#1 (permalink)

One will argue that back link is beneficial for site owner only but as we found
long time ago this perception has flaws and reflecting only the face side of the coin.

Some people will say: its ridicules and there is no other side to that coin and
never will, but savvy webmasters already know that by putting link to some
site on their pages, they’ll sooner or later get visit from voyager who’s Google
for link to that site and among other search results found their site.

Curiosity killed the cat… and here you have it… a visitor who otherwise never
would see the color of your page is reading your blog.

Am I saying: put as many links to other sites as you can? You bet I do.


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#2 (permalink)

This reminds me of Learning Newbie's recent post here

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Whym Web Design - article blog| Personal blog

#3 (permalink)

That would be an excellent example of how productive and beneficial
linking to others can be.

About 6 years ago we published page with Top SE and Directories because
our Web Hosting Customers want to know where they can go to submit their
sites and since then that page got almost 3M hits.

So, linking to your competition and “Enemies” is GOOD


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#4 (permalink)

Yes linking to other people's site is good - although not necessarily in business.

For blogs, of course link to other people's blogs - this makes sense as you are giving your visitors a recommendation of a good blog to read, and of course you may end up even being given a link back (natural organic linking )

Of course, it would be stupid in business to link to someone else's site if they are a competitor. I recommend certain services to my customers that I do not provide and think would benefit them, but I doubt I would ever recommend another hosting company on my own hosting web site! On the forums of course, I do recommend other hosts for needs I can't meet.

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Whym Web Design - article blog| Personal blog

#5 (permalink)

Agree. But if you publish unflattering article about your competitors prices
and services and then send the public to compare competition offerings to
your own and G. picked up your article and then passed it to Joe Shmoh
then he may:
a. visit to your site
b. Joe buys your services
and that is what I would call: smart marketing stragedy.


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#6 (permalink)

I tend to refer people to other photographers. There are a lot of reasons: I don't feel like taking the job, I don't have or want to rent the appropriate gear, or if the person seems unsure. Go check out the competition - I'll raise my rates when you come back. Kidding, I'm not that egotistical.

But I think there's some wisdom here. I'm constantly shocked at what people find me under ... somehow this one comes up every month under "star of Zion." That's the first time I've used that phrase in anchor text, and it's not on the page ... the photo is star trails at night, in a canyon in Utah called Zion National Park. I think people are looking for info on Israeli policy, or anti-Semitism, but the phrase shows up in my logs every month, and people who find my site through it look at four pages per visit, on average. There are a lot more examples; this is just the most baffling one.

Then I also make it a point to link out to sites like Sebastiao Salgado's and James Natchway's. I'm not going to come up in these searches, but I might get repeat visitors for introducing them to great stuff they don't know about.

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The Pacific Northwest | Escheresque | Avery Point, Connecticut

#7 (permalink)

This is another example of people engaged in healthy conversation and getting rewarded for it. Nice work.