Widget Best Practices In a Google World
I am not a SEO but I have picked up a few things in the last 5 years or so. Its now 2008… Reciprocal links are not supposed to work, profiles/referrals, signatures, and other old tricks have been fingerprinted and discounted or the site owners are no longer passing page rank in those areas. Whats a new site to do.. Can’t buy links or reviews =(
You can make a viral widget that will get you a ton of links but then I hear they ban those too? Not so fast. While there has been a lot of talk lately about dangers of gaining too many links to fast and issues when all your same anchor text is the same I can tell you from experience I have never had a problem. I have also never had 1 site banned for widgets.
Here is the thing with widgets Google hates (from my experiences). They know just like you do that nobody is going to read the full source code in that box and so they are clearly not making an editorial decision and deciding they want to give you link juice.
You should always be able to easily defend your site if a Google engineer should want to nuke it. The only problem is your side of the argument is often made on your site.
So I will show you a real life example of something I have done. - Lets take the mclovin id maker for instance. Basically it makes a mclovin id for you… simple… then it gives you the code so you can put it on your site or your myspace. But it also tells you that by placing the code you will be linking to my site:
As you can see its CLEARLY labeled that by adding the image to the persons site they are linking back to the site also.
The mclovin site specifically has a ton of links all with the same anchor text and it ranks very well. #1 for mclovin id maker and pretty good for just “mclovin” which their is actually a lot of search volume for.
- 49 Comments. What say you?
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I knew you were “linked” to that mclovin id maker somehow
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Interesting stuff there. How do you defend your site to Google in the event of a nuking?
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Yesss, cool idea not only cool but a great idea to get free backlinks, but it’s not an easy task for beginners to have their own widget and promote it !
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OK Shoe… one I thought that movie was hilarious and two I am going to try this out and place it on my blog as well. Hope my newer site don’t get penalized…. hahah.
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OK Shoe… one I thought that movie was hilarious and two I am going to have to make me one of those.
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How about noscript, or using javascript to style a text link with an image?
Those are much better methods because it is a text link that appears as a graphic or widget, and can be made interactive (though more server load)
How many links are allowed for one widget?
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Noscript has been fingerprinted and does not pass nearly the link juice (in my experiences). Also Noscript I think just kind of looks spammy (just imo)
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re inclusion request
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Great post. I can see why you at the top on the niche. You are actively implementing Web 2.0 techniques while also killing the essentials.
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Yea, I just checked, there is search volume for “mclovin”. Who’d a thunk?
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Only if those would work. Been trying to do a re-inclusion for one of my sites for 2 years now that used to dominate a great keyword on Google. Site is clean and follows all the rules. Basically I lost my faith in re-inclusion.
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SEO, google page rank, algorithms and all that stuff kind of has me confused. I have seen sites drop from PR6 to PR3 and PR3 drop to PR1.
That McLovin makes me think of McDonalds. Is it McDonalds that has the slogan…”I’m Lovin it”? Maybe that’s why I’m thinking Mc and Lovin.
~Terry
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Just leaving some “mclovin” for the back link idea. I would never have guessed that mclovin would have such traffic!
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I think it’s definitely a great idea shoe but my thing has always been, “what the heck am “I” going to do for my target audience. do you think it’s a little different for an entrepreneur/personal development niche vs teenagers on myspace?
would be interested in what you think but this post has definitely sparked some ideas for me!
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I have tested this method before and it actually works great, it can be anything as simple as an image, provide the html and the social crowd usually adds them to their profile.
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This actually does work. It is amazing that something so simple can be a great success.
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It also helps if you are natural with the anchor text, a lot of people get binned because they include stupid keywords in the anchor.
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cool post shoe, so much has changed even in one year ! People have to constantly think new link builing ideas, however the old classic is if your site is worthy then it will get links anyway ! 1 way all the way !
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Maybe, but have you seen how many rankings Bidvertiser dominate using noscript?
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The same things about weather informers, traffic jams, etc. Is here something new?
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It sure does
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Excellent post
and very true points mentioned.
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Great post — unique ID for link building… although we totally got sidetracked with the McLovin’ ID maker…. created one!
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lET ME SCRATCH MY HEAD , HOW CAN I MAKE A WIDGET LIKE THIS FOR LINKING BACK TO MY SITE.
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I’d say the same thing as mentioned. It has to be ok just think about all those weather widgets.
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Thanks, now you’ve given me another way to fuck off at the office…
Yep I’m Going To Hell…
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Crazy experiment. Put some adsense ads on the site to see if you move up in search for mclovin…
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Sup guys, Jika Jika ya! It’s Mclovin guyz
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I am sure you have seen this but for those who haven’t check it out LoL
http://www.copyblogger.com/bloggers-rappers/
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Terry,
PayPerPost type blogging is guaranteed to sink your Google Page Rank to zero. 6 to 3 is right on target.
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I like the idea…
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Is that the girl from the DMV standing to your left?
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Amazing stuff.I like it!
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Geez, does Google have to act like Hitler??
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Popular movie. Everyone thought it was hilarious.
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just created this
http://www.mclovinidmaker.com/id/1207884309263.jpg
very funny thanks for sharing
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Sounds great. I’m trying to learn more web developing languages to build widgets to gain back links. Sounds like a great idea.
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Good idea. I will be trying that
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Hey Shoe..
This is fantastic. Never thot that a small thing like this could turn out to be a good link back. Well done mate.
I am trying to learn some web programming so I can also make some of these cool widget for some link back. Any recommendation how one with no knowledge of web programming can easily start to make thier own widget? that will really help mate.
Cheers
Zacky
http://zacksays.com
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Yep Aaron, lately its not that easy to get re-included. I too am requesting for the same for a site of mine 9 months old.. no good luck with it.
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Shoe wouldn’t have it any other way.
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Yeh this sure is a really good idea and if it is popular it could have amazing results. I might try and do something like. Well done though!
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For somebody who isn’t a SEO you sure come up with some excellent SEO snippets and tips all the time, Shoe! Good widget example, thanks for that. Widgets are generally less simple to create than regular linking strategies, so that market is reasonably unexploited for the time being. Hop on quick before everybody else does, and follow blogs like this to stay ahead of the loop in identifying future trends.
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Which widget which can attract more visitor and make my page rank get higher is a good things to try.
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