Andy Hagans's blog

I don't always agree with what martinibuster says, but in this case, I think he's on to something. Anchor text may have officially reached its peak of importance in search algos, and may have even started on a gradual decline.

As you may or may not know, I'm a link building guy all the way. As of late however I've been pondering (and tinkering with) on-site SEO, because, it still matters.

Of course, it's changed a lot--now that search engines can sort out 1000 word meta tags and white on white text, how else can it determine a page's value (within the site itself, linking algo's aside)?

Before I begin this rant, I'd like to clarify what I mean by linking policies. There are two common types of linking policies:

1. Those which explain that the site is not responsible for content on sites to which it links out
2. Those which try to control the way in which other sites link in to them

For the purposes of this rant, I will be referring to the latter.

My advice to clients is generally pretty simple: build links, and build more links! I rarely however touch on an important concept--building links to some sites is exceptionally easy while for other sites it can be like pulling teeth.

By now everyone's heard about the O'Reilly network's paid text link "controversy", courtesy of this guy. Indeed it was all a bit ridiculous, but in light of the attention in garnered I believe I should repond to it (since I work for a text link ad broker).

What is this blog about?

It's about link building! Nick gave the chance to write it, and I think it could end up being pretty cool. I'll cover link building in all of its forms, from directory registrations to paid text links to comment spamming (let's try to be objective here, folks).