or am I utterly mistaken ?

Anyway, I wonder why your site had only "so many people". I read a lot of other blogs from Rand Fishkin, Aaron Wall, Yaro Starak, Darren Rowse etc. I think your content is much more educative and theirs are just up-to-date. So, where do you think is your problem ? Dont take it as a insult or something. I'm just casually asking you so that I can also improve a little more.

Well, in my point of view, all you lack from them is ...well...a "freakin cool" front page. Yours is fast loading. But Aaron's is professional. You dont have that much social bookmarking stuff as they do. You should concentrate a little more on bringing in some feed burner stuff in your site. You can maybe put the blog as the main page. Remember, all of these are just "comments" from a leisure ameteur webmaster with little knowledge when compared with you.

Anyway, thank you again for replying to me about the link bait stuff. I really appreciate it.

Simply put, anything well-written that has use to someone can be linkbait.

For example, I've written some articles and have found links to them all over the place. I'm getting a bunch of traffic from invisionfree (the bulletin board site) just because I was the first one to actually do a bit of research and learn what a spider from "Assertivenet" actually was.

This is the article in case you want to read it yourself and get an idea of how to do it.

Here's another one that has done well for me in the past:

iKobo Review (it's a review of a third-party payment processor that people thought was a scam until well...someone actually bothered to do some homework.)

In other words, take a topic that no one else has talked about (or that everyone has the wrong idea about), do a little research, document it properly and show what it actually is. That's the best linkbait going.

I've also accidentally linkbaited on another forum by pointing out how another popular SEO expert was using keyword stuffing on a public job site in the Albany (New York) area to find prospective employees. So Steve's right about that one.

That post about Assertivenet is really good. No wonder u got links like crazy. Now I really get it. Its all about unique content. Something which is unique can get a links. I think Digg can really help in this process. I'm gonna research for a topic right away.

OK, let's assume that I already have a post in my blog with a really great value. How do I get others to notice and read the article.

I'm not talking about 10 readers/day ... I'm talking about many ppl to read. Should I use the dig/furl ... ? Is there something else I need to do? BTW, what prevents others from just copying my content to there pages and avoid linking to me in order to make sure their visitors will stay longer in their website?

thanks.

bj_private: what's the blog, and what's the post? Remember that great value is subjective.

Usually it's defined by something unique that targets a segment, but it can be anything.

Tony I think getting people to see your content is part of the issue with link bait. Assuming you do have content that is truly deserviving of gathering links in time you'll find people have linked to it. So that content is link bait in the technical sense of the term.

I think when most people talk link bait though they're also talking about getting those links pretty fast, which is where the idea of viral marketing comes in. The stronger the social network you have to seed the viral marketing the quicker it can likely srpead.

If Rand Fishkin creates a really useful tool and puts it out tomorrow it will probably gather a lot of links to it. If I put that same tool on my site while still just as worthy of links it's just not going to get as many as quickly. It might in time, because it's a truly good tool and as more people see it more link to it, which brings more people to it.

But at the moment SEOmoz draws a lot more traffic than my site done and Rand has a much stronger network than I do to get the whole thing started.

Sreejith I appreciate the compliments, and while I do think my blog is pretty good, it's nowhere in same class as those you mentioned at the moment. Perhaps one day, but not now.

Social bookmarking sites are a great place to drop your link bait for people to see. A lot of the people who frequent those types of sites are bloggers looking for something to post about, so they'll pick up your bait and run with it.

Make sure you're submitting something current and interesting, though - users of those sites are usually more tech-savvy than average.