Search Engine Marketing Blog

Any would be link builder needs to read both of these pages to learn what NOT to do and any website owner or experienced link builder should read them for a bit of a laugh.

WebmasterWorld’s compiled list of How Not to Ask for a Link

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll cringe at the memories of having received just that type of request.

And then there’s Eric Ward’s fantastic post at Search Engine Land documenting a real life example of the worst way to ask for a link.

Enjoy

This is not my idea, it’s Google’s own advice. No joke. According to Chris Silver Smith’s post on Search Engine Land Google Earth VP Michael Jones, when asked how small businesses that did not wish to display their home address could get on Google Local, “suggested that those businesses could rent a post box”.

Now while this may seem like a good idea for the small business owner, it’s also giving license to every spammer out there. More about that later on.

What Google Local is saying is that a company cannot get listed on Google Local without an address and that the address they register with will be displayed online for the world to see. So, unlike some online yellow pages where you can “opt out” of having your address displayed, Google Local will not give you this option. Instead they suggest that you simply rent one. Why not save yourself the money and use your neighbours? Or your aunt’s? All you have to do is make sure you have access to the mail so you can pick up the card from Google with your Google Local pin on it to verify your listing.

Now while it seems a bit of a round about way for small businesses working from home to get listed without disclosing their private address to the universe, I can see a lot of them taking Google up on the offer because, after all, a Google Local listing is very important, especially when you don’t have a large or very well optimised website. You NEED the Google Local listing if you want to be visible online.

But before you rush out to the nearest PO Box or virtual office provider to register an address, take a moment to think about how people will search for a business like yours. If you only serve your neighbourhood or local village then you will want to register a very, very local address. If, however, you serve the larger area you need to try to find one that is at the heart of that area.

Do the exact search you want to show up for on Google (i.e. “interior decorator santa cruz” or “plumber london”) and note the Google Local results. The one at the top will likely be located (or will have been clever enough to rent a mail box located) in what Google considers to be the epicentre of that town/city/county/state. Google makes up its own “dead centre” rules so forget about what the centre actually is and work with what Google tells you it thinks it is.

By the way, the old Yellow Page scheme of registering AAAPlumbers or 1st Action Pest Control is fine on Google Local. They don’t do a check with Companies House or the US equivalent. As long as you get the pin and type it in to verify the listing they’ll let it through. So you can make up both your address and your company name - isn’t that fun!

Which brings me to the problem of Google telling people to just rent a mail box. What if you don’t have a company? What if you don’t really offer any services or products? What if you’re just one of the many spammy websites out there full of Adsense ads taking up the bulk of the search engine results pages? We all thought Google Local would help to reduce these. Think again.

Google has now actually given companies permission to use a rented address instead of their actual address. And Google doesn’t do any sort of checking other than the pin. This means that they are also in effect allowing you to make up a company name. So Google Local is in fact allowing anyone to make up a company and list it on Google Local.

Expect to see a lot of affiliates and Adsense sites in the Google Local listings, there are already some in there. But now that the Google Local “10 Pack” is eating up so much prime real estate it’s just going to get worse.

You’ve probably seen the blog posts about Google’s new attempt to cash in on yet more space on the first screen view of results for any local search.

While this won’t impact on the traffic for some businesses, notably those relying on purchase-related search terms, it will have a significant impact on any sites vying for the increasingly lucrative local market regardless of whether you’re a local carpet cleaning firm or a local directory publisher.

Because now most local searches will produce not one, not 3 but 10 - yes, that’s 10 - Google Local results. At first thought that may seem like a good deal for the smaller businesses in the area that don’t have such as great online presence (or any!). But from the tests I’ve done it’s looking as though Google is almost spamming its own Local listings. Most of the searches I’ve done that produce the “10 Pack” as it’s been dubbed actually only display 3 or 4 businesses in the Local results, it simply repeats the same one several times in order to take up the 10 spaces (and effectively rob other organic listings of roughly 2 or 3 slots, depending on your screen size and resolution settings).

So what you get now is 2-3 PPC listings, then 3 organic listings and then the 10 pack
OR
3 organic listings, then the 10 pack and then however many more organic listings can squeeze in before you have to scroll down.

There’s no point whining about it because, as we know, Google is God and can do whatever it likes. So you just have to deal with it. The trick will be to ensure you’re always number one. The first organic search result will always be seen on any conventionally sized monitor even with Googles 10 local listings butting in. On large monitors or certain resolutions the first 3 organic results will be visible. But that’s as good as it gets.

Eric Ward’s article over at Search Engine Land is a good read for anyone considering trying some of the more “fly by night” techniques that are often associated - erroneously - with link building.

Bottom line is that link building is hard work. So is link buying. There are no short cuts, no easy ways out and you can’t even just buy the links to save time. In fact I’ve often found that link buying takes more time than organic link building if you’re doing it right and want to get real value out of the purchase.

So to any would be link builder out there, be prepared to put in some effort!